Tai Bo Establishes The Wu Kingdom 太伯奔吴 | Chinese History - The Western Zhou Dynasty E04

Now today's episode is kind of special to me because we are going to talk about my first ancestor and the common ancestor of the entire Wu clan. Now when Tan Fu whom we spoke about in the previous episode when Tan Fu's grandson Ji Chang was born, various auspicious omens appeared in the sky and you know across the land and the young boy showed great character and virtues while growing up and therefore Tan Fu was very much in favor of him taking over the leadership role of the Zhou people one day. However there was just a minor problem with that plan because Ji Chang's father Ji Li was Tan Fu's third son and according to the primogeniture succession system that the Zhou people followed, he was only third in the line of succession. Now knowing his father's dilemma, Tan Fu's first born son Tai Bo convinced his second brother Zhong Yong to you know together remove themselves from the line of succession and their decision not only ensured a smooth transition of power for the Zhou people, it also caused the foundation or establishment of two different kingdoms and sparked the civilization into the harsh southern lands and hastened the development of a once inhospitable region. Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Api Ngo. I'm that Chinese history guy. Here we share the myths, legends, and histories of the Chinese people from the first creator to the last imperial dynasty. More than 6,000 years of stories one video at a time and if this is the kind of content you like, know that you will help the channel out greatly with your likes, with your subscription, with your comments, and you know if you actually share the videos and channel with everybody you know. Now as we mentioned in the previous episode, Tan Fu had three sons with his wife Lady Jiang Yuan. Now Tai Bo was a firstborn, Zhong Yong was a second son, and Ji Li was the youngest of the three. Now Ji Li himself married a virtuous woman named Tai Ren and they had a son named Ji Chang who would later go on to become King Wen of Zhou or Zhou Wen Wang, the Zhou leader that basically laid the most solid foundation for the longest ruling dynasty in Chinese history. Now it was said that when Ji Chang was born, great auspicious omens appeared in the skies and you know throughout the realm and from a young age he displayed a great intelligence and had a very good character and it was for these reasons that his grandfather Tan Fu loved him and saw him as the best hope for the rise of the Zhou people, often exclaiming you know to anyone within years short, ah if the Zhou people are to see a golden age it would surely be during Ji Chang's time. But he kind of had to give up on this idea of having his beloved grandson succeeding to the leadership role one day, basically due to this succession laws in place you know for the Zhou people. So Tai Po who by this time had already built a stellar reputation for himself as a capable assistant to his father in you know governing the land and as a man who was actually known for having an outstanding character himself, he understood this dilemma and this headache that his father was facing and so he decided to quietly work in the background to make his father's wishes of having Ji Chang succeeding as leader, he worked quietly to make sure that this dream would come true one day. Now in order to make this happen, the first thing that Tai Po had to make sure of is that his youngest brother Ji Li would succeed his father smoothly you know so that the position of leadership can one day pass on to his own nephew Ji Chang and thus Tai Po had a discussion with his second brother Zhong Yong and convinced Zhong Yong to also take himself out of the line of succession as well. Now having ensured that both he himself and his second brother Zhong Yong would not be fighting for the role of leadership, the next step would be to accomplish the plan of making sure Ji Li would succeed their father you know after their father has passed on or retired. So to accomplish this plan both Tai Po and Zhong Yong used the excuse of searching for a rare herb for their father which could only be found in the southern marshlands. So they used this excuse when Tan Fu fell gravely ill in his old age to leave the lands of the Zhou people and you know they wandered throughout the southern wilderness until one day news reached them that their father had passed away and so they rushed back home for the funeral. Now upon their return their youngest brother Ji Li and all the officials of the of the court begged Tai Po to take over as the new leader of the Zhou people and this would be the second time that Tai Po adamantly refused the position choosing to once again return to the south with his brother in order to allow Ji Li to successfully and smoothly succeed their father as the new leader of the people. Now once again the two brothers trekked through the harsh inhospitable lands of the south but this time after a long and arduous journey they saw a phoenix flying and dancing in the sky above a So the two brothers decided to build their new home on this piece of highland and they planted a plum forest around the area. Now this place would later become known as Mei Li and it is believed to be in today's a Mei Chun village in Xishan city. Now when Ji Li was later murdered under the orders of the Shang royal court the two brothers once again made the long journey home to attend his funeral and this time Tai Po's nephew Ji Chang together once again with all the officials of the court begged Tai Po now this time you must really you know take the position as the new leader and once again Tai Po refused their request allowing Ji Chang to succeed as the next leader fulfilling the wishes of their long dead father Tan Fu. So that was the third time that Tai Po refused the leadership role and when they returned to the south for the third time this time never to set foot in the central plains or their homeland ever again the two brothers cut off their hair and tattooed their bodies according to the local culture in the lands of Wu to show that they are making a clean break with the culture of the central plains and a clean break with their old lives. Now you might be wondering how is this action so symbolic because according to the traditions of the Chinese people, the old Chinese people, it is said 身体法夫受之父母 which translates to your body your hair and your skin are bequeathed to you or are gifts to you from your parents and you shall not defile them or spoil them in any way so the cutting of hair and the tattooing of body is a serious serious defilement of