Which passes did King Wu pass when he conquered Zhou?

King Wu conquered King Zhou in 1046 B.C. At this time, King Wu and Jiang Ziya thought that the time had come. They united the vassal states and led the army across the Yellow River from Mengjin to Muye, the outskirts of Zhaoge, to start the decisive battle. This war was regarded as a war that would topple the entire country, because King Zhou of Shang had already exhausted all his national strength, while King Wu of Zhou had obtained the support of all the vassal states. In the Battle of Muye, the Shang army was defeated, and King Zhou set himself on fire in Lutai. The Shang Dynasty was finally destroyed. Therefore, it could be said that the timing of King Wu's attack on King Zhou of Shang was under the circumstances where King Zhou's national strength was weak and all the vassal states joined forces to support him.

There were different versions of King Wu's age when he conquered Zhou. According to the records of the Bamboo Book Annals, King Wu was fifty-four years old, and it had only been two to three years since he had successfully conquered King Zhou. Another explanation was that King Wu was about 60 years old when he conquered Zhou, according to the descriptions in Yi Zhou Shu Du Yi Jie and Sima Qian's Records of the Historian Zhou Benji. Another theory was based on the "King Wu Fa" mentioned in the "Zhen Gao·Volume 15" of Tao Hongjing of Liang Dynasty, which was interpreted as "King Wen's son, King Wu of Zhou". It was speculated that King Wu was about 45 years old when he attacked Zhou. However, these statements did not provide conclusive evidence, so it was impossible to determine the exact age of King Wu when he conquered Zhou.

The source of King Wu's crusade against King Zhou can be found in Shangshu·Wucheng: " Move forward and change sides, attack the north of the rear." This passage described the background and process of the war when King Wu conquered Zhou.

King Wu conquered King Zhou and won the Shang Dynasty.

The next sentence of King Wu's crusade against King Zhou was Shi Yan's escape to the east.

The book was published by the Yuzhang Bookstore in 1981. The book was divided into three volumes, which told the story of King Zhou's Crown Prince Yin Jiao avenging his mother, Empress Jiang, and his experience of helping King Wu to conquer Zhou after he escaped from Zhaoge. This book was the product of the flourishing development of the art of speech in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The speaker liked to collect strange legends to attract the audience. 'Pinghua of King Wu's conquest of Zhou' was one of the best materials for storytellers to tell stories. The movie adaptation of the book,"The Gods (Part One)," would be released in 2023.

King Wu conquered King Zhou and established the Western Zhou Dynasty in 1046 B.C. This conclusion was based on the inscriptions of the Western Zhou Li Gui and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The inscription on the Li Gui recorded that " King Wu conquered Shang, only during the Jiazi period, the year of the tripod, and the Shang Dynasty was conquered." The research on the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties also speculated that King Wu conquered Zhou in 1046 B.C.

The history of King Wu's conquest of Zhou was called " King Wu's conquest of Zhou."

The reason why King Wu conquered Zhou was related to climate change. At the end of the Shang Dynasty, the climate became dry, affecting the Rong Di and Zhou tribes in the north. In order to survive, the Rong Di tribe kept invading the Zhou tribe. At the same time, due to the dry climate, the people of Zhou also began to move their capital from the northwest to the southeast. After settling down in the Fenghao area, the strength of the Zhou people developed rapidly. However, the climate was still dry, and the people of Zhou often faced famine. These factors together prompted King Wu to launch the war against King Zhou.

After King Wu conquered King Zhou, he did not confer the title of King Shang. After King Wu destroyed the Shang Dynasty, he first granted the son of King Zhou, Wu Geng, to the old capital of the Shang Dynasty. Later, Wu Geng rebelled and was executed. King Cheng of Zhou also granted Wei Ziqi, the brother of King Zhou, the capital of Song City (now Shangqiu, Henan Province) in order to worship the ancestors of the Shang Dynasty. Therefore, King Wu did not confer the title of King Shang, but the title of King Zhou's descendant.