THE PRINCE OF HUAYUANZHUANG 花園莊, ZU JIA 祖甲, AND THE SUCCESSION OF WU DING 武丁: ALLIANCE AND CRISIS

Abstract

Analysis of the oracular data newly discovered in the Shang era Huayuanzhuang site opens a fascinating window in the political and ritual activities of a prince previously unknown. He is identified as the prince Zai, the future king Zu Jia. These new data shed light of the pre-royal career of Zu Jia, and the nature and the mode of his relationship with the king Wu Ding, his father, and Lady Hao, his mother. This article also examines the difficult accession to royal power of Zu Jia in a context of political crisis. It studies and clarifies some of the steps leading to the selection of royal princes as heirs to royal power. Finally, this article examines the importance of the relationship between those princes and their mothers in the specific context of royal polygamy.

提要

對於商代殷墟花園莊遺址的新發現所做的資料分析，開啟了一扇迷人的窗，讓人們認識到一位過往鮮為人知的王子的政治和儀式活動。 他就是太子載，也是未來的國王祖甲。這些新的資料揭示了祖甲的王室生涯，以及他與其父親武丁王及其母親婦好之間的關係和其性質與方式。本文檢視了在其政治危機的背景下，祖嘉繼承皇權的困難之處，亦研究並闡明了皇室王子成為王室繼承人的步驟。本文最後考察了在王室一夫多妻的特定背景下，這些王子與其母親之間的關係的重要性。

During the reign of Wu Ding 武丁, oracular inscriptions mention the title of a “younger king” (xiaowang 小王).¹ This title seems to have been bestowed only once in all the periods documented by the oracular inscriptions to one of the sons of Wu Ding, who died before his father and therefore, never reigned. Since the title of “younger king” was bestowed while the king Wu Ding was still alive, it can be surmised that it had a political meaning. I make the hypothesis that it was a sign of the will of the king Wu Ding to name a successor. Its sole occurrence (in the present state of the documentation) suggests that this initiative was not part of the usual succession process of the Shang kings. Wu Ding had numerous other sons, and two of them, Zu Geng 祖庚 and Zu Jia 祖甲 became king, one after the other.

It is during the reign of the king Zu Jia, the last reigning son of Wu Ding, that the Zhouji 周祭, a series of cyclical sacrifices, was first implemented. The list of ancestors that can be drawn from these cyclical sacrifices corresponds quite closely to the royal Shang genealogy as given by received sources (mainly the Shi ji 史記). It can therefore be surmised that the kings in the list of the Zhouji were honored according to the order of succession. What can be observed in this reconstituted list and the received sources are two main types of succession, father-to-son and brother-to-brother.² Shedding light on the rationale behind this variety of modes of succession requires the examination of each instance. I have chosen to begin my enquiry with the succession of Wu Ding, for which there is a very detailed set of documents, oracular and received.³

I will proceed first through the examination of a series of inscriptions discovered in 1991 south of Xiaotun 小屯 on the site of Huayuanzhuang 花園莊. They reveal details of the interactions of a Shang prince (self-designated only as zi 子) with two important persons, the reigning Shang king, Wu Ding, and one of his spouses, Lady Hao (Fu Hao 婦好). This research will confirm previous research on the identity of the prince of Huayuanzhuang, and will examine the circumstances surrounding his final accession to the royal position.

The “portrait” of the Huayuanzhuang prince points toward Zu Jia, one of the sons of Wu Ding. The analysis of a “novel” (i.e. not found in other royal or non-royal Anyang’ inscriptions) character bi 璧, a type of jade offered in several instances by the prince to the reigning king Wu Ding will then allow us to analyze tentatively the relationship between those two figures in terms of alliance. This relationship will then be examined in the context of Wu Ding's reign, who was associated in the cyclical sacrifices of the Zhouji with three spouses and three sons. The three spouses of Wu Ding are known by their posthumous titles as Bi Xin 妣辛, Bi Gui 妣癸 and Bi Wu 妣戊.

Contrary to the received texts, which mention only two sons succeeding Wu Ding, Zu Geng and Zu Jia, Shang oracular inscriptions note the existence of another heir, Zu Ji 祖己 who was given, while alive, the title of “younger king.” The second task of this article will therefore be to attempt to establish the correspondence between the three sons of Wu Ding and their respective mothers.

The data allow for a detailed description of the potential and real political tensions surrounding succession to Wu Ding. They constitute a snapshot of what appears to be a very fluid and dynamic play of lineage politics endemic to the Shang polity. I interpret this dynamic in terms of what probably was a succession crisis, within the context of Shang lineage politics.

The Status of the Shang Princes

The principal “patron” evoked in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions is only designed by the character zi 子, usually translated as “prince.” Such a title is found in numerous inscriptions and applied to a specific part of the Shang nobility. How was it conferred?

Rules of Selection, Rules of Succession

The different meanings of the character zi 子 can be listed as follows:

• Huang Tianshu 黃天樹 interprets this character to mean first “child,” and by extension a) descendant and b) chief of a separate house/clan. Since this character designates both a political and religious function, one may say that there is a transformation of a kin term into another category.⁴ This category is not exclusively composed of kin terms, and can be classified with the terms wang 王, hou 侯 and bo 伯 which are not kin-related characters.⁵

• According to Zhu Fenghan 朱鳳瀚, the character zi designated: a) in bronze and oracular inscriptions belonging to the non-royal inscriptions dating from the time of Wu Ding, chiefs of clan/house, not necessarily belonging to the higher-order lineage “Zi;” b) in the inscriptions of the royal house, sons of the king or chiefs of autonomous houses.⁶ For names type 子X, where X is also the name of a territory, those “zi” would also be sons of the king or chiefs of autonomous houses. In the light of present documentation, this interpretation seems the most probable.

Since zi is originally a kin term, conferring it as a title can be considered a step in the definition of this person's social status, but it was not the first step. The first step occurred at birth. Chao Lin presents a series of inscriptions he interprets as the record of an acknowledgment of paternity. The character zi would then take a verbal value:⁷

Heji 合集 14115, period 1, group shi 師 small characters:⁸

戊辰卜王貞婦鼠娩余子

The day wuchen cracks, the king tested: Lady Shu gives birth, I accept her child as my own.

Heji 14116, period 1, group shi small characters:

貞婦鼠娩余弗其子四月

Test: Lady Shu gives birth; I will not accept her child as my own; [divination made in the] fourth month.

This act, as shows another inscription, Heji 21065, period 1, group shi /bin 師/賓 B,⁹ was not automatic:

己亥卜王。。。余弗其子婦姪子

The day jihai cracks, the king [tested] … I will not accept as my child the child of Lady Zhi.

It seems therefore that the king made the decision to accept or not a child as his own immediately at birth. This process might have involved divination as the inscription Heji 21067, period 1, group shi small characters shows:

乙丑卜王貞占娥子余子

The day yichou, cracks, the king tests: [I will make a divination] (about) the child of (Lady) E, (whether or not) I (will accept it as) my child.

According to the Jiaguwen jianming cidian 甲骨文簡明詞典, the character zhan 占 is related to mantic activities.¹⁰ I thus take it that the acknowledgment of paternity by the king depended, in that case, on the result of an act of divination.

