Luoyi

Brief introduction

Luoyi, also known as Luoyi, is the ancient name of the capital of the Zhou dynasty, Luoyang, “eight wide, Zhou Luo for the middle, called Luoyi”, the Duke of Zhou camp Luoyi, because it is in the earth, the lords of the four sides of the screen, so Luoyi will be established as the capital.

Luoyi was one of the largest cities in the world at that time, and was called “Tuzhong”, “Luoshi”, “Luoyi”, “Xinyi Luo” in the “Shang Shu”. “, “East country Luo”; Hezun inscriptions called “Cheng Zhou”, “China”, “King City “The two capital cities of the Zhou Dynasty, Chengzhou and Wangcheng, are located on both sides of the Chanshui River in Luoyi.

Luoyi was the place where King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty set up the Central Plains and where King Cheng of the Zhou Dynasty “lived in China”. King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty moved the Nine Cauldrons, the Duke of the Zhou Dynasty made peace and set up the capital at Luoyi, which was called Cheng Zhou. After King Wu succeeded in conquering Zhou, he proceeded to build a new capital in the center of the country and established the Zhou Dynasty in 1046 BC. Two years later, King Wu died of illness and King Cheng of Zhou succeeded to the throne. Then, the Duke of Zhou was ordered to go east to quell the rebellion and build the capital city of Cheng Zhou City. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the King’s City (Luoyi) was the temple and palace area of the Zhou Dynasty, while the city of Chengzhou was the area where the Yin relics lived. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, King Ping of the Zhou Dynasty moved his capital to Luoyi, and then King Jing of the Zhou Dynasty moved to Chengzhou City in the east of the Chanshui River after the “Prince Dynasty Rebellion”.

The construction of Chengzhou City was recorded in detail in the Shang Shu, Yi Zhou Shu, Shi Ji, and the unearthed inscriptions of He Zun of the Zhou Dynasty. These inscriptions summarize the guiding ideology of the construction of the capital city in the Shang and Zhou periods, namely: the capital city was mainly for political functions, and was the tool for the Son of Zhou to gain political power and implement political rule; therefore, the location of the capital city must be chosen in the center of the world, and the Son of Zhou had to govern all the people of the world from the central area of the world; the location and construction of the capital city of Chengzhou Luoyi is the most successful embodiment of this idea of city construction in the Shang and Zhou periods and The location and construction of the capital city, Luoyi, was the most successful embodiment and practice of this idea of city building during the Shang and Zhou periods.

Luoyi

History

King Wu overcame the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty, known as the Western Zhou. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty considered building a new capital in the area of Luoyang, Henan Province, in order to control the vast territory of the Eastern Central Plains where the remnants of the Yin Shang people were widely distributed. In order to fulfill King Wu’s last wish and, more importantly, to consolidate the regime of the early Zhou Dynasty and to achieve the purpose of establishing the Middle Kingdom and managing the four directions, the Duke of Zhou set out to build the eastern capital of Cheng Zhou in Luo Yi after his eastern expedition.

After the death of King Wu of Zhou, King Cheng of Zhou assumed the throne, and the Duke of Zhou took the reign. The Nine Cauldrons ceremony was held, and the capital was officially set in Luoyi.

In order to operate in the east, the Duke of Zhou built two cities in the north of Luo Shui and the east and west of Chanshui Shui, which were called Luo Yi. The area between Jianshui and Chanshui was inhabited by the Zhou people, while the area east of Chanshui was inhabited by the Yin people.

Luoyi, also known as Cheng Zhou, was the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. After the destruction of the Shang Dynasty, King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty set out to establish a new capital in the “residence of the summer”, and the “Book of the Eternal Zhou – Duyi” records in detail how King Wu chose the site. The process of building the residence of the Duke of Zhaogong in the Shang Shu – Zhaogu. The “Shang Shu – Luo Ge” records the Duke of Zhou’s camping in Cheng Zhou.

The Zuo Zhuan – The Third Year of Duke Xuan – states, “King Cheng set up his tripod at Jia Jia (now Luoyang, Henan).”

The Records of the Grand Historian, Volume 40, Chu Shijia, Tenth: “In the past, King Cheng set the tripod at Jia functioning place, divining 30 years and 700 years, as ordained by heaven.”

The Book of Han – Geography contains: “Henan, the former Jia formula land. King Wu of Zhou moved nine tripods, the Duke of Zhou to the peace, camped for the capital, is the King City, to the King of Ping resides in it.”

