11 replies to this topic

[snowybeagle]

According to traditions, Yī Yĭn and Mèi Xĭ were two characters who were most responsible for the downfall of the Xià Dynasty (夏) through their cooperation to sabotage the Dynasty from within as well as gathering information to feed to Xia's enemies.

However, what did the actual historical records available say about them?

From what I could gather, what could be confirmed was that Yī Yĭn (according to one version, circa 1658BC - 1549BC, but the traditional existence era for Xia Dynasty is circa 2100BC to 1800BC, so he should have been living earlier.) was a slave was part of the dowry from YŏuXīn Clan (有莘氏) when King Tāng (汤) of Shāng (商) married a girl from the tribe. Through his culinary skills, he got to meet and demonstrate his own abilities before the king. King Tāng was impressed and revoked his status as a slave, and promoted him eventually to be the prime minister.

In 1600BC, the Shāng overthrew the Xià and Yī Yĭn helped to govern the realms. Yī Yĭn even in the capacity of regent temporarily locked up TàiJiă (太甲), one of Tāng's descendants and successor, until the latter repents from profligacy and strove to become an able monarch.

Yī Yĭn's precedent was cited as an excuse in later dynasties for powerful courtiers to monopolise over under-age rulers, such as Huò Guāng (霍光) of Western Hàn Dynasty (西汉).

In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in a chapter when Zhuge Liang, in the capacity as an envoy from Liu Bei to Sun Quan, debated with the renowned scholars of Eastern Wu, a pedant demanded to know what classics Zhuge Liang had studied. Zhuge Liang countered disdainfully by asking what classics had Yī Yĭn studied, Yī Yĭn's reputation was such that it needed no further elaboration.

In all, he was said to be the assisting regent for 5 generations of rulers from Tāng, to WàiBĭng (外丙), to ZhòngRén (仲壬), to TàiJiă (太甲), and finally to WòDīng (沃丁).

He was said to have been buried after his passing by WòDīng on a site adjacent to Tāng's tomb.

Question: was there any historical account of Yī Yĭn being a spy in the court of Xià?


According to records in 《国语·晋语一》 and 《列女传》, Mèi Xĭ was from YŏuShī (有施), sent as a tribute to Xià to protect her people from further attacks. Instead of presenting a demure image, she swaggered around with a sword which captured the interest of her captor.

She managed to captivate King Jié (桀), and became the classic example of a woman being the cause of a kingdom's downfall, ahead of Dá Jĭ of Shāng (商-妲己), Bāo Sì of Zhou (周-褒姒), and Concubine Yáng of Tang (唐-杨贵妃).

She got King Jié to mismanage the state affairs and alienate his supporters and people through extravagant projects.

In some accounts, after the downfall of Xià, instead of being rewarded, she was exiled along with Jié to the remote south (南巢).

If Yī Yĭn and Mèi Xĭ were indeed both in the court of Xià at the same time, it would be probable that they would encounter each other. Some imaginative fiction writer wrote of the two of them as spies, and even lovers, working together and coordinating with each other.


wiki's entry on 伊尹 : http://zh.wikipedia....9&variant=zh-cn
wiki's entry on 妺喜 : http://zh.wikipedia....org/wiki/妺喜
为商灭夏的女间谍 : http://www.xiaogushi...50820013103.htm

Edited by snowybeagle, 04 April 2006 - 09:39 PM.

[Wujiang]

I never understood something. It is commonly believed that Xia ended in -1766. Yet Yin Yi lived during -1658 to -1549 ?? Even if I was to believe that he lived for 100 years (which of course and dang near impossible back then) the dates still doesn't match. He was born 100 years after the fall of the Xia dynasty and of which he was the instrumental figure who brought it down in the first place ? The time paradox here is enough to make Spock go green.


btw, some sources say that Yin Yi was killed by Taijia for imprisoning him at the city of Tong

[Yun]

Snowybeagle, this thread would be relevant to you: http://www.chinahist...?showtopic=9315

Ralph Sawyer's "The Tao of Spycraft" has a discussion on Yi Yin's possible role as a spy. You can find an browse it at the Military History section of Borders.

btw, some sources say that Yin Yi was killed by Taijia for imprisoning him at the city of Tong

This was one of the shocking revelations from the Bamboo Annals when they were discovered in the Western Jin. They stated that Taijia escaped from Tong after 7 years and killed Yi Yin. But Taijia was also magnanimous enough to appoint Yi Yin's two sons to succeed him and allow them to inherit his lands.