Other inscriptions confirm a contrario the fact that the recognition of a son by his father was not automatic, as the inscription ying 英 1767, period 1, group shi small characters suggests:

戊午卜王貞勿禦子辟佘弗其子

The day wuwu, cracks, the king tests the proposition, do not offer a sacrifice of protection for the prince Pi (for) I will not (accept him as) my child¹¹

This prince might have been a son of Lady Shu (Fu Shu 婦鼠) (see Heji 19990, period 1, group shi small characters, incomplete). What is strange in this inscription is that the process of recognition (denied) is applied to an adult son. It might be an indication that the king (or maybe any man) could disavow also one of his adult children.

The ceremony of recognition is found not only in received ritual sources of later times, but also in ancient Roman rituals: the father took his child in his arms and thus socially acknowledged him as his own.¹² Oracular inscriptions do not provide any detail but later received ritual compendia have recorded what was practiced in Zhou times: the father of a child had to acknowledge his fatherhood of the child and thus conferred this child the social status of a legitimate offspring.¹³

After this ceremony came the imposition of a name, as shown by a series of inscriptions. Two in particular (Heji 21727, 21793, both period 1, belonging to the group Zi 子)¹⁴ reveal glimpses of a process (during nineteen days in this case) during which the child of a Lady Tuo (Fu Tuo 婦妥) is given a name, this lengthy period of time due in part to hesitations about the name (two are submitted to the oracular decision) but also to the fact that, in general, children might not survive the first days of his life.

The imposition of a name on the child is, as anthropologists have long noticed, a way for the father to insert himself into the process of “making” the child (socializing him), thus relativizing the place of the mother. One could say that this process is akin to a domestication of the child, that is to say, making him a recognizable and accepted member of the house of the father.¹⁵

This first recognition was the first step for a king's male child to have at least a chance not only to live but to be selected as king himself.¹⁶

After a male child was recognized by his father the king, other steps were needed to ensure that he had the required position in order to ultimately become the reigning monarch. One of the conditions was that he be identified as a prince, the term zi being then a title and not only a kin term. What can we know about this title?

Zi as a Title: The Princes of Anyang

In the Anyang oracular inscriptions dating from the reign of Wu Ding, the presence of numerous other persons called Zi X (子 X) is attested. Zhu Fenghan for example mentions the case of 子, the last character of his name being also used for a territory offering tributes to the king (for example Heji 952反, 9221反).¹⁷ The inscriptions mentioning this zi allows us to know that he participated in some royal sacrifices offered to royal ancestors.

The inscription Heji 14019 反 (period 1, group bin 賓 standard, 示子畫父庚 “Offering a sacrifice to the ancestral tablets of Zi Hua and Father Geng”)¹⁸ is interesting. The Shang renwu, 343, interprets this Father Geng to be Pan Geng 盤庚, one of the reigning kings and paternal uncles of Wu Ding. The close link between this prince and Pan Geng suggests that he might have been a son of this king and therefore a paternal cousin of Wu Ding. This case indicates that some princes were indeed descendants of previous kings.

Leon Vandermeersch noticed that it is difficult to distinguish between the different princes 子, those who are among the king’ sons, and other people called X子 or子X; nor it is possible to discern a zi 子 as potential successor to the king.¹⁹ While some princes had this honor, other, such as the Prince Yu 子漁, who was most probably also a son of Wu Ding, did not.²⁰ He indeed did not succeed to his father. What was then the factor leading to the succession of a king's son to his father?

Most of the available material in the Anyang inscriptions originated from the royal house; in other words, they are recorded from the point of view not of the princes themselves but of the king.²¹ The originality of the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions is that they are numerous and detailed, and they emanate from a (self-designated) prince with a strong relationship to the reigning king, Wu Ding (also with Lady Hao, one of the spouses of this king). They bear witness to his numerous activities and allow for a comprehensive understanding of what the status of this prince was. What is particularly interesting is the level of the ritual activities, the type of gifts mentioned in the inscriptions and the nature of sacrifices offered by the prince, the victims used, as well as the identity of the recipients of those sacrifices.

The Prince of Huayuanzhuang

The Inscriptions and their Characteristics

From the excavation of a pit (H3) in 1991, 1558 oracular tortoise shells and 25 oracular bones were recovered. Of these, 689 pieces bore inscriptions and more than 300 were complete.²² The H3 pit contained only shells and bones, carefully set and not dumped. They constitute an oracle disposal unit sui generis, obviously considered very important as such. There is a consensus that the inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang date from the end of the reign of the king Wu Ding.²³

The inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang present an interesting characteristic: 23 percent (129 shells) of the inscriptions present traces of scraping that do not correspond to the correction of an error: some erasures concern only part of the inscriptions; some have completely erased all inscriptions on the shell.²⁴ How significant are those erasures? Based on his comparison with the Ancient Egypt custom of replacing the names of rival pharaohs, Chen Guangyu 陳光宇 believes this to be a sign of dynastic internal struggle.²⁵ Adam Craig Schwartz does not believe the erasures are linked to any political problem, since other more “prosaic” characters have also been preserved.²⁶ Still, even if the rationale of the erasures is difficult to understand, the erasures themselves are real and probably very significant: they point toward a problem linked to what those erased inscriptions recorded. At the very least, it indicates that the prince of Huayuanzhuang was led (or forced) to reconsider the result of the oracular prognostications and what they implied vis-à-vis his status and activities as a very well “connected” Shang noble of royal descent.²⁷

Those non-royal inscriptions have been made by and on behalf of a person whose only designation is zi 子, “prince,” the prince of Huayuanzhuang. Two other persons of note are mentioned quite often. The first one is Lady Hao 婦好, whose name is sometimes written (as for example in the inscription H 265, H3: 775) as (婦) 好.²⁸ This character where the inferior part is written like the character for king (there are 13 other occurrences, for example H 331) would designate in a synthetic way a royal spouse. The second one is the reigning king himself, Wu Ding, designated by a character looking like the character ding 丁.²⁹

The identity of the prince of Huayuanzhuang has been the subject of fierce debate.³⁰ Researchers generally agree on the following statements: he was the head of an important household;³¹ he had a strong connection with the reigning king and Lady Hao; and his status was more exalted than the one of other “princes” mentioned in non-royal, or royal inscriptions.³² It can be surmised that his relationship to Wu Ding and his spouse that of a son. This relationship was manifested through gifts of jade.

The Prince and his Father: an Alliance through Jade Bi 璧

The prince of Huayuanzhuang's gifts offered different kinds of gifts to Wu Ding and Lady Hao. He offered to his father jade objects of two types: scepters gui 圭, and disks bi 璧.³³ The character bi is a “novel” character, not present in the previously known Anyang Shang inscriptions. The transcription of the fifth sentence of the inscription H. 37 is:

癸巳卜子 惠日璧啓丁用

The day guise cracks, the prince [offers] the sacrifice X³⁴ [and] this very day [will] present a jade disk bi to his Majesty, this [object] will be used [i.e. given].³⁵

The character bi 璧 is present in other inscriptions of the same site.³⁶ There are other inscriptions mentioning another jade object, a scepter (gui 圭), such as H 193, whose inscription mentions the offering of a white gui scepter. Even if the recipient of this gift is not identified (the shell is fragmented) a comparison with other inscriptions of the same type allows one to think that it was probably Ding (= Wu Ding).³⁷ The example from H 480 is also worthy of note: sentence 1 mentions a scepter and nine jade earrings given to Ding (= Wu Ding).³⁸ Sentence 2 mentions a sacrifice type shan 彡 offered to Zu Yi and possibly hosted by Ding (=Wu Ding). Sentence 3 is quite difficult to interpret, particularly for the following passage:

。。。子乎(=呼)大子御丁宜丁丑王入用。

I follow the interpretation of Zhu Qixiang:

The prince orders [his servant] Da and the prince Yu [to prepare a victim] on a tray for [the next] day ding; the day dingchou, the king [will] come, this [will be] implemented.³⁹

Sentence 5 mentions Lady Hao. It is the only shell where Ding, king (wang 王), and Fu Hao are mentioned on the same oracular material.