The Duke of Zhou presided over the construction of Luoyi is called “Cheng Zhou” or “Xinyi” and so on, is a large-scale capital city, according to the “Yi Zhou Shu – make the dalek solution” records: “Hori square thousand seven hundred and two feet, the cache square seven seven miles. To be the world’s largest pile”, “set up Qiu Zhaozhao in the southern suburbs, built a large community in the country”. The main buildings in the city are the “five palaces”, such as the Imperial Temple, the Temple of the Clan (Temple of King Wen), the Palace of Examination (Temple of King Wu), the Road Bed, and the Ming Hall, etc. The architectural structures of these palaces and temples are all “four aces, anti-goblet, heavy hyper, heavy Lang, often tired, compound frame, algae tax, set shift, brigade pillar, painting brigade “There are also different passages in the city, such as “inner steps, xuan steps, ditang, yingmen, kutai, and xuanjian”.

The capital city

After King Wu’s successful conquest of Zhou, he established the Zhou Dynasty in 1046 BC. Two years later, King Wu died of illness and King Cheng (son of King Wu) succeeded to the throne. Then, the Duke of Zhou was ordered to go east to quell the rebellion and build Luo Yi. There are two different views on the construction of Luoyi by the Duke of Zhou: either the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi with two cities, one is the King’s City and the other is the Chengzhou City, or Luoyi is Chengzhou and Chengzhou means the King’s City. I think the first view is correct, because it is in line with the records in the history books and confirmed by archaeological findings.

In the “Shangshu – Luoguo”, it is said: “I divined the river Shuo Li water. I divined the east of Jianshui and the west of Shimizu, but the food of Luo. I also divined the east of the thundering water, but also the food of Luo. Then he crossed the Yellow River to Luo Yi and divined the place east of the river and west of the thundering water, and he got auspicious signs. According to this, the Duke of Zhou actually built two cities in Luoyi: a King City and a Chengzou City, both of which are located in the present-day city of Luoyang. Hanshu – Geography also said: “Luoyang, the Duke of Zhou moved Yin people, is the Cheng Zhou. …… live Jing Wang. Henan, the former Jia Xindi. King Wu of Zhou moved Jiuding, the Duke of Zhou to the peace, camped for the capital, is the King City, to the King of Ping resides.” This record shows that the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi including the King City and Cheng Zhou City. Wangcheng was the “new capital” where King Wu of Zhou moved the Nine Cauldrons; when King Ping of Zhou moved the capital to Luoyi, he set the capital at Wangcheng again. Chengzhou City was the residence of the remnants of the Yin Dynasty, and during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, King Jing of Zhou moved the capital there to avoid the chaos of the Prince Dynasty.

The construction of the royal city of Luoyi is concisely and briefly recorded in the “Zhaogu” and “Luogu” of the Shang Shu. According to the “Zhaogu”, on the 21st day of the 2nd month (Yiwei) of the 7th year (the 7th year after the kebab of Shang and the 5th year of the regency of the Duke of Zhou, i.e. 1039 B.C.), King Cheng arrived at Feng (the old capital built by King Wen) from Zongzhou’s Haojing, and sent the eunuch Zhaogu before the Duke of Zhou to survey the base of the capital at Luoyi, which was called “Xiangzhai “. On March 5 (Wushen), Duke Zhaogong made a “fortune telling” on the capital building site and started the construction after getting auspicious signs. Then, the Duke of Zhou came to Luoyi on the 12th (Yimao) and inspected the scale of the construction of Luoyi. On the 14th (Ding Si), two cows were used to hold the “suburban festival” (sacrifice to the gods of heaven); on the 15th (Wu Wu), one cow, sheep and boar (pig) were used to set up a temple to the gods of the earth. After another seven days, the Duke of Zhou gave orders to the Yin nobles and the chiefs of the vassal states to build Luo Yi on the morning of the auspicious day, A Zi (21st). This was the beginning of the large-scale construction of the “Daeup Zhou”.

From March to December of the fifth year of the reign of the Duke of Zhou (according to the above-mentioned “Zhaogu” and “Luogu”), it took half a year from the start of construction to the initial completion of the royal city of Luoyi. In the Letters of Luo, it is recorded that a ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of the “new eup” city. The Duke of Zhou said to King Cheng: “The King, who is known as the Ritual of Yin, sacrificed in Xinyi, and there was no disorder in the order. I give you a hundred workers to ping (make) from the king in Zhou (Xinyi).” This means: O king, you began to receive the lords with the Yin rites (i.e., the great rites inherited from the previous Zhou) and to sacrifice to King Wen in Xindu, and these rites were very grand and orderly. I led the officials neatly so that they would be familiar with the rituals in the old capital before following the king to the new capital. On the eighth day of the twelfth month of the same year, King Cheng led all the officials to the royal city of Sinyi and held a grand winter sacrifice to the previous king, sacrificing one red ox to King Wen and another red ox to King Wu.