the body so yeah that's why this action is so symbolic in showing that they are making a clean break and taking themselves once and for all out of the line of succession because they would technically not even be considered Chinese you know by that time and on top of that Tai Po went as far as making a decision to not have any children of his own not have any descendants of his own so that he would not you know have any descendants that had a claim to the however he did convince Zhong Yong to have children so that the Ji family line can spread in the south and now having made the decision to settle in the south for good within this harsh inhospitable lands they turn their attention to the development of their new homeland you know the work ethic of their ancestors and their knowledge of advanced city planning city building and agricultural technology at least relative to the local indigenous people the two brothers were able to quickly build a settlement that far surpassed any tribal settlements or any clan settlements in the region and their reputation as men of upright character and high moral standing also grew among the local people and soon more than a thousand local what do you call that tribal households joined up with them and lived under their leadership so the two brothers taught the locals how to grow silkworms you know guided them in the construction of irrigation channels and infrastructure basic infrastructure and they showed these people how to reclaim the wilderness and how to cultivate arable farmland and as the lands of the Shang kingdom in the north was actually rife with conflicts by this time with the the battle for influence and supremacy between the Zhou people and the Shang people going on so yeah all the conflicts and all the battles and all the wars were going on in the north in the central plains these two brothers Tai Po and Chong Yong led their followers in the construction of actually city walls around their settlements to protect themselves and to keep themselves out of this conflict to further improve the irrigation for local farms and to improve the transport network of the local area they also constructed a man-made canal of more than 43 kilometers long and measuring about 120 feet wide that link the east end and the west end of their lands now it is believed that the Tai Po canal or Tai Po Qu is the first man-made canal ever built in the Jiangnan region and it is also possibly the first man-made canal ever dug in the now with all these accomplishments and with the massive improvements made to the countless lives in the region the people in the lands of Wu chose Tai Po as their official leader and in fact crowned him as the king of the lands of Wu so Tai Po accepted this coronation and he but it is more commonly known today as a kingdom of Wu or Wu Guo and that is where my surname came from so that's a bit of trivia for you now Tai Po lived to the right old age of 91 and of course he passed away with no children and no descendants so the throne was passed to his brother Chong Yong now legend has it that you know when Tai Po passed away almost the entire population of the Wu kingdom came out and flooded the streets you know to to moan the passing of this great man and to send off their beloved king on his final journey and all the fields and the mountains in the surrounding area were actually stripped bare of flowers to be offered to this deceased ruler now as Tai Po was very very fond of the ham plant in his life the people also took to tying a ham rope around their waist you know in a in a sign of mourning of the passing of their leader and this tradition of using tying a ham rope around the waist or wearing this a ham fibre shirts during funerals is actually still around today I mean if you go to a formal Chinese funeral or in fact most Chinese funerals this tradition of wearing ham clothing or tying a ham rope around the waist you can still see that today so yeah that's where the tradition started you know the mourning and the funeral for Tai Po my ancestor yeah now as mentioned earlier Tai Po is recognized today as the founding ancestor of the Wu clan but you'll be wondering uh he had no descendants so how could he be a founding ancestor well technically we recognize him as our first ancestor or founding ancestor due to his deeds due to his display of a high moral standing and his display of character and is also why Zhong Yong his brother is recognized as the common ancestor of the Wu people or the Wu clan because uh is believed that we are all descended from the uh from Zhong Yong's children and so yeah these are two of my earliest ancestors on record so there you have it for the act of fulfilling his father's wishes uh for Ji Chang to take over as leader and therefore refusing the role for himself three times Confucius himself later evaluated Tai Po as the ultimate example of a virtuous and ethical man and when King Wu of Zhou, Zhou Wu Wang which would be Tai Po's grandnephew yeah when Zhou Wu Wang overthrew the Shang dynasty and established the Zhou dynasty he actually sent out people and searched the entire realm for descendants of his great uncles for the descendants of his granduncles and by the time they found their descendants uh Zhong Yong's great-grandson Zhou Zhang was the ruler of the Wu kingdom or the king or the prince of the Wu kingdom and in a show of gratitude to his virtuous ancestors Zhou Wu Wang actually confirmed Zhou Zhang's legitimacy as the ruler or prince of the state of Wu and they officially recognized it as a state and even granted Zhou Zhang's brother Zhong Ze the lordship uh over the state of Yu which was pretty near to the Zhou homelands around Qishan so that's how much uh respect and gratitude that the early Zhou rulers the early people have for the state of Wu and the state of Yu so yeah that is the short story about my own ancestor i hope you enjoyed it and if you made it this far i'm sure that you've already smashed the like button and subscribe to the channel and if you would like to do even more to support me support the furball mr foxy and support the channel you can do so by being a channel and the links are available in the description box below uh by becoming a patron you would definitely be helping to keep the lights on to help to keep me going and to keep this furball running so yeah thank you so much these are the current patrons of the page uh the legendary people the myth the legend the patrons yeah thank you so much you guys are and i guess that's it for today and i really really really would love to see you you ridiculously beautiful people out there i would really love to see you in the next episode