There is no gift of either disks bi or scepters gui to Lady Hao, but this does not mean that the prince of Huayuanzhuang gave her nothing. For example, he gave her silk fabric (H. 37, H. 63), a jade object (H. 195), a musical stone (qing 磬, H. 265), and an embroidered garment (H. 451).

What is the significance of the absence of gui or bi among the gifts to the lady Hao? It might be linked to either to her gender or to her status vis-à-vis the prince. By contrast, the gift of those two types of jade symbols must have had a particular importance in the dealings and relationship between the prince and Wu Ding.

As we have seen, the character corresponding to bi, disk of jade, is novel in the Shang corpus. This type of jade is mentioned very often in the received texts for the Zhou era. In those sources, the jade disks bi were used to signify symbolically an alliance between two men.⁴⁰ If this latter tradition is an indication, that means that the relationship between the king Wu Ding and the prince, his son, included elements constitutive of an alliance. Those elements must be considered in the context where Wu Ding had several sons: why had the prince of Huayuanzhuang deemed it necessary to contract an alliance with his father?

The significance of the jades bi is highlighted if we take into account another character, present not only in Huayuanzhuang but also in other royal inscriptions of Anyang, the character meng 盟. In the inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang, this character appears in those forms,  , in two inscriptions. The first of these is H. 178-4:

癸卯夕歲匕（妣）庚黑牝一，才（在）入，陟盟

The day guimao at dusk, ax-killing of a black cow in sacrifice to Bi Geng, at Ru, elevating the blood-recipient.⁴¹

The second inscription is H. 236-26:

壬.[卜] 盟于室卜(外)

The day ren X [cracks, offering] the blood-containing recipient outside the hall.⁴²

Commentators and most dictionaries interpret the character meng 盟 as meaning a sacrifice, without other explanation,⁴³ and the context of Huayuanzhuang's inscriptions does not allow for any better reading. In Zhou times, the character meng designated a complex ceremony through which an alliance (between lineages) was effected.⁴⁴ While this meaning cannot directly be gleaned in Huayuanzhuang's inscriptions, other Anyang royal inscriptions give more clues for the understanding of meng.⁴⁵ Some of those inscriptions mention living princes, such as the Heji 22857-1 period 2, group chu 出 2⁴⁶:

丙午卜即貞羊盟子.⁴⁷

Since the persons mentioned are zi 子, princes, I translate this as:

The day bingwu cracks, Ji tested: offering a ram by beating (it) to death for the alliance with the princes.⁴⁸

There are several inscriptions with the same content dating from the reign of Zu Jia, such as Heji 22988-5 period 2, group chu 2, Heji 23556-2, period 2, group chu 2, Heji 25167, period 2, group chu 2, Heji 25168-5 period 2, group chu 2. As we have seen above, most of the inscriptions of the group chu 2 date from the reign of Zu Jia.

Guo Xinhe 郭新和, analyzing the character xiang 饗, mentioned banquets organized by the king Wu Ding himself as for example in the Heji 5240 + Heji 8538, period 1, group bin standard, 貞 舌方來王自饗 “test: the polity Gong arrives, the king himself (gives them) a banquet.”⁴⁹ This polity was mostly hostile to Shang; it is possible that this banquet was offered as a gesture of good will. The use of banquets would not only have been a diplomatic tool but also a way to maintain cohesion inside a household.

The inscription H. 236-26 of Huayuanzhuang contains a reference to a hall, shi 室. There is an expression, mengshi 盟室, present in Anyang's inscriptions ranging from period 1 to period 2. I give here three examples:

1. 1. Heji 13562-5 period 1, group bin 1 (middle Wu Ding period): 貞翌辛未其ㄓ于盟室三大九月 “Test: the next day xinwei there will be a sacrifice type you of three big (adult?) penned rams in the mengshi, ninth month.”

2. 2. Heji 24942-5 period 2, group chu 1 (reign of Zu Geng to the beginning of the reign of Zu Jia): 己巳卜祝貞奠告盟室其 “The day jisi cracks, Zhu tested the proposition: Dian makes an announcement in the mengshi about the sacrifice that will be offered.”⁵⁰

3. 3. Heji 25950, period 2, group chu 2 (inscriptions dating mainly from the reign of Zu Jia), 。。。卜出貞。。。史其告于盟室十月 “… cracks, Chu tested … officer makes an announcement with an offering of blood in the mengshi, the tenth month.”⁵¹

Considering the fact that later ceremonies of alliance involved blood presented in receptacles (pan 盤, type of basin), it seems to us appropriate to translate mengshi 盟室 by “Hall of Alliances.” While it is true that Huayuanzhuang's inscriptions do not allow us to go further than interpreting the character meng 盟 as a blood-shedding sacrifice, it is not unthinkable that the prince of Huayuanzhuang would use this type of ceremony also for the purpose of contracting an alliance with his father, the king.⁵²

This alliance between father and son must have had a particular significance: Wu Ding had many sons but only two of them succeeded him to royal position. This indicates that the biological link between the king and his sons was not sufficient in itself to ensure the qualification of those sons for the throne. Therefore, this alliance must be considered in this context of the existence of many sons to the king. I think the establishment of an alliance by the prince of Huayuanzhuang was part of the prince's overall strategy regarding both his current and future status. This strategy is also reflected in another domain, the ancestral cult performed by him, which is recorded abundantly in Huayuanzhuang inscriptions.

The Ancestry of the Prince of Huayuanzhuang: Choice of Ancestors and Sacrificial Victims

The Huayuanzhuang inscriptions mention a number of ancestors also known in royal inscriptions of Anyang. When compared to the other non-royal inscriptions of Anyang, it appears that the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions mention sacrifices offered to ancestors at the level EGO+2 and above more often than the inscriptions of the princes (groups zi and wu 子组/午組).⁵³

Ancestors and Ancestresses

The ancestral cult is not only a genealogical affair. In the context of a Shang society dominated by the royal institution, this cult also had political overtones. The mention of ancestors above the level of the father/mother suggests that the prince of Huayuanzhuang had a very high status.⁵⁴ It might also be indicative of his political strategy.

One series of inscriptions indeed goes even beyond the EGO+2 frame, for example the inscription H 487-3, aligning four important ancestors:

甲戌上甲旬歳祖甲一歲祖乙歳妣庚彘一

The day jiaxu [cracks, oracle] offering blood to Shang Jia, [during] this period of ten days, offering an ewe to Zu Jia, offering an ewe to Zu Yi and a wild boar⁵⁵ to Bi Geng, by the sacrifice sui (killing with an axe).⁵⁶

Shang Jia 上甲 is the ancestor who would be chosen to begin the series of ancestors in the sacrificial cycles first implemented under the reign of Zu Jia, the last reigning son of Wu Ding. Shang Jia can therefore be considered as the originator of the Zi higher-order lineage, and his mention inscribed the prince of Huayuanzhuang into this higher-order lineage. To my knowledge, this high ancestor Shang Jia was not honored in the non-royal inscriptions of Anyang.

