Wu

Last time, we looked at many of the myths going back to Pangu and Fuxi, Lady Fuhou, the three sovereigns and five emperors, the founding of the Xia, the Shang, and we finished off with the exciting Shang-to-Zhou transition that saw the Ji family, led by Ji Chang and his two very capable sons, Ji Fa and Ji Dan, defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye in 1046 B.C., And the Battle of Muye joined the Battle of Mingtiao of 1600 BC as a military confrontation that resulted in a change of dynasties.

We ended last time with the sudden death of the first Zhou king to rule the dynasty, King Wu.

Only three years into his reign and he passes.

The crown prince, Ji Song, was just a young pup of 13 years old, and the dynasty was already being circled by wolves.

The Duke of Zhou was given the responsibility of coming to the aid of the new King Cheng and serve as his regent until this young teenage son of King Wu could come into his majority.

Until then, the Duke of Zhou held the reins of power in the capital at Haojing, near modern-day Xi'an.

Some say this venerable duke served, some say he usurped.

Was King Cheng really too young to be king, or was this just a power grab by the Duke of Zhou? Nobody got it on video.

And this was the end of this interstate system.

And here come the two new players from the Southeast, the state of Wu, and later the state of Yue, which originally were not Sinitic groups.

They spoke a different language.

They did not belong to the common Zhou civilization.

But they emerged as powerful polities by the 6th century BCE, adopted parts of the Zhou culture, so Wu even claimed that they are descendants of the Zhou house itself, of the senior branch of the Zhou house, and they started invading Chu and each other, of course, and other states.

And they adopted this principle of might makes right much more systematically than previously the state of Chu or the state of Jing did.

Everybody violated norms, but these newcomers violated norms even more blatantly.

All the lineage of your enemy can be massacred, and you can desecrate their tombs, whatever you want to do, because you will never coexist with your domestic enemy.

Yet the man himself remains mysterious.

Traditional Chinese accounts identify him as Sun Wu, a military strategist who lived around the late spring and autumn period, traditionally associated with the state of Wu.

According to later historical tradition, he served King Helu of Wu and helped strengthen the kingdom and Apos.

s military power.

But historians continue to debate exactly when the art of war took its final form and whether everything attributed to Sun Tzu came from a single individual.