The Record of King Wu of Zhou’s Royal Deeds in the Yi Zhou shu in Light of Near Eastern Royal Inscriptions

Abstract

This paper introduces a new reading of the “Shi fu” (Hauling of Captives), a chapter in the Yi Zhou shu (Leftover Zhou Writings) that is commonly read as an early record of the conquest of China’s first historically attested dynasty of Shang by King Wu of Zhou in the middle of the eleventh century BCE. I argue that this conventional reading does not give justice to the structural complexities of the “Shi fu” and disregards the fact that certain compositional units of the text are unrelated to the conquest event. I propose to analyze the “Shi fu” against a better studied corpus of the Near Eastern royal inscriptions where there are surprisingly similar examples of compositionally heterogeneous texts that constitute a textual celebration of successful universal kingship based on military valor. Notably, such a notion of universal kingship is largely alien to the later Chinese tradition where an emphasis is put on the kings’ reign by virtue. While there are no reasons to consider seriously the possibility of the “Shi fu” being immediately influenced by the Near Eastern inscriptions, this parallel can be explained by the structural similarity of the societies that produced them, in particular, the similarity of how royal power was understood, legitimized, and celebrated.