The three other ancestors are Zu Yi 祖乙 and Bi Geng 妣庚, preceded by an ancestor named Zu Jia 祖甲. These three ancestors, associated here with the one symbolizing the higher-order lineage Zi, Shang Jia, receive the most mentions in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions—Bi Geng (120 shells), Zu Yi (64 shells), and Zu Jia (38 shells)⁵⁷—and they are generally identified with royal ancestors.⁵⁸ Zu Yi is Xiao Yi 小乙, the father of Wu Ding and Bi Geng, the only spouse associated with him in the cyclical sacrifices.⁵⁹ I will examine the identity and the significance of the ancestor Zu Jia below, but I can say that they all are at the level EGO+2 relative to the generation of the prince of Huayuanzhuang.

The ancestress Bi Geng represents 49.19 percent of all the mentions of ancestors in the inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang. Her importance appears spectacularly in the inscription H. 32-1 with a sacrifice of 105 oxen offered to her.⁶⁰ Why was Bi Geng, the spouse of Xiao Yi, particularly honored by the prince? We have to take in account the fact that she was the mother of Wu Ding, the father of the prince. What could be her importance as the grandmother of the prince? It could be that Xiao Yi, the husband of Bi Geng, had more than one spouse, but only one who gave birth to a reigning king, that is to say Wu Ding. In other words, she was not important in her own right, but because through her the legitimacy of Wu Ding, and therefore of the prince himself, was secured.

Another ancestress, Bi Ji 妣己, is mentioned quite often (23 shells). According to the data given by the cyclical sacrifices, she is likely to be the spouse of Zu Ding 祖丁, father of Xiao Yi 小乙 and grandfather of Wu Ding. Since she is mentioned more often that her husband, her case resembles the one of Bi Geng, who is also mentioned more than her husband, Zu Yi (= Xiao Yi 小乙). The only difference is that Bi Ji is (relative to the prince of Huayuanzhuang) at the level EGO+3 while Bi Geng is at the level EGO+2.

In spite of the unevenness in the number of mentions between Zu Yi=Xiao Yi and his spouse, there is one element common to both: the animal victims used in ancestral sacrifices offered by the prince of Huayuanzhuang to Zu Yi and Bi Geng, as the number and the quality of the animal victims show.

The Black Bovine Victims: a Marker of Royal Ambition?

Many Huayuanzhuang inscriptions mention sacrifices of black bulls and cows to Zu Yi and Bi Geng.⁶¹ I have examined all the occurrences (20 shells, several mentioning more than one victim of this type):⁶² in the case of Zu Yi, the victim is often a black bull (heimu 黑牡), but in three occurrences a black cow (heipin 黒牝) was offered.⁶³ For the ancestress Bi Geng, black cows (heipin 黒牝) were offered (five occurrences) but not exclusively; in two occurrences (H 451-2, 457) one black bull was offered.⁶⁴ The offering of black bovines seems to have been dedicated to Zu Yi and Bi Geng; only one other male ancestor, Zu Jia 祖甲, received such an offering, a black bull with only one mention (H 180-7). There does not seem to be any correlation between the gender of the black bovines and the recipient of the sacrifice.⁶⁵ In the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions, when the victim is a black bovine (whether the gender is mentioned or not), the type of sacrifice used overwhelmingly is the killing with an axe sui 歳.⁶⁶

A comparison with other Anyang inscriptions (in the Heji) allows for an interesting observation: there are only four inscriptions recording black oxen, without mention of gender, and only one mentioning the recipient of the sacrifice, a Bi Geng 妣庚 (tunnan 屯南 2363, period 3, group wu ming 無名).⁶⁷ Whether this is the same Bi Geng as we find in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions cannot be determined absolutely, but no other ancestress received this type of offering. When it comes to gendered bovines, most of the relevant inscriptions are quite fragmented. There is a series of inscriptions mentioning sacrifices of bulls to a royal ancestor Zu Yi 祖乙. Two of them are particularly interesting:

• Heji 23151, period 2, group chu 2,⁶⁸ sacrifice sui to a yu/zhou Zu Yi 毓/胄祖乙 of a bull;⁶⁹

• Heji 23163, period 2, group chu 2, sacrifice (dismemberment) of a bull to a yu/zhou Zu Yi 毓/胄祖乙.⁷⁰

The royal inscriptions are concentrated in a group (chu 2) which dates mainly from the reign of Zu Jia.⁷¹ To our knowledge, there is a dearth of those types of victims in the royal inscriptions of earlier periods. The only element that does not correspond closely is the color of the gendered bovines: in the royal inscriptions, the color is seldom mentioned, and black does not seem to be favored. Of course, this could be an effect of a documentary gap, but it could also reflect the difference between the tradition of Huayuanzhuang per se and the royal tradition. The preference for black bovines might be very significant; I regard it as a sign of the royal ambition of the prince of Huayuanzhuang.⁷²

This ambition was also manifested through a specific genealogical marker. As we have seen, two inscriptions quoted above and dating from the reign of Zu Jia give a specific title to the ancestor Zu Yi, 毓/胄祖乙 yu/zhou Zu Yi. Such a title can be observed in Huayuanzhuang inscriptions, as the inscription H 161-1 shows. It mentions a sacrifice offered to a yu/zhou Zu (毓/胄) 祖 after the sacrifice of a black bull offered to a Zu Yi 祖乙:

辛未歲祖乙黑牡一鬯子祝毓/胃祖非

The day xinwei [cracks, test]: killing a black bull with an ax in sacrifice to Zu Yi (and) offering liquor [to him]; the prince makes the following invocation: [this should be offered to] yu/zhou Zu [Yi] or not?⁷³

The character yu 毓 singles out one precise ancestor, the father of Wu Ding, Xiao Yi, who is the grandfather of the prince of Huayuanzhuang.⁷⁴ This marker is therefore given to an ancestor, precisely at the EGO+2 level. In the present state of the documentation of Huayuanzhuang, the H 161-1 is a hapax.

In the inscriptions of the cyclical sacrifices, there is mention of the duo yu/zhou 多毓/胄, the “numerous descendants,” in formulas of the type: 自上甲至于多毓/胄 ([sacrifice X offered to] Shang Jia and his numerous descendants) at the beginning of each type of ceremony.⁷⁵ It designates the entire group of royal ancestors, all descendants of the first ancestor (Shang Jia 上甲) mentioned in the sacrificial cycles first implemented under the reign of Zu Jia. It also indicates that this group of ancestors (male and female alike) was regarded as a whole—the common reference of a distant ancestor. In other words, all the ancestors were constituted as a communality, including at the same time a lot of Shang sub-lineages and different modes of royal succession. When the character yu/zhou was applied to a singular royal ancestor, singling him or her out, the general meaning of the character changed. It then became a marker of ancestry.

The Prince of Huayuanzhuang: Overview and Identification

What do the data analyzed so far tell us about the prince of Huayuanzhuang?

