The King's Uncle: Zhougong and the First Zhou Power Crisis

Once Shang Falls, Zhou Must Figure Out How to Settle the Realm

In the last episode, Shang collapses after the Battle of Muye, and Zhou establishes its new rule.

But conquering the realm never means the realm is automatically secure.

The hardest problems usually come afterward.

As soon as Shang is destroyed, the most practical question before King Wu of Zhou is immediate:

what should be done with the old Shang people?

Kill them all, and it is too cruel, and may stir even greater resistance.

Ignore them, and it is like leaving a powder keg inside your own territory.

So King Wu asks the ministers for advice.

The most famous tradition says that he first asks Jiang Ziya. In that telling, Jiang Ziya's advice carries a strong note of cutting away danger at the root. King Wu does not follow it immediately and continues asking others.

Among the men whose judgment matters most, the words of Zhougong Dan carry the greatest weight.

Zhougong argues that the old state may be destroyed, but the old people must not be driven into despair. The Shang should remain on their own land, continue sacrificing to their ancestral temples, and meanwhile Zhou men should be sent to supervise, pacify, and integrate them.

Only then, he says, can the old Shang people slowly begin to turn toward Zhou.

Zhougong Takes On the Hardest Burden

Zhougong Dan is King Wu's younger brother, and later generations will make him one of the most celebrated men in all early Chinese political memory.

Even without the later idealization, he truly does catch Zhou in its hardest years.

Shang has just fallen, but the world has not fully submitted to Zhou.

King Wu has won at Muye, yet many old powers still remain, and many regional lords are still watching and waiting. Everyone knows Zhou is the new dynasty.

But no one dares say too quickly whether this "new" order can actually stand.

And just then, King Wu falls gravely ill.

After King Wu's Death, Trouble Begins Inside the Royal House

King Wu does not enjoy the fruits of victory for long.

He dies only a few years later.

His son, King Cheng, is still a child when he comes to the throne, far too young to carry the burden of a newly founded dynasty by himself.

So the late king entrusts the work of regency to Zhougong.

Zhougong does not seize the throne for himself.

At least in the later mainstream telling, he governs in the name of regency, waiting for King Cheng to grow up. Historians may debate details, but for the people of the time, the problem is already sensitive enough.

You are not the king.

But you hold the king's power.

You command government.

You also have armies.

You are the uncle.

The king is only a child.

This kind of arrangement breeds suspicion almost by nature.

And the first people to be uneasy are often those inside the same family.

The More Zhougong Steps Forward, the More Others Become Uneasy

Once Zhougong takes over affairs of state, he works tirelessly.

Later generations summarize this with the phrase that Zhougong spits out food to receive worthy men. He is said to stop eating in the middle of a meal when a capable visitor arrives, or to come out with hair still wet from washing if someone important seeks an audience.

These stories are idealized, of course.

But their meaning is simple enough:

Zhougong is trying desperately to gather talent, steady the political situation, and convince the world that the new ship of Zhou still has a man capable of holding the rudder.

Yet the more capable he looks, the more famous he becomes, the easier it is for others to grow nervous.

Ministers begin to wonder:

the king is still a child, so who is truly in charge?

King Cheng himself may also begin to wonder:

how secure is my throne?

This kind of anxiety only needs a little stirring from the side in order to grow quickly.

The First Split Comes Among Brothers

Zhougong is not the only younger brother of King Wu.

After King Wu's death, other brothers such as Guanshu and Caishu already hold status and have ambitions of their own. Guanshu in particular is remembered as unwilling to accept the arrangement.

Why is the fourth brother governing, and not I?

Why is it Zhougong, and not someone else, who holds the state in his hands?

At first, such discontent may be only personal.

But once it connects itself to outside forces, it becomes dangerous.

In order to control the old Shang territory, Zhou places Wu Geng and several royal kinsmen in positions of shared supervision. Wu Geng is the son of King Zhou of Shang, and leaving him there is itself a strategy of pacification. Guanshu and the others are meant to oversee and restrain the old Shang line.

But in the end, this arrangement turns against itself.

The men responsible for watching the Shang begin having ideas of their own.

The Rebellion of the Three Guards

Before long, Wu Geng joins with Guanshu, Caishu, and others in rebellion against Zhou.

