For a Smile, a Kingdom Collapsed? | China’s King Zhou You & Bao Si

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, a feudal system was implemented with the king at the top. The landlords distributed among the feudal lords who established their respective territories, creating a hierarchical system. King Zhou You was the 12th ruler of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the last king of the dynasty. He reigned from 782 to 771, a total of 11 years. In the third year of his reign, a beautiful woman named Bao Si entered the palace. Bao Si, being raised by the people of Bao, grew up to be beautiful and charming. The people of Bao took great care in grooming her and gifted her to the king. Because of her beauty, Bao Si instantly gained the favor of the king. Before long, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Bo Fu. King Zhou You was glad and decided to depose his rightful queen, Queen Shen. Queen Shen was the daughter of the feudal lord of Shen. She was the first wife of King Zhou You and the mother of crown prince Yi Zhou. However, to please Bao Si, King Zhou You deposed her and her son, replacing them with Bao Si as the new queen and their son Bo Fu as the crown prince. According to the record of the grand historian, it is mentioned that Bao Si rarely smiled. In order to make her laugh, King Zhou You tried various methods but was unsuccessful. To bring a smile to the beautiful Bao Si, King Zhou You took her to Mount Li and ordered the lighting of beacon fires, a signal of danger. They pretended that the enemies were attacking, deceiving the feudal lords into gathering in the capital for defense. When the feudal lords arrived, they discovered that there were no real enemies. They had been deceived. Upon witnessing the generals running out of breath, Bao Si could not contain her laughter. Her laughter brought joy to King Zhou You, finally achieving his goal. King Zhou You repeatedly used the beacon fires, but he soon lost trust of the feudal lords who no longer paid attention to his signals. They saw his actions as deceptive and untrustworthy. In the eleventh year of King Zhou's reign, the Yong tribes attacked the capital. Desperate for help, King Zhou You once again lit beacon fire to signal for assistance. However, this time, none of the feudal lords were willing to come to his aid. Eventually, King Zhou You was killed and Bao Si was captured by the Yong tribe. This story has prevailed for a long time, but many historians assert that it is entirely fabricated. First, the beacon tower was an ancient signaling tool, but during the Western Zhou period, the primary method of communication was through drumbeat. The widespread use of beacon tower only began during the later Qing and Han dynasties. Second, even if there were a beacon tower, their transmission range was confined to a specific area. Whether it's the beacon fires or smoke signal, their scope of dissemination was quite limited. In order for King Zhou You to deceive the feudal lords with beacon fires, he would have needed to ensure that the lords were able to see the beacon fires. However, with only one beacon fire a monthly, it would not have been possible to prompt the scattered feudal lords throughout the realm to come to his aid. Third, King Zhou You resided in Gaojing at that time, while the nearest feudal state was over hundreds of kilometers away. Considering the challenging mountainous terrain, it would have taken at least seven days to reach Gaojing. Feudal lords from more distant regions would probably have required several months to arrive. It would have been impossible for Bao Si to wait in one place for all the feudal lords to gather. In early 2012, Tsinghua University discovered a real story in the Warring States Bamboo Sleeve. The Bamboo Sleeve recorded that King Zhou You initiated an attack on the state of Shen, which was the original homeland of Queen Shen. The law of Shen then contacted the Rong tribe to defeat King Zhou You, finally leading to the downfall of the Western Zhou dynasty. The Shen of Queen Shen, Grand Prince Yi Zhou, ascended the throne as King Ping of Zhou and relocated the capital to Luo Yi, marking the end of the Western Zhou dynasty and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The story originated from the Book of Songs. The original text only says the Zhou dynasty was destroyed by Bao Si, but later generations have imagined various stories based on it. Western Zhou society was established based on the system of ancestral law. When King Zhou deposed the queen and her son, replacing them with Bao Si and her younger son, he disrupted the entire game of governance. Since the king no longer adhered to Zhou rituals, the feudal lords naturally had no obligations to uphold their commitments to protect the royal family. From this perspective, it makes sense to claim that Western Zhou dynasty was destroyed by Bao Si. But during the Warring States period, the story was further developed in the spring and autumn annals of Lü Buwei. It described a situation where enemies approached and King Zhou You beat the drum. Bao Si laughed upon seeing the feudal lords coming to relieve them. Then the king beat the drum multiple times, resulting in the loss of trust from the feudal lords. Later, in the Sima Tian's Record of a Grand Historian, Bao Si was further described as a demon causing calamity to the state and its people. Sima Tian also believed that beating the drum was not enough to attract allied forces, so he changed it to the lighting of beacon fires. It was believed that the literati during the spring and autumn and Warring States period compiled this story because they wanted a legitimate excuse to disobey the commands of the Western Zhou Monic. They needed to discredit the Western Zhou Monic, so it would be in accordance to ritual and law to disregard his orders.