• as a prince, he was the head of an important household, with access to numerous material and symbolic resources;

• he was in close contact with his parents, the reigning king Wu Ding and Lady Hao;

• he made an alliance with his father through the use of jade disks bi;

• he also made blood-shedding covenant in his relationship with his father, Wu Ding.

• he asserted his status through specific sacrifices and specific victims (black) offered to the father and mother of his father, Xiao Yi and Bi Geng, his paternal grandparents.

The identification of the prince of Huayuanzhuang with Zu Jia, son of Wu Ding, has been proposed by several authors, first by Yao Xuan 姚萱.⁷⁶ This interpretation is based on a place mentioned frequently in the Huayuanzhuang inscription and written as .⁷⁷ This character is also present in a name encountered in the Anyang oracular inscriptions, mentioning a prince: Prince , 子, son of Wu Ding. Schwartz, basing his observation in particular on parallel records in the royal inscriptions on a type of medical problem (ears ringing) involving this prince, has made the connection between the Huayuanzhuang data and Prince 子.⁷⁸ In several Huayanzhuang inscriptions mentioning the king, Lady Hao and the prince, the place is indeed noted.⁷⁹ Dong Zuobin interpreted the character as an archaic form for Zai 載, the personal name of the king Zu Jia.⁸⁰ This personal name is mentioned in the Zhushu jinian 竹書紀年: 祖甲 [帝甲載] (Zu Jia [the god-king Jia, personal name Zai]).⁸¹ Dong Zuobin has interpreted the name of Zu Jia in the Zhushu jinian, Zai 載, as graphically close to the character zhi (other version ), defined in the Shuowen jiezi (大部) as: ：大也 (Zhi means great). Based on this interpretation, he has connected it to a Shang character composed of two parts, ge 戈 and da 大: and noticed that it was the name given to one of the sons of Wu Ding. Dong Zuobin was, of course, not aware of the Huayuanzhuang discovery. Schwartz considers that the identification of the prince of Huayuanzhuang with the prince Zai=Zu Jia “remains a conceivable assumption.”⁸²

I concur: the prince of Huayuanzhuang can, with a high degree of certainty, be identified with the future king Zu Jia, son of Wu Ding, whose personal name was Zai 載 and whose mother was the Lady Hao mentioned in Anyang royal inscriptions.⁸³

There is another piece of information indirectly confirming this identification. As we have seen (since most inscriptions mentioning the association between meng 盟 and zi 子 date from his reign), Zai/Zu Jia as a king also used the ceremony meng, in a context of alliance with other princes.

In the inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang, made by Zu Jia before his reign, the number of sacrifices offered to Bi Geng (the spouse of the father of Wu Ding) points toward the importance of this royal spouse for the prince. It was obviously linked to his present and future status, but to what extent? The fact that Zu Jia as a prince had to take the initiative of contracting an alliance with his father, Wu Ding, could be an indication that this status was in a state of relative indetermination.

Finally, the case of the ancestor Zu Jia 祖甲 in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions is highly significant. I think he was the ancestor Yang Jia 陽甲, at the level EGO+2—that is to say at the level of the prince's own grandfather, Xiao Yi.⁸⁴ In the reconstructed list of ancestors in the cyclical sacrifices, the order of succession from the king Zu Ding 祖丁, who had four sons, to the king Wu Ding is as follows: Yang Jia 陽甲 (Hu Jia 虎甲) → Pan Geng 盤庚 → Xiao Xin 小辛 → Xiao Yi 小乙 → Wu Ding 武丁 (son of Xiao Yi 小乙 and father of the prince of Huayuanzhuang, Zai—the king Zu Jia under whose reign the first cyclical sacrifices were implemented).

Why was this Yang Jia (mentioned as Zu Jia 祖甲 in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions) so honored?⁸⁵ The answer probably lies in a struggle for power that happened before the time of Zai, the prince of Huayuanzhuang. Cai Zhemao 蔡哲茂 interprets Wu Ding’s access to royal power as an anomaly: since the first of Zu Ding's sons to reign was Yang/Hu Jia 陽/虎甲, on the death of the last reigning son, Xiao Yi, a son of this elder brother, Yang/Hu Jia, should have become king.⁸⁶ I make the hypothesis that the ancestor Zu Jia (=Yang/Hu Jia 陽/虎甲) was the father of Lady Hao. The marriage of Wu Ding with a daughter of Yang/Hu Jia would then have served as a device to neutralize the animosity between Xiao Yi and Yang/Hu Jia lines: it made perfect sense in the context of the crisis leading to the reign of Wu Ding.

The prince of Huayuanzhuang became the king Zu Jia. The information available (numerous erasures of the inscriptions, alliance with the king, use of specific types of victims, sacrifices to a host of ancestors), allows us to understand that his becoming king was preceded by a series of political and ritual maneuvers. Were those rituals part of the strategy used by this prince who was only one among the possible candidates for the throne in order to consolidate his own status?⁸⁷ We have to remember that the prince of Huayuanzhuang Zai/Zu Jia was not the only possible heir to the throne since he was preceded by one of his brothers, Zu Geng. Zai/Zu Jia was the third of those sons of Wu Ding who were either preselected to reign or, by quirks of historical circumstances, finally became kings. The rituals implemented by Zai/Zu Jia when he was the prince of Huayuanzhuang were among the steps that could lead a scion of Shang royalty to the royal power. The received sources hint that it was not a straightforward affair for Zu Jia.

The Contrasted Image of Zu Jia: A Disputed Elevation to Royal Power

The first cyclical sacrifices dating from the reign of Zu Jia lists two hieronyms after that of Wu Ding: Zu Ji 祖己 (mentioned as Xiong Ji 兄己, “Elder Brother Ji”) and Zu Geng 祖庚 (mentioned as Xiong Geng 兄庚, “Elder Brother Geng”). The later cycles list three successors of the king Wu Ding in the order, Zu Ji, Zu Geng, and Zu Jia. Therefore, the cyclical sacrifices indicates that Wu Ding had three successors, while the received sources only mention two, Zu Geng and Zu Jia. The reason for this discrepancy requires a cross-examination of all the sources available, received and paleographic. This will allow for a better understanding of the political situation during the last years of the king Wu Ding.

The Received Sources

We begin with the testimony available in the Shi ji, retracing the career of Zu Jia, from his youth to his accession to the throne:

帝武丁崩，子帝祖庚立。。。帝祖庚崩，弟祖甲立，是為帝甲。帝甲淫亂，殷復衰。

At the death of the god-king Wu Ding, his son the god-king Zu Geng ascended the throne … At the death of the god-king Zu Geng, his younger brother Zu Jia became king; he was the god-king Jia. He was disordered and chaotic; [and] the Shang power weakened again.⁸⁸

This rather stern account does not provide a lot of information: the king Wu Ding is succeeded by two sons, the second one being the younger brother and judged to be a bad sovereign.

