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the Zhou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Zhou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of History suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western Yi. Zhou Xin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Dan Ji. The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Zhou just before the first millennium BC, having come from the west. They established their capital near present-day Xi'an.
6
The victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Zhou Gong [Duke Zhou] to his brother, Dan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Zhou Gong was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Zhou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Zhou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort, and instead, it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shandong where he died a few years later.
The deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in particular in the immensely popular novel the Fengshen Yanyi, are known to most Chinese, whereas the majority of those left out of the Fengshen Yanyi, apart from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pockets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its 'established' state.
So many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momentarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles, such as the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] who is also known by his titles, Xuantian Shang Di, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Zhen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today, in all probability, he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical...
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175
the Zhou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Zhou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of His- tory suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western Yi . Zhou Xin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Dan Ji. The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Zhou just before the first millennium BC, havinged from the west. They established their capital near present day Xi'an.
6
The victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Zhou Gong HA [Duke Zhou] to his brother, Dan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Zhou Gong was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Zhou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Zhou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort and instead it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shandong where he died a few years later.
The deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in par- ticular in the immensely popular novel the Fengshen Yanyi, are known to most Chinese whereas the majority of those left out of the Feng- shen Yen-i, apart that is from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pock- ets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its 'established' state.
So many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momen- tarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles such as the Northern Em- peror [Bei Di] who is also known by his titles, Xuantian Shang Di, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Zhen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today in all probability he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical
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