[Bao Pu]

Hi Snowy beagle

I believe in chapter 3 of the Shiji, Tang is said to have sent emissaries to see the hermit Yi Yin 5 times before he finally came. The Jiuzhu 九主 text found at Mawangdui records a (fictional) conversation between Tang and Yi Yin regarding the art of rulership. But I can see nothing of relevance in it.

[snowybeagle]

Thanks Wujiang and others.

Can only make a short post now - the dates of Xia and Yi Yin are conclusive, and the dates I quoted is only one version. I should have made that clear.

Thanks for the reminder.

[snowybeagle]

This was one of the shocking revelations from the Bamboo Annals when they were discovered in the Western Jin. They stated that Taijia escaped from Tong after 7 years and killed Yi Yin. But Taijia was also magnanimous enough to appoint Yi Yin's two sons to succeed him and allow them to inherit his lands.

I'd say that might be more probable that Yi Yin surviving to serve 5 generations of Shang rulers.

For those new to the Shang, I just want to clarify that 5 generation of Shang rulers were not all father-son successions.

I mentioned in my first post

In all, he was said to be the assisting regent for 5 generations of rulers from Tāng, to WàiBĭng (外丙), to ZhòngRén (仲壬), to TàiJiă (太甲), and finally to WòDīng (沃丁).

However, other accounts gave the succession of Shang rulers as
1. Tāng (汤) - founder
2. TàiDīng (太丁) - son of Tāng. According to «史记», he was conferred as king posthumously. Extensive references to him indicated he might have been active in helping his father's endeavours.
3. WàiBĭng (外丙, also 卜丙) - son of Tāng and younger brother to TàiDīng. Ruled for 3 years.
4. ZhòngRén (仲壬) - son of Tāng and younger brother to WàiBĭng, ruled for 4 years.
5. TàiJiă (太甲) - grandon of Tāng (anyone knows who's his father?).
6. WòDīng (沃丁) - son of TàiJiă and grandson of TàiDīng, so I guess that makes TàiDīng father of TàiJiă.

Yun, according to the wiki's entry on 太甲, it was Yī Yĭn who killed TàiJiă after seven years of confinement in the Tong palace, seeing TàiJiă showed no signs of repentance. It went on to claim Yī Yĭn placed his own sons (伊陟, 伊奋) on the throne.

Furthermore ...

但出土的甲骨文显示，直至商朝末年，商朝仍然坚持对伊尹的祭祀，因此《竹书纪年》的记载有可疑之处。

I would think from these arguments, it is not possible to say authoritatively which account would be accurate.

BTW, the Bamboo Annals were supposedly recovered during the Western Jin (西晋) but its study, translation and compilation supposedly suffered from the turmoils of the dynasty, including the misnamed Rebellion of the Eight Princes (八王之乱).

I suppose it's too much to expect the original unearthed annals to survive?

[Yun]

BTW, the Bamboo Annals were supposedly recovered during the Western Jin (西晋) but its study, translation and compilation supposedly suffered from the turmoils of the dynasty, including the misnamed Rebellion of the Eight Princes (八王之乱).

Not quite. The Bamboo Annals were compiled and translated by Xun Xu, He Qiao, Shu Xi and other scholars before the War of the Princes broke out, and in the Jin Shu it is stated that these scholars discovered the "Taijia killed Yi Yin" passage. However, the original Bamboo Annals had been lost by the time of the Southern Song, and a new forged version of the Bamboo Annals was compiled by Ming scholars. The first known printed edition of the New Text Bamboo Annals is from the famous Tianyi Ge library at Ningbo. The New Text was supposedly a surviving edition of the original Bamboo Annals, but it was actually just a collection of surviving fragments of the text and quotations from the Bamboo Annals found in other surviving works, along with forged additions by Ming scholars. But in the Qing dynasty, scholars began to recognize that the New Text is an unreliable forgery, and compiled an Old Text based solely on those quotations they could find in other texts.

Thus both New Text and Old Text do not preserve the original complete text, but the New Text forged passages in an effort to look more complete, while the Old Text does not. This makes the Old Text more accurate.

[snowybeagle]

It wasn't really a matter of Yi Yin's reputation-- it was the fact that at the turn of Xia/Shang Dynasty, all of the "classics" valued by Han scholars DIDN'T EXIST! Zhuge Liang's point was that a really astute person didn't need to study the "classics" to know how to get things done.

And Yi Yin was acknowledge to be such as astute person ... that's my point.

[snowybeagle]

Oh, another point about your original post which was probably a translation error or something:
Since there was a Shang practice of passing the throne from an elder brother to a younger brother (WàiBĭng (外丙) & ZhòngRén (仲壬) were brothers) before finally going to the next *generation*, Yi Yin was actually regent to 4 *generations* of 5 rulers.

