Chapter 95- Jiang Ziya Confronts King Zhou and Lists His Ten Crimes

And that chapter's title tells you everything. Zia exposes King Zhu's ten crimes. It's literally the playbook for the final confrontation. It really is a masterclass. So our mission here is to figure out exactly how Zia took this fortress without the citywide carnage you'd expect. It's a shortcut to understanding how the Mandate of Heaven was won. Both publicly and strategically. Okay, let's unpack this. But before Zia could really unleash his grand strategy, there's the immediate bloody reality of war to deal with. It kicks off with a really telling event. The death of the Shang Envoy, Yin Po Bai. Zia had him killed, but then, what he did next is key, isn't it? It's everything. He ordered the body buried with courtesy. That's the term from the text. Yi Li An Zhang. On high ground, outside the camp. So he kills his enemy, but honors him. It's a calculated move. He's immediately signaling, But that kind of courtesy doesn't stop the cycle of vengeance. Not at all. Because Yin Po Bai's son, Yin Cheng Zhu, comes roaring out for a fight. And the text makes a big deal of this. It says for him, it's an unshared hatred bu gong dei sen. Which is more than just being angry about his father's death. Oh, much more. It's a cultural declaration. It means me and my father's killer cannot exist under the same sky. It's a duty. He has no choice. Even if he knows the cause is probably lost? That's the code of the dying dynasty. Filial piety and duty above all else. And what's interesting is that the story actually praises both warriors. It says one fought for the true destiny lord. That's Zhu. And the other fought for the fierce king, the Shang. But, you know, loyalty doesn't always win you the fight. And it didn't here. Zhang Wen Huan was just the better warrior. Yeah, over 30 exchanges and then it was over. Cheng Xu was struck down. It's just so tragic. A father and son, both dead. Totally loyal to a regime that was, for all intents and purposes, already gone. It's the bloody full stop on the old way of doing things. But the Zhu army couldn't just walk in after that. No, because Cheng Xu's defenses were still strong. Very. An official named Lu Ren Ji stepped up. He took charge of the city's defense and, honestly, did a great job. He completely stopped Xia's first attack cold. And Xia's reaction to that is also pretty telling. Mm-hmm. He pulls his troops back. And he actually calls Lu Ren Ji a loyal and fierce gentleman. He respected his opponent. Which tells you two things. First, the city isn't going to fall to just a simple assault. And second, Xia values loyalty, even when it's aimed at him. Right. And that's the pivot. He knows a brute force attack, what the source calls Laikong, is just, it's not going to work. It'll be too slow, too costly. He needs a different way. He needs Jika. A strategy based on intelligence. On a plan. Exactly. On psychological warfare. Okay, and this is where it gets really interesting for me. Yeah. Because his disciples, they come up with a textbook military solution. The obvious one. Yeah. Let's sneak some people into the city. Dungeon, they call it. They'll open the gates from the inside for a coordinated attack. I mean, tactically, that makes perfect sense. It's sound tactics, absolutely. But it's a strategic catastrophe if you're trying to build a new dynasty. And Xia just shuts it down. Flat out. Why? Because he's playing the long game. He's thinking about legitimacy. He says a sneak attack would lead to chaos, to slaughter. He's worried it would harm the common people. By Sinki Kanzao Titulu. That's the line. He knew that the people were already suffering so much under King Zhu. The text uses this incredible phrase, their pain reaching the marrow of the bone. Wow. They already hated the king so much they wanted to, quote, eat his flesh and sleep on his skin. So if the Zhu army, the liberators, came in and caused even more bloodshed. Then they're just another group of terrorists. The whole claim to the mandate of heaven, it just vanishes instantly. So it's not just about being a good guy. It's incredibly pragmatic. The people are the prize, but they're also the judge. They are the ultimate arbiters. You have to visibly protect them to earn their trust. And that's what leads to his perfect strategy, his wangquan jisei. The proclamation. If he can't break down the walls, he'll turn the city's own heart against its king. So they write up this detailed list of charges, this gaoshu, and then they launch this massive info-op. Yeah, they use arrows not to kill, but to deliver a message. Firing thousands of these documents into the city, plastering them on walls, on roofs, in the streets. They wanted maximum exposure. To cause that internal division. Li yin lu. And this document was designed to be devastating. It lists the king's infamous ten crimes. Okay, so let's break some of these