Tang of Shang

Tang of Shang the founder of the Shang dynasty of ancient China, a king remembered for overthrowing the corrupt last ruler of the Xia and establishing a new dynasty on the principle of the mandate of heaven. He is honoured in Confucian tradition as a model of the righteous ruler who takes up arms only when a tyrant has forfeited his right to rule.

The Rise of the Shang

Tang, known also by his personal name, was the leader of the Shang people, a tribe or state that flourished in the region of the lower Yellow River in the second millennium before the common era. The Shang were one of the peoples of the central plain, and their rise to power under Tang marked the beginning of the dynasty that traditional history placed after the Xia.

According to the classical accounts Tang was a wise and capable ruler who governed his own domain well and gathered able men about him. He is especially associated with his minister Yi Yin, a man of humble origin whom he raised to high office and who became his chief counsellor. The pairing of the wise king and the gifted minister became a model of good government in Chinese thought.

Tang is said to have cultivated the loyalty of his people and the friendship of neighbouring states, drawing them into an alliance against the tyrant Jie. The tradition presents his rise not as a simple conquest but as the gathering of the virtuous against a ruler who had lost the confidence of heaven and of the people alike.

The Overthrow of the Xia

The last king of the Xia, Jie, is remembered as a tyrant whose cruelty and extravagance exhausted his people and provoked rebellion. He is said to have lived in luxury, to have oppressed his subjects and to have ignored the warnings of his ministers. His misrule was taken as the classic instance of a dynasty that had lost the mandate of heaven and was therefore ripe for overthrow.

Tang took up arms against Jie and, after a series of campaigns, defeated him and brought the Xia to an end. In the traditional account the conquest was not merely a military victory but a moral one: Tang is said to have acted only after the oppression of the people had become intolerable and after he had won the support of the other states. His victory became the pattern of legitimate dynastic change.

After the defeat of Jie, Tang is said to have treated the fallen king with a measure of mercy and to have sought to restore order rather than to take vengeance. He took care for the people of the conquered land and established his capital in the territory of the Shang. The story of the conquest was preserved in the classic of history as an argument that a wicked ruler may rightly be removed.

The Founding of the Shang Dynasty

With the fall of the Xia, Tang founded the Shang dynasty, the second of the traditional dynasties of China. He is said to have reorganised the government, to have appointed able ministers to the several departments, and to have established the rites and sacrifices appropriate to the new line of kings. His reign was remembered as the beginning of a long and powerful dynasty.

Tang is credited with a concern for agriculture and for the welfare of the common people. According to one famous story he prayed for rain in a time of drought, offering himself as a sacrifice, and the rain came, an episode that illustrates the ideal of the king as the servant and intercessor of his people. The tale gave him a lasting reputation for benevolence.

His capital and his institutions became the foundation on which his successors built. The Shang dynasty that he founded was to rule for centuries and to produce the remarkable bronze culture and the earliest Chinese writing that survive to this day, so that Tang stands at the head of one of the great ages of ancient Chinese civilisation.

The Mandate of Heaven

The story of Tang's overthrow of Jie became one of the principal foundations of Chinese political thought. It was taken as proof that the right to rule depends on moral conduct and on the welfare of the people, and that a tyrant who destroys his people forfeits the mandate of heaven and may justly be destroyed in turn. The doctrine justified the change of dynasties while binding rulers to a standard beyond their own will.

The concept of the mandate of heaven was developed further by the Zhou, who overthrew the Shang in their turn and who justified their conquest with the same argument. The Zhou appealed to the precedent of Tang, arguing that as Tang had rightly replaced the Xia, so they had rightly replaced the corrupt Shang. In this way the memory of the first dynastic change supplied the model for all later ones.

Confucian writers took the story of Tang as a central example of the ruler who acts for the good of the people. Mencius and others argued that the removal of a tyrant is not regicide but the punishment of a criminal, and that the king who follows the way of Tang serves heaven by serving the people. The legend thus became a permanent argument against tyranny.

Influence and Legacy

Tang was honoured in the classical tradition as one of the great founding kings. The classic of history devotes a section to his conquest, and the ritual texts place him among the sage rulers to whom sacrifice was due. Later dynasties appealed to his example to justify their own accessions, and ministers invoked him when they urged a ruler to reform.

The pairing of Tang with his minister Yi Yin was especially influential. It was cited as the model of the wise ruler who seeks out talent and of the able minister who serves loyally and corrects his lord. The story of Yi Yin, who is said to have been found among the fields and kitchens and raised to the highest office, became a favourite theme of Chinese literature.

The dynasty that Tang founded left an extraordinary material and intellectual legacy. The oracle bones of the late Shang preserve the earliest substantial body of Chinese writing and record the divinations and sacrifices of the royal court, while the bronze vessels of the period are among the masterpieces of ancient art. Tang remains, in tradition, the king who began it all.

References

^[1] ^[2] ^[3] ^[4]

↑ James Legge, The Chinese Classics: The Shoo King, Oxford University Press, 1865.
↑ David N. Keightley, The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, University of California Press, 2000.
↑ Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
↑ K. C. Chang, Shang Civilization, Yale University Press, 1980.

[r1-1] James Legge, The Chinese Classics: The Shoo King, Oxford University Press, 1865.

[r2-2] David N. Keightley, The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, University of California Press, 2000.

[r3-3] Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

[r4-4] K. C. Chang, Shang Civilization, Yale University Press, 1980.

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