The term for generations of rulers here in Chinese language can also apply to successions rather than genealogical generation.

In ROTK, when Sun Quan was lord of Wu, it was referred to that Wu had been under the Sun clan for 3 generations - Sun Jian, Sun Ce & Sun Quan, though Sun Jian didn't do much.

[somechineseperson]

I never understood something. It is commonly believed that Xia ended in -1766.

That is the date for the Xia-Shang transition according to traditional Chinese chronology. Many modern scholars generally think that the Shang dynasty began in the 16th century BC, not 1766 BC.

[somechineseperson]

I've never heard that before-- is it an older estimation?

All the books I have (which are fairly recent) put the date at approximately 1600 BCE-- probably because of the discovery of the Erlitou civilisation/ ruins (lasting 400 years from 2000-1600 BCE) of Hunan province in 1959. The style/structure of the bronzework, palace, etc... raised the possibility of it being the first Shang capital city-- except that the carbon-dating evidence didn't make sense (how/why did a Shang capital city appear around 2000 BCE and die off around 1600 BCE?)....

But in 1983, the first Shang capital city built (around 1600 BCE) by the founder of Shang, Tang, was discovered in Shixiang-gou (also in Hunan province, 6 km from Erlitou)-- so now scholars are more comfortable with the possibility that Erlitou was the ruins of the Xia Dynasty.

It should be the Henan province, not Hunan. Chinese civilisation did not reach as far south as Hunan in those days.

The site of Erlitou, as a human settlement, actually dates back beyond 2000 BC. However, according to my sources it wasn't until around 1900 BC that the oldest bronzeware was made at Erlitou, and the first Bronze Age city-palace, a sign of the formation of state society, wasn't constructed until the 18th century BC. (Which happens to coincede with the start of the Shang dynasty, in 1766 BC, according to traditional Chinese chronology) The site of Erlitou before about 1800 BC was still largely a chiefdom society at the late Neolithic-Bronze Age transition.

In other words, although the town of Erlitou was much older, it didn't become a significant capital city until the 18th century BC. If traditional chronology is indeed correct, then Erlitou could well be the first Shang capital from 1766 BC. However, if modern chronology is correct and the Shang dynasty did not begin until the 16th century BC, then it is quite possible that Erlitou is a late Xia dynasty site.

How certain are we that the first Shang capital built by King Tang was at Shixiang-gou? Is there some kind of textual evidence, maybe inscriptions on bronzeware?

Edited by somechineseperson, 19 April 2006 - 09:34 AM.

[somechineseperson]

Henan it is, my typo.

Ok.

Textual, as in laboriously authenticating & correlating the various references to overthrowing Xia Dynasty & building the first Shang capital in the various ancient texts. E.g. where is the most likely place where Tang was based, where the battle took place, where Tang then went to build his first capital. That's how archaelogist roughly know where to start digging anywhere.

Well, what I actually had in mind is some sort of contemporary textual evidence at the archaeological site itself. Something like bronze or oracle bone and shell inscriptions explicitly mentioning the name of King Tang from the actual site itself that dates back to around 1600 BC. We do have such conclusive archaeological evidence for later periods, such as King Wu of Zhou overthrowing the Shang at the Shang-Zhou transition.

What you describe here might be a very reasonable approach indeed, however, it is still not conclusive, because for one thing, we are not certain that the ancient texts regarding the early Shang dynasty are completely accurate.

THAT plus the "city/palace structure", the bronzeware and other artifacts unearthed are in Shang-style. Can't give you more details cause I can't understand the technological/stylistic differences between early/late Shang & Zhou bronzes.

Indeed, that would prove that the site is really a Shang dynasty one, however, it doesn't necessarily show that it must be the first Shang city, or even that it must be the capital city, unless a relatively large palace structure is discovered there as well. But even with a large palace, we still cannot be sure that it is actually the first capital city built by King Tang, unless some sort of contemporary textual evidence explicitly mentioning King Tang (or "first capital city") comes up.

There's a "competing" site in Zhengzhou (Shang-style, built around the same time-- carbon dating only goes so far), but Shixiang-gou "wins" as first capital because it's nearer Erlitou (it doesn't make sense for Tang to go very far to build his first city).

That would make sense if we assume that Erlitou is really a Shang site (perhaps pre-dynastic). However, we are not certain about this.

P.S. where did the "traditional Chinese chronology" and 1766 BCE come from? Based on early excavations of the Erlitou site after 1958?

No the traditional date is completely non-archaeological. It is determined simply by adding up all the reign years of the early Chinese kings found in historical records such as the Shiji, and converting the result to years in the "Common Era/Before Common Era" format.