One of the later sources that mention Zu Jia is the Zhushu jinian. The current version of this text mentions, in particular, a person whose name is Xiao Ji 孝己. In my translation, I use the current version, adding information provided by the old version in brackets:⁸⁹

二十五年，王子孝己卒于野。。。 祖庚 [曜/躍]: 元年丙午，即位，居殷。。。十一年，陟。祖甲 [帝甲載]:元年丁巳，王即位，居殷。。。

The twenty-fifth year [of the king Wu Ding], the son of the king, Xiao Ji, died in the wilderness … Zu Geng [personal name Yao/Yue],⁹⁰ the first year of his reign was a year bingwu, he was established at Yin … He died the eleventh year of his reign. Zu Jia [the god-king Jia, personal name Zai], the first year of his reign was a year dingsi, he was established in Yin⁹¹

As we have seen, the Shi ji mentions only Zu Geng and Zu Jia as sons of Wu Ding. The Zhushu jinian adds another son, Xiao Ji 孝己, who died prematurely. The context shows that he is the same person as the Zu Ji 祖己 mentioned in the Shi ji and the Shang shu 尚書.⁹² In the Shi ji, an intercalary passage I have omitted indeed mentions a person named Zu Ji 祖己, but he is presented as an advisor to the king Wu Ding. He is described as the one whose advice to the king was recorded in the chapter “Gaozong rongri” 高宗肜日 of the Shang shu.⁹³ He is also the Zu Ji 祖己 mentioned in Shang oracular inscriptions, an ancestor honored in the cyclical sacrifices in all their iterations.

As we have seen, the Shi ji (“the god-king Jia … was disordered and chaotic; [and] the Shang power weakened again”) had a rather negative view of the monarch. A chapter of the Shang shu presents him in a different way:

其在祖甲，不義惟王，舊為小人。作其即位，爰知小人之依，能保惠于庶民，不敢侮鰥寡。肆祖甲之享國三十有三年。

In the case of Zu Jia, he refused to be king unrighteously, and was at first one of the lower people. When he came to the throne, he knew on what they must depend (for their support), and was able to exercise a protecting kindness towards their masses, and did not dare to treat with contempt the wifeless men and widows. Thus it was that he enjoyed the throne thirty and three years.⁹⁴

The judgment expressed in this chapter of the Shang shu is much more positive that in the passage of the Shi ji quoted above. Another passage of the Shi ji (in the “Lu Zhougong shijia” 魯周公世家) is very close to the one of the Shang shu chapter “Wuyi” 無逸 I have presented and contradicts also the negative judgment expressed in the part “Yin benji” 殷本紀 of the Shi ji.⁹⁵ I do not think that those texts should be taken at face value, and especially not the anachronistic and moralistic tone used, but they are at least indicative of a difficulty linked to Zu Jia's accession to the royal power.

Dong Zuobin quoted from two commentaries preserved in the Shang shu guwen shuzheng 尚書古文疏證 by the Qing scholar Yan Ruoqu 閻若璩 (1636–1704 ce).⁹⁶

The first one is from the Han scholar Ma Rong 馬融（79–166 ce):⁹⁷

祖甲有兄祖庚而祖甲賢武丁欲立之,祖甲以王廢長立少不義逃亡民間。故曰不義惟王

Zu Jia had an elder brother, Zu Geng but Zu Jia was wiser; Wu Ding wanted to designate him as the heir; Zu Jia judged this abandonment by the king of the (rule elevating to heir the) elder and elevating the younger to be unjust (and) fled to the common people. That is why (the text says) “he refused to be king unrighteously.”

The second one is from Zheng Kangcheng 鄭康成 (= Zheng Xuan 鄭玄, 127–200 ce):

祖甲有兄祖庚賢,武丁欲廢兄立弟,祖甲以爲不義逃于人間故云久爲小人

Zu Jia had a wise elder brother, but Wu Ding wanted to abandon (the rule about the succession given to) the elder and elevate the younger, Zu Jia considered it to be unjust (and) fled to the common people. That is why (the text says) “he was for a long time (part of the) lower people.”

Those two commentaries of Ma Rong and Zheng Xuan are probably based on the “Wuyi” chapter of the Shang shu. The Han scholars interpret the text as indicating that Wu Ding wanted to make Zu Jia his heir to the detriment of his elder brother.⁹⁸ It alludes to a difficulty linked to succession and the commentaries go further by implying that those difficulties resulted in an overt clash: as a result, Zu Jia fled (tao 逃).⁹⁹ Why did he flee?

We must take into account that the three successors to the king Wu Ding (one designated heir, the “younger king,” the two others, Zu Geng and Zu Jia, reigning effectively) were each born of a different mother. In the anecdotes mentioned above, where Zu Jia either removed himself from the court or had to flee, one obvious personage is not mentioned: the elder brother of Zu Jia, that is to say Zu Geng. As a legitimate (or “natural”) heir, he might have a vested interest in the removal of his young brother. The succession of Wu Ding seems to have been quite an open process, partly because of historical circumstances (the death of the younger king, as indicated in the Zhushu jinian with confirmation, as I will show below, from oracular inscriptions) and no formal rule governing the succession can be clearly deduced.

The first iteration of the cyclical cycles, implemented under the reign of Zu Jia, gives another very important clue: in this first system the last royal spouse honored is Bi Geng 妣庚, spouse of Xiao Yi 小乙, Wu Ding's father. Therefore, at the time of the first iteration of the cycle, this last spouse is at the level of EGO+2 vis-à-vis Zu Jia and his generation (his brothers). It is significant because Wu Ding himself and two brothers of Zu Jia, the young prince and Zu Geng, are honored in the cycle, none of their spouses is, even when it comes to Wu Ding himself. The spouses of Wu Ding (at least three of them) are of course mentioned in later iterations of the cycle, but during the first iteration, those spouses, the mothers of the brothers of Zu Jia and the mother of Zu Jia himself, were probably at the very heart of the succession dispute. This absence could be interpreted as a clue to the process by which the sacrificial cycles were implemented: the spouses of Wu Ding were omitted not as spouses but as mothers of the successors (putative and real) of this king. This omission indicates two things: (1) the mothers of the successors played a very important role in the royal succession; and (2) their absence bears indirect witness to the difficulties of this succession.

The process of royal succession began during the reign of the king Wu Ding and, in order to understand it more precisely, an examination of the status of the other successors to the king Wu Ding is required.

The Younger King

As we have seen, a prince active during part of the reign of this king was given the title of “younger king.” The first inscription mentioning him is the Heji 21546, period 1 group 子:

己丑子卜貞小王 田夫

The day jichou, the prince made the cracks and tested: the younger king (personal name undeciphered) goes hunting at Fu (name of a place).¹⁰⁰

Obviously, this “younger king” was alive when the oracular test was made; it is therefore a direct witness to his activities (here, hunting) while the Zhushu jinian, the only source acknowledging directly his royal pedigree, only tells us about his death. Other inscriptions note the sacrifices offered to him, of course after his death.

The inscription Heji 39809, period 1, group shi small characters, confirms indirectly that the younger king died during the reign of Wu Ding: 㞢小王己牡 (offering one bull to the younger king by the sacrifice you). Indeed, according to Huang Tianshu, the group shi small characters cover the entire reign of Wu Ding and the inscriptions mentioning him as a deceased person date from the end of the reign. Therefore, the “younger king” never reigned.¹⁰¹

What is significant in the Heji 39809 is the fact that the title is noted in lieu of the usual hieronym. Another inscription, Heji 23808, period 1, group chu 2, shows that sacrifices were offered to the younger king after the reign of Wu Ding:

己未卜，□貞：小王歲。

The day jiwei, X (name of the diviner missing in the fragment) tested: offering one penned sheep to the younger king by the sacrifice sui (killing with an ax).