The purpose of the Duke of Zhou’s construction of Luo Yi was twofold: firstly, because Luo Yi was in the middle of the world and the tributes were paid by all the four directions, it was necessary to make the new city the political and economic center of the country; secondly, the Zhou dynasty, having learned the lessons from the rebellion of the Three Supervisors and Wu Geng, decided to relocate the Yin people to Luo and stationed troops in the “eight divisions”. “, in order to strengthen the unified supervision and management and rule of the Yin people.

With the progress of archaeological work, some important discoveries have been made in recent years about the general location of the King City and Cheng Zhou City and their relics, and the relics found are generally consistent with the historical records. From 1964 to 1972, the cultural relics task force of Luoyang City excavated nearly 500 burials of Western Zhou nobles in Beiyao Village of the Tiling River, and this large cemetery with tomb paths should be one of the main remains of the Western Zhou capital site, Luoyi Wangcheng; in 1984, the Hanwei Forbidden City Team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences discovered a Western Zhou city in the north central part of the Hanwei Forbidden City. In 1984, a Western Zhou city was discovered in the northern part of the Hanwei Forbidden City by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which is about 14 kilometers east of the Tropical River, and should be a city of the Cheng Zhou period, and more than 100 burials of Yin relics were found in the area east of the Tropical River to Tawan, which is consistent with the historical fact that King Wu had moved Yin reluctant people to Luoyi after he had conquered Shang. The archaeological discoveries of the King’s City and Cheng Zhou City during the Eastern Zhou period also coincide with the documentary record. King Ping of Zhou moved east to Luoyi in 770 B.C. and set his capital at Wangcheng. Since 1954, the Luoyang team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been drilling and excavating the ruins of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty King City. The rebuilt ruins of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty King City, with the Jian River in the west and the Luo River in the south, and the Jian River crossing the western part of the city, still remain in the general layout as the general appearance of the King City set by the Duke of Zhou. The same is true for the Cheng Zhou City in the Eastern Zhou period.

The above records show that the Duke of Zhou built the two cities in Luoyi, the King City was the place where the vassals met the king and the nobles of the Western Zhou Dynasty lived, while the Cheng Zhou City was the place where the army was stationed and the Yin people were settled. The King’s City was the area east of the Jianhe River and west of the Tropical River where the Duke of Zhou had divined the signs, in the old city of Luoyang and the eastern half of the Xigong District. The land of Chengzhou was the place east of the Tung Tung River, which the Duke of Zhou had divined, and was located in the area west and northwest of Baima Temple in Luoyang City.

The name of Wangcheng and Chengzhou began after the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi. The name of Luoyi began at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty. Before the Zhou Dynasty, Luoyi was known as Jiajia as a place name. When the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi, it was called by different names in the Shang Shu: “Xinyi” and “Luo-bend” in the Zhaogu; “Luo-shi”, “Luo-shi” and “Luo-bend” in the Luogu. “Xinyi”, “Xinyi”, “Shi”; “Doshi”, “Xinyi Luo”, “Danyi Luo”, “Ziluo”; “Ziluo”. The Doshis call it “Luo Yi”, “Dae Yi Luo”, “Ziluo”, “Duoduo” call it “Luo Yi”, and “Kang Jiu” call it “Xin Dae Yi”, etc.

From the excavated artifacts, there are two main records of the name of Wangcheng and Chengzou: one is the Hezun inscription, and the other is the Yi inscription. He Zun was unearthed in 1963, and its inscription of 12 lines and 122 characters records the historical facts of King Wu’s victory over Shang and King Cheng’s order to the Duke of Zhou to build Luoyi into Zhou. The text reads: “Troi (but) the king first (move) residence in Cheng Zhou, and again endowed with the rich blessings of the king of inferiority from the sky. In April Cxu, the king enjoined the clan boy in the clan room said: …… want to Min Wang was subject to this great order, Troi (but) King of the inferior both to grasp the great Yi Shang, then Ting first in the sky, said: ‘Yu its residence in China. Since the mowing (rule) people. …… Trojan (but) the king five sacrifices.'” The general idea is that: King Cheng began to build a new capital in Luo Yi Cheng Zhou, to King Wu held a rich blessing of sacrifice. On the day of the fourth month, the King of Cheng gave an exhortation to Zong Kid in the capital room, the content of which was about the fact that Zong Kid’s forefather, Gong, followed King Wen, who was given a great destiny by heaven to rule the world. After destroying Daeup Shang, King Wu said to Heaven: I will rule the people from “China” (Luoyi), the center of the four directions of the world, as the capital city.