This uprising is extremely dangerous.

It is not some minor disturbance at the edge of the realm.

It burns up directly from the old Shang lands, where many Shang people still live and where loyalty to Zhou is far from certain. Once someone rises to lead, the old forces can gather again very quickly.

For a dynasty not yet thirty years old, this is almost a deadly counterwave.

If the rebellion is not crushed, Zhou may be dragged back toward the chaos that existed before Shang was overthrown.

If Zhougong takes the field too long, the capital grows empty, and King Cheng may grow even more uneasy.

As Zhougong Marches East, the Young King Also Wavers

Zhougong decides to lead the eastern campaign in person.

Militarily, this is necessary.

Politically, it is delicate.

Once the elite troops march out, the most powerful man in the court also marches out, leaving behind a child king in the capital.

If Zhougong fails and the rebels return, King Cheng is ruined.

If Zhougong succeeds and comes back at the head of a great army, King Cheng may still not feel entirely safe.

Outside enemies are pressing.

Inside, trust is incomplete.

Later tradition heightens this atmosphere dramatically. King Cheng hears rumors and begins to waver until he happens upon a prayer Zhougong had once written in the ancestral temple on behalf of the dying King Wu. Only then, the story says, does he fully understand that this uncle is serving the royal house rather than plotting against it.

The details may not be recoverable in exactly theatrical form.

But the tension they capture is real enough:

the uncle holds great power, the nephew is young, and every gust of rumor is enough to shake the whole dynasty.

Only After Crushing the Rebellion Does Zhou Breathe Again

In the end, Zhougong and King Cheng steady themselves and suppress the rebellion of the Three Guards.

Wu Geng is killed.

Guanshu is executed.

Caishu is exiled.

The old Shang forces also receive a deeper blow in the aftermath of the campaign.

Zhougong does not stop there.

He continues eastward and suppresses many powers that still secretly favor Shang or only pretend to obey Zhou. In this way, the Zhou sphere becomes steadier, and regions that had wavered begin to be woven back into Zhou order.

King Wu destroys Shang.

Zhougong then crushes the rebellion that might have undone the conquest.

Only after both stages can Zhou truly continue.

After the Rebellion, Zhougong Turns to the Problem of Succession

Zhougong sees more than the rebellion directly in front of him.

He cares even more about why such things keep appearing.

If the succession is unclear, then brothers, uncles, and nephews will naturally begin to suspect one another.

Who is legitimate?

Who is secondary?

Who should inherit?

Who must submit?

If there are no clearer rules, then today Guanshu is discontented, and tomorrow someone else will be.

So Zhougong starts to set many things in order.

Zhougong Defines Kinship and Ritual

Later tradition often says that Zhougong "made ritual and music."

This does not mean merely writing down a few ceremonial forms.

It means designing an entire order of who is greater and lesser, who comes first and who follows, who may inherit, and who must submit.

One especially important principle becomes much clearer under this order:

inheritance by the eldest son of the principal wife.

The principal wife's eldest son is the most legitimate heir.

He inherits not only the position, but also the standing of the great line within the lineage. Other brothers may have talent, but they must move into collateral branches.

The Zhou king becomes the great line for the Ji-surnamed lords.

Each lord then becomes the great line within his own domain.

Below them, ministers and lesser nobles divide again in tier after tier.

Together this creates a whole structure of ordered hierarchy.

Matched with ritual and music, each rank is assigned its own level of usage, ceremony, and behavior. If someone steps beyond his station, it is no longer merely bad manners.

It becomes a challenge to order itself.

For later Chinese politics, this structure has enormous influence.

On the one hand, it stabilizes hierarchy.

On the other, it tries to move many conflicts that might otherwise have been settled by force into the realm of status, names, and accepted rules.

It cannot eliminate struggle completely.

But it can at least raise the cost of open struggle.

Even After Conquest, the Royal House Must Keep Paying This Debt

Will uncles behave themselves?

Will nephews feel secure?

Will old enemies rise again?

Will the rules of succession truly hold?

At the beginning of Zhou, all of these problems are squeezed together at once.

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Zhougong helps lay the foundations of the dynasty.

But once those institutions are set, they begin to shape the whole political world that follows.

The next question is what happens when a royal house slowly spends away the trust on which its authority depends.