This inscription dates from the reign of Zu Jia and the younger king can only be Zu Ji, since the divination is made on a ji 己 day.¹⁰²

The specific status conferred to Zu Ji seems to be acknowledged even after the reign of Zu Jia, as shown by the inscription Heji 28278, period 3, group wuming, with the mention of the “younger king Father Ji” 小王父己. This inscription dates from the reign of the king, Kang Ding 康丁, since all the male members of the royal lineage belonging to the same level, here EGO +1, received the same classificatory kinship term, here “Father.”¹⁰³ The persistence of the title, even after the death of this son of Wu Ding is highly unusual. To our knowledge, this is the only known example of such a persistence.

The title “younger king” given to Zu Ji probably marked him as the designated successor of Wu Ding. This move is extremely significant in a context where the adelphic succession had been practiced in past reigns. An adelphic succession is a system in which sons of a father inherit, in general by order of seniority, the position of their father. In other words and in the case of the Shang monarchs, several brothers, sons of a king, became kings one after the other.¹⁰⁴ We will examine more precisely the details of such a system in another article but it is possible to say already that it led to a lot of internal strife. Wu Ding's own ascension to the throne, for example, was done to the detriment of his cousins, sons of the kings who were elder brothers of his father, Xiao Yi 小乙. For Wu Ding, to have designated in advance an heir was a mean allowing a smooth transition of the royal power.

There are other historical examples of this kind of political maneuver, in Chinese as well as in French history. In China, the emperor Qianlong 乾隆 of the Qing dynasty made his son, Jiaqing 嘉慶, the emperor (皇帝) while retaining for himself the title of “retired emperor” (太上皇). In France, the first Capetian king, Hughes, had one of his sons, Robert II, anointed king the same year he himself was elected to the throne (987 ce).¹⁰⁵ In both cases, this maneuver aimed to establish continuity as well as stability. Naming a successor while alive indicated that the royal power of Wu Ding was only assured for his own reign.

The title of “younger king” which, in the present state of the documentation is unique, indicates that Wu Ding, by conferring this title, made a political decision to select one of his sons as legitimate heir, a step to establish a single-lineage, father-to-son principle of succession. As we have seen, when mentioned in the cyclical sacrifices of the reign of Zu Jia, the “younger king” Zu Ji is mentioned only by his hieronym, without any record of his title. His personal name is not given in the (new version of the) Zhushu jinian, contrary to (in the old version) his two brothers, Zu Geng and Zu Jia.¹⁰⁶

Sons, Princes and Rivals: Zu Geng and Zu Jia

Dong Zuobin tentatively identified those two kings with princes, zi 子, active during the reign of Wu Ding.¹⁰⁷ The personal name of Zu Geng is given as Yao/Yue 曜/躍. Dong Zuobin, referring to two editions of the Zhushu jinian, in particular the Guben Zhushu jinian jijiao 古本竹書紀年輯校, edited by Wang Guowei 王國維, takes the character yao 曜 to be phonetically close to the character ying 映, itself close to the character yang 央; he then identified Zu Geng as the prince Yang 子央, active during the reign of Wu Ding. This prince Yang was important enough to be placed under the protection of Wu Ding's own father, Fu Yi 父乙, as the inscription Heji 3013, period 1–2, group 賓 standard shows:

貞子央禦于父乙

test: offering of blood (in order) to obtain the protection of Father Yi on behalf of Prince Yang.¹⁰⁸

Another inscription is interesting, the Heji 3018, period 1–2, group bin standard:

丙申卜翌丁酉用子央歳于丁

The day bingshen cracks, the next day dingyou, sacrifice, [it is] Prince Yang who offers [victims] killed with an ax to his Majesty (Wu Ding).

The mention of a sacrifice to Wu Ding (here called by the honorific title ding 丁 “Highness”) indicates that this inscription was made immediately after his death, since he is given his honorific title (Majesty) and his hieronym, that is to say a name composed of a celestial stem character and a kinship term. It also indicates that the transfer of the title of king from father to son was not immediate since, here, the person offering the sacrifice is designated as a prince and not as the king. This inscription suggests that there was a time of latency between the death of a king and the advent of his successor. Was it entirely due to rules of mourning? Was lineage-based politics a factor? It is possible that the sacrifice offered by the prince Yang/Zu Geng was one of the steps a royal son had to take to claim the royal power. If we take into account the received sources but also some elements given by the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions, the inscription quoted here takes another “flavor.” Zu Geng was the first successor to his father Wu Ding. Received sources mention that his young brother, Zu Jia had to (pace the moral interpretations) go away before he could become king. The scraping of part of the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions might then be indicative, as already surmised, of a crisis of transmission: Zu Geng appears not only as the elder brother of Zu Jia but also as his rival for the royal power. For the prince Yang/Zu Geng, the sacrifices offered to his dead father (who was, in the inscription, not yet given his hieronym) might have been a way to establish his own claim to the throne. The rivalry of the two brothers then would not have been concluded by the physical elimination of Zu Jia but at least his temporary retreat from the center of power.

Zu Jia's name, Zai, corresponds to a prince zi 子whose presence is attested in oracular inscriptions, as shown by Heji 3186, period 1, group bin 1:

丁子[巳]卜，賓禦子于父乙

The day dingzi, cracks, Bin [tested]: putting Prince Zai under the protection of Father Yi.¹⁰⁹

The Father Yi mentioned here is the father of Wu Ding himself. We can see that, as for the Prince Yang, the protection of Wu Ding's own father was requested on behalf of this prince.¹¹⁰

The identifications made by Dong Zuobin, mainly based on the examination of names found in the Zhushu jinian, are fragile. Nevertheless, given the fact that the king Wu Ding in the cyclical sacrifices was followed by three male ancestors, Zu Ji 祖己, Zu Geng 祖庚, and Zu Jia 祖甲, the information given in the Zhushu jinian are correct: at least when coming to sons, it mentions three of them. The reigning sons were, in Anyang oracular inscriptions, named Zi Yang and Zi Zai. The Huayuanzhuang data vindicates Dong Zuobin's work, at least for Zai/Zu Jia. They also gave the identity of the mother of this Zai/Zu Jia: Lady Hao. She was one of the three spouses of the king Wu Ding mentioned in the later iterations of the cyclical sacrifices. Their inclusion (as with the selective inclusion of spouses for other royal and non-royal ancestors in the Zhouji) shows the importance of those ladies in the process of selection of the successors to kings. It is therefore fundamental to examine their curricula and status.

The Three Spouses of the King Wu Ding

In the first iteration of the cyclical sacrifices (reign of Zu Jia), the last female ancestor honored is Bi Geng, associated with (spouse of) Xiao Yi (小乙奭妣庚), the father of the king Wu Ding. In the later iterations post-Zu Jia, Wu Ding is associated with three spouses, Bi Xin (武丁奭妣辛), Bi Gui (武丁奭妣癸) and Bi Wu (武丁奭妣戊). The order according to which each spouse is honored is supposed to correspond to the “order of death:” Bi Xin would have been the first to die, followed by Bi Gui and Bi Wu.¹¹¹ We will see that the available paleographic information do not confirm this hypothesis.

There are two questions that can be asked about those three spouses:

1. 1. To what living person did those spouses’ hieronyms correspond?