What is revealed from the He Zun inscription, and what still needs to be discussed, is the question of “residence”. The academic community has the following views: either that the residence is to move the capital; or that the residence is to build the capital city; or that the residence is to phase the residence; or that the word “residence” should be read separately and become “but the beginning of the king, residence in Cheng Zhou”. The fourth view should be, because it can make sense from the text, but also with the documentary record.

The second is the appearance of the word “China”. The “China” mentioned in the inscription means that Luoyi was the center of the four directions of the world. In the Zhaoguang, it says: “The king came to introduce God and served himself in the middle of the earth.” The meaning of “in the earth” and “China” is the same. There are many examples of this saying in the literature, indicating that the Zhou dynasty had already referred to Luoyi (Cheng Zhou and Wang Cheng) as “the center of the earth”, “the center of the earth” and “the center of the world”. In view of this, the Duke of Zhou was ordered by King Wu to live in the Nine Cauldrons and set up Luo Yi as the political center to rule the four directions of the world.

Thirdly, the appearance of the term “Cheng Zhou” seems to be ahead of its time. The inscription of He Zun says “Trojan (but) the king five sacrifices”, which is understood by the academic community to be the fifth year of King Cheng, that is, the fifth year of the Duke of Zhou’s regency. In April, the fifth year of King Cheng’s reign, the Duke of Zhou was at the beginning of the large-scale construction of Luoyi. At this time, from the documents recording the construction of Luoyi, the name of “Cheng Zhou” was not yet available. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the phrase “Cheng Zhou” in the inscription is not wrong, but is it wrong in the interpretation and understanding of the age of “Trojan (but) the King’s five sacrifices”?

Then, where is the earliest record of the name of “Cheng Zhou” and “Wang Cheng”? So far from the excavated artifacts seen, but only from the order Yi inscription to find the answer, the order Yi in 1927 unearthed in the present day Luoyang Mang Mountain Mapo Village. Its inscription: Troi (only) August, Chen Cai (in) A Shen, the king ordered (order) Zhou Gongzi Ming () Bao Yin three things 亖 (four) party, subject to the Secretary of Affairs. …… Troi (only) October Ji kuaiwei, Ming Gong Chao (early) to the Cheng Zhou. …… A Shen, Ming Gong Gong livestock in the capital Palace; B You, with livestock in Kang Palace; Ham both, with livestock in the king. Ming Gong returned to the king ……, which means that Ming Gong accepted the order of King Zhaoge to be the “minister of the Qing Dynasty”. On the morning of the 10th month, he came to Chengzou to inspect the king; on the next day, he went to Jinggong to offer sacrifices to the previous king; on the next day, he went to Kanggong to offer sacrifices to the previous king; after all the sacrifices were completed, he came to Wangcheng to offer sacrifices, and finally settled in Wangcheng.

As far as the inscription is concerned, there are two issues that need to be clarified and corrected: the first is the issue of the era in which the order Yi was produced; the second is the issue of the naming of Cheng Zhou and Wang Cheng. The first issue is crucial. Mr. Tang Lan seized on the proper name of Kanggong, and based on various factors, he deduced that the era in which the Yi was produced was the early years of King Zhaoge of the Zhou Dynasty, which should be relatively reliable. Regarding the naming of Chengzou and Wangcheng, there are generally two views in the academic field: either Chengzou and Wangcheng are two eups; or Chengzou is the eastern capital of Daimyo (Daguo), and Wangcheng is the inner city of Chengzou. In our opinion, the former is basically consistent with the inscription (by “basically consistent”, we mean that “two eups” is not correct, and that two cities and one eup (Luoyi) is appropriate).

To sum up, can we conclude from the inscription that the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi as two cities; this fact cannot be denied, and there is no need for a new name. The name of the king’s city was followed by that of Wei Gui. According to Mr. Tang Lan’s testimony, it was also in the time of King Zhao of Zhou. The inscription reads: “In the beginning of the fifth month, the auspicious Jia Shen Mao father (tasted) (the) Royal Guard horses, since the king. ……” Mr. Tang Lan pointed out: “Since the king, this king refers to the king’s city, made the book order Yi said ‘Zhaogong returned to since the king’ can be proved. Bermao father was in the eastern capital of Wangcheng at that time.

Population

During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Luoyang, located in the Central Plains, was the area where the population was concentrated. By 650 B.C., when King Xiang of the Zhou Dynasty, the capital city of Luoyang had 117,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities in the world at that time.

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