down. It starts pretty broad. It does. It starts with things like being licentious and non-virtuous. You know, killing loyal officials, rejecting good advice, standard stuff for deposing a king. The high-level political justification. Right. But then, then it gets personal. And very, very graphic. This is the paoluo and the chaipan. The bronzing pillar and the snake pit. And these are key because they were public tortures. Everyone knew about them. It destroyed any faith in the rule of law. If the king can do that to his own ministers in public, what hope does a regular person have? And then it gets even worse. It goes after the family, the core of society. This is the most powerful part. It accuses him of pounding bones and slicing wombs. Just to see a fetus. A kind of horrific, twisted curiosity. And then the final accusation. Taking the kidneys of young boys. When you start accusing a ruler of attacking children, it's over. The debate is no longer about politics. It's about who is fundamentally human and who is a monster. And Xia frames the whole invasion as an act of heaven. Feng Tian Tao Zi. We're here to punish the sole dictator, the Dufu. And to save the people, who are described as hanging upside down. A state of total distress. So the ultimatum is simple. Surrender the city now, Su Xian Du Qing, or risk everything being destroyed. This idea of jade and stone burning together. Where everyone perishes, the good and the bad. And it landed like a lightning bolt. The effect was immediate. Instantaneous. The text says the soldiers, the citizens, everyone, declared Xia's actions upright and fair. Xi Gong. King Zhu was now officially a corrupt ruler. The public mood didn't just shift, it exploded. A riot that couldn't be controlled. The king was defeated by a piece of paper before a single Zhu soldier set foot inside the city. And at the third watch, around three in the morning, the gates burst open. The military, the city elders, the people, they throw the city open and declare their welcoming of the true lord. An overthrow from within, all started by a message. Which brings us to the next critical phase. Winning the city with words is one thing. Now Xia has to prove he means it. His entry into Chayesh. This was pure performance art of good governance. He enforces absolute ironclad discipline. He only lets 50,000 troops in, right? To control the chaos. And they're under threat of immediate execution if they step out of line. The order is to enter slowly. Riding with reins tight. And the most important rule. No looting. No random killing. Do not take civilian property. It's the polar opposite of what everyone would have expected from a conquering army. And the results. The people were as secure as before by Xi Gong De Rugu. The army moves in, takes its positions at the Merlion Gate, and there's order. The proclamation wasn't just talk. The Zhu conduct proved it. This, of course, leads us to the final showdown. The final confrontation. King Zhu is, of all things, drinking with his concubine Daji when he hears the noise. He realizes it's all over. But he doesn't surrender. No, he chooses defiance. He gets his last few loyalists together, including that tough defender, Lu Renji, and they agree to one last desperate fight. Bei Chengdryi Xizhan. A battle to the death, with their backs to the city wall. And Xia's preparation for this meeting is all about symbolism. It's pure theater. He arranges his forces in this huge, intimidating formation, the Pei Wufang Duwu. The alignment of the five directions. It's meant to show that he has the support of the entire world, all the lords and generals. And his own entrance is just packed with meaning, all these officials in red robes. 24 pairs of them. And he rides in on the Si Buxiang. The Four Disparities. His mythical beast. Which is all about showing he has a divine endorsement. He's under a giant red umbrella, the symbol of supreme authority. The text gives him his final, ultimate title here, Gengu Junshi. The greatest military genius of all time. It's an assertion of destiny. It says, you know, he was 80 when he was called, he pacified yin and yang. He's not just a general. He's an agent of cosmic change. Okay, so, paint the picture for us. Set the stage. What does this confrontation look like? Well, imagine this huge clash of armies. You've got the Shang Dynasty, led by King Zhu himself, facing the Zhu Coalition, led by King Wu. And King Zhu isn't some figurehead. The text says he's out there, armored up, looking fierce. Oh, absolutely. He's described as incredibly powerful, phoenix-winged helmet, strong chain mail. The narrative gives him his due as a warrior. But right there, front and center, leading the charge against him, is his former minister, Zhang Sheng. The tension must have been incredible. So who makes the first move? King Zhu does. He throws the first accusation, points right at Zhang Sheng, and calls him a wicked traitor for fleeing his post and leading his chaotic rebellion. So he's playing the role of the legitimate king being betrayed. He is. But Zhang Sheng just completely deflates that. He basically says, you know, the charge of treason is meaningless because you, the king, lost the way of the ruler, the Jun Dao. A long, long time ago. The Jun Dao. So that's the pivotal moment. It's not about loyalty anymore. It's about the king's own failure. Precisely. The social contract is broken. Zhang Sheng says he ignored heaven, he abused the people, he murdered his own ministers, and critically, he was led astray entirely by his consort, Daji. So the rebellion is justified. Completely. He says he's not a traitor. He's acting under the bright mandate of heaven to carry out a divine punishment. This isn't rebellion. It's an execution on behalf of heaven. And the king, in his arrogance, I assume he just doesn't get it. Not at all. He asks, what great evil have I committed? And that is the perfect opening for Zhang Sheng to deliver this devastating ten-point indictment. Okay, let's get into it then. The first set of these crimes, I understand, they focus more on the systemic breakdown, right? The failure of the king as a ruler. Yes, exactly. They start with his duties as the son of heaven. So what's crime number one? The big one that kicks it all off. The first crime is his obsession with alcohol and lust. But the key here is what that leads to. It leads to disrespect for heaven and a total neglect of the ancestral altars and temples. So he's failing his most basic religious duties. He is. And he's favoring what the text calls petty men, letting moral decay seep into everything. This is the cornerstone. If the ruler won't perform the duties that grant him divine right, then that right is, well, it's gone. And once that spiritual foundation is cracked, the rot spreads. I imagine it hits his own family next, which takes us to crime number two. It does. A real tragedy. This is the murder of the empress, Zhang Hu, who is literally the mother of the nation. Zhang Shang accuses the king of listening to Daji's slander and having the empress violently executed. And the details are pretty horrific, from what I remember. They're meant to be shocking. He ordered her eyes carved out and her hands scorched on a burning pillar. This wasn't just murder. It was an act designed to destroy the fundamental moral order of the court itself. Wow. That's unbelievable cruelty. And the destruction of his own family doesn't even stop there, right? That leads directly to the third crime. Exactly. The eradication of the future. Based on really flimsy slander, he orders the execution of his own son, the crown prince. That's dynastic suicide. It is. By doing that, he shows he has no regard for the nation's future and he's basically forgotten his own ancestors. He only cares about his own corrupt, immediate desires, not the Shang lineage. Okay, so he's failed heaven, he's failed his wife, he's failed his heir. Where does the destruction go next? Outward. To the government itself. Outward. To the very ministers meant to advise him. And the fourth crime is all about the systematic purge of loyal, elderly ministers. And these weren't just any officials. Why were these men so important? Well, Zhang Shang lists figures like Big An, Shang Rong. These were revered, loyal statesmen. Killing them with torture devices like the Burning Pillar, it wasn't just murder, it was erasing institutional memory. You're killing the state's wisdom. Yes. You're signaling to everyone that loyalty and experience mean nothing. And Zhang Shang's conclusion is stark. The proper relationship between ruler and subject is, at this point, severed. It's gone. And if the ministers are gone, the feudal lords have to be wondering if they're next. This has to be the fifth crime. It is. Crime five is the total betrayal of the trust that holds the empire together. The king uses deceit to lure the eastern and southern marquises to the capital, and then he just has them executed. The ultimate violation of the feudal contract. Absolutely. And the text is, again, very visceral. One of them is dismembered and pickled, the other is beheaded. By doing this in such a treacherous way, he lost all credibility with the regional rulers. The trust is gone. So, these first five crimes, they really establish the political and, I guess, the legal right to revolt. But the next five, they go somewhere else entirely, don't they? They do. The list shifts. It moves from failures in governance to just absolute personal depravity. The kind of acts that make rebellion a moral necessity for all of humanity. Let's talk about crime six, then. The creation of these, I mean, they're basically instruments of torture for his own amusement. It's just chilling. He introduces the infamous pale low, the burning copper pillar, and the chapin, the snake pit, where he'd have palace women thrown. And these weren't for justice, or what he called justice. Not at all. They were to silence dissent and, frankly, to satisfy the sadistic curiosity of him and Daji. Jiang Sheng says this cruelty was on such a scale that heaven and earth wept. And to fuel all of this, all these monstrous projects, you need money. Which brings us to crime seven. Total financial collapse, all rooted in this unbelievable extravagance. You have massive state projects like the beer terrace, which has drained the treasury. And, of course, the legendary alcohol pools and meat forests. So it's extreme luxury at the top, and what about at the bottom? Extreme exploitation. The wealthy could pay to get out of military service, but the poor, they faced mandatory conscription. The king's luxury was literally paid for with the blood and sweat of his people. From financial ruin, we move to crime eight, which feels even more personal. This is about the total collapse of ethics inside the palace walls. It's a key point. King Zhu is accused of a total loss of shame. He tricks a loyal official's wife, Jiaxi, to the star-picking tower where she's forced to commit suicide. Then he throws one of his own consorts from the very same tower just for daring to speak the truth. And Jiang Sheng says this severed the essential three bonds. For you listening, what exactly are the three bonds, the San Gang? Why is breaking them so significant? The San Gang are the absolute pillars of traditional Confucian society. It's the bond between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife. They're the relationships that ensure social order. Exactly. And when King Zhu killed his queen, abused his heir, and murdered his consorts, he shattered all three within his own home. He proved he couldn't even keep order in his own house, let alone an entire empire. And that complete moral collapse, it seems to license him to commit acts of just pure barbarity. Which brings us to crime nine. These are hard to even talk about. They are. They move beyond any kind of punishment into something like a barbaric scientific curiosity. Jiang Sheng says the king ordered his men to chop the legs off of people crossing a stream in the morning just to see their bone marrow. Just to see it. Just to observe their vitality. And even worse, he ordered pregnant women to be cut open just to find out the gender of the fetus. It's a complete disregard for human life. His subjects were just objects to him. And then there's the last one. Crime ten. This feels like it was designed to be the ultimate horror. Something that cuts deeper than any political failure. It seals his fate as a monster. It describes these debauched knights that culminate in the king, again at Daji's suggestion, ordering that the grilled kidney essence of young boys be cut up to make soup. My god. And Jiang Sheng concludes that this act, by targeting the young and innocent, ends the very continuation of the common people's lineage. It attacks the future itself. So the moment Jiang Sheng finishes reciting this list, this indictment against heaven, family, the court, the people, what's the reaction? It's immediate. The 800 marquees who are gathered there, they just roar in unison. We wish to execute this unprincipled, debauched ruler. The justification has been publicly ratified. And the battle erupts. It becomes about personal vengeance. Immediately. The east marquee, Jiang Wenhuan, whose father was pickled and whose sister was the mutilated empress, he charges first, just fueled by pure rage. He's followed by the south marquee. Right behind him, seeking vengeance for his executed father. And the north marquee joins in. But it's important to note, the text says King Zhu was a formidable warrior. He fights all three of them fiercely at the same time. So even with the moral case made, the physical fight is still a struggle. But there's a moment of doubt, isn't there? From King Wu, the man who's supposed to be the new righteous leader. Yes, and it's a fascinating moment. He sees this, and he expresses this deep distress. He says, even against a tyrant, we are still subjects fighting the son of heaven. He feels the weight of tradition. He sees it as a reversal of the natural order. He does. And that shows you how hard it is to overturn centuries of social contract, even when you have every justification. So how does Jiang Sheng finally put that doubt to rest? How does he make this the final pivot? He gives the final decree. He tells King Wu that those ten crimes mean King Zhu has irrevocably, completely forfeited the mandate of heaven. He says, you are not a rebellious subject. You are a righteous agent carrying out heaven's judgment. The morality is now more important than the politics. It supersedes it entirely. And with that, Jiang Sheng orders the drums to be sounded, 35 more writers surge forward, and they surround King Zhu. The debate is over. Judgment has to be executed.