2. 2. Knowing that only three male ancestors were honored in the cycle immediately after Wu Ding (Zu Ji, Zu Geng, and Zu Jia), is it possible to link the three spouses to those three male ancestors?

The answer to the first question has already been given, at least for two of the spouses, Bi Xin and Bi Wu, through archaeological finds and paleography. The answer to the second has also been given, at least in the case of Zai/Zu Jia: his mother was Lady Hao. Her hieronym was Mu/Bi Xin 母/妣辛. We will examine her first, before continuing with Bi Gui. I provide here only basic information on Bi Wu since her case will be studied in depth in another article, centered on the crisis leading to Wu Ding’ reign.

The Case of Mu/Bi Xin 母/妣辛.

The tomb (M 5) of Bi Xin 妣辛 was discovered, largely intact, in 1976, in the site of Xiaotun 小屯, southeast of the royal tombs of Xibeigang 西北岡. It is a single pit (5.8 m to 4 m), without an access ramp, containing numerous objects, jades, and bronze vessels.¹¹² Amongst these, 109 ritual bronzes in the tomb were marked Fu Hao 婦好 but five others were marked Si Mu Xin 司母辛.¹¹³ Therefore, the identification of Mu Xin with the living woman, Lady Hao 婦好, spouse of Wu Ding, is quite straightforward. This lady is largely documented in oracular inscriptions of Anyang as well as in the inscriptions of Huayuanzhuang.

Based on the fact that the inscriptions mentioning Lady Hao alive belong to the groups bin 2 and li 1, and that the sacrifices offered to her in the group chu (dated from the reigns of Zu Geng and Zu Jia) are more numerous than the ones offered to the two other principal spouses of Wu Ding, Li Zongkun 李宗焜 concludes that Lady Hao died at the end of the king Wu Ding's reign.¹¹⁴ While alive, she played a considerable role in military and ritual affairs; some inscriptions describe her offering tributes of tortoise shells to the king (for example Heji 10133反, period 1, group bin standard, shell marked with ru 入, “to offer as a tribute.” She is even tasked with examining (shi 示) the shells.¹¹⁵

Who was Lady Hao? Based on the inscription Heji 2658, period 1, group bin standard where she was ordered (probably by the king) to watch over (jian 見) the “numerous spouses” (duofu 多婦), Zou Junzhi 鄒濬智, has noticed that her status was more elevated than at least most of those spouses.¹¹⁶ Her identity as a spouse of Wu Ding is not problematic; what remains unclear is her personal origin. According to Li Zongkun 李宗焜, the character hao 好 would not necessarily be indicative of her belonging to the higher-order lineage Zi 子; it might simply be her personal name.¹¹⁷ Zhang Yachu 張亞初 interprets her name as Lady Zi 婦子; his interpretation is based on Heji 2833 period 1, group bin 1,¹¹⁸ with a mention of 貞勿 [barely legible] 禦帚 [interpreted as fu 婦 but barely legible] 子于 … (“test: do not offer a sacrifice to ask [X ancestor, name missing] to protect Lady Zi”).¹¹⁹ Another researcher, Zhang Zhenglang 張政烺 also understood that Lady Hao was in fact Lady Zi 婦子, the character zi 子 being meshed with the character nü 女 (for female) in most occurrences of her name.¹²⁰

Cao Dingyun and E. Childs-Johnson make her a woman of the Zi territory 子方, therefore putting aside the traditional understanding of her name as being the Shang higher-order lineage name.¹²¹ Nevertheless, this territory is only represented by a very limited number of inscriptions (6), all belonging to the end of Wu Ding's reign or the following period.¹²² All those inscriptions are seemingly related to the same affair: the king ordered an officer to enlist the Zi territory people to settle another place. There is no evidence that directly associate the territory Zi 子方 with Lady Hao. As we have seen, the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions allow for another solution: Lady Hao belonged in fact to the higher-order lineage Zi and was probably a parallel paternal cousin of Wu Ding, daughter of one of his uncles, Yang/Hu Jia.

The Case of Bi Gui 妣癸

The last spouse of Wu Ding (in the order of mention in the sacrificial cycles) honored in the post-Zu Jia cyclical sacrifices is Bi Gui 妣癸. According to Han Jiangsu 韓江蘇 and Jiang Linchang 江林昌, Mu Gui cannot be identified with any living spouse of Wu Ding.¹²³ Only her presence in the cyclical sacrifices allows the understanding that she was indeed one of Wu Ding's wives. One discovery in the tomb of the Lady Hao sheds some light on the case of Mu Gui: Zheng Zhenxiang 鄭振香 discusses the presence in the Lady Hao's tomb of twenty-six paired vessels, some marked with Si X Mu 司母, others with Si X Mu Gui 司母癸.¹²⁴ All those vessels (for example a pair of fangzun 司母癸大方尊) are alcohol vessels; there is no tripod or quadripod ding 鼎 and all are of the same quality than the vessels dedicated for Fu Hao/Mu Xin. Therefore, and judging by the ritual material involved, the status of the two ladies was approximately the same.

Since Si Mu Gui cannot be the same person as Lady Hao (one ancestor receiving only one type of hieronym), the presence of the ensemble of alcohol ritual bronzes dedicated to Mu Gui in the tomb of Lady Hao constitutes an oddity. The vases must have been dedicated by a direct descendant of Mu Gui. It is not possible that this descendant is the same as the one who dedicated bronzes to Lady Hao, even if both were at the same generational level (EGO+1).¹²⁵ Zheng Zhenxiang hypothesizes that the vases dedicated to Mu Gui were used to complement the ritual assemblage of vessels put in Fu Hao's tomb.¹²⁶

The same researcher signals the presence of a cover of a bronze vessel (possibly a lei 罍) from a tomb, M 066, in Xiaotun beidi, the dimensions of which are unclear, due to the fact that it has been destroyed by the digging of a later, Tang tomb.¹²⁷ This cover was inscribed Si X Mu 司母 (dedicated to Mother ). This discovery suggests that this was the tomb of Mu Gui 母癸. Unfortunately, documents available do not permit the identification of this lady in oracular inscriptions.¹²⁸ There might be a connection with a Lady Shu (Fu Shu 婦鼠) based on approximate graphic resemblance (minus the lower part kao 丂), but it is insufficient as proof. The over-twenty inscriptions in the Heji show that the status of this royal spouse was quite elevated and, on the ritual side, on par with the one of Lady Hao.¹²⁹ She probably died at the end of Wu Ding's reign.¹³⁰

The Case of Bi Wu/ Lady Jing

The tomb belonging to Bi Wu 妣戊 was excavated in 1984, in the royal cemetery at Xibeigang 西北岡, Anyang.¹³¹ It was identified following the discovery, in 1939 on the same spot, of a massive (close to one metric ton) four-legged caldron with an inscription, the Si Mu Wu ding 司母戊鼎, “dedicated to Mu Wu.” The tomb measures 78 square meters and has one ramp extending to the south, situated below the tomb 84M1400, attributed to Wu Ding; the two tombs have the same alignment.¹³² We can therefore identify the tomb of Hou/Simu Wu as the one of a Lady Jing, Fu Jing 婦妌, a very important spouse of Wu Ding, and conclude that, indeed, the hieronym Mu/Bi Wu 母/妣戊 designated the living Lady Jing 婦妌 mentioned on Wu Ding's reign oracular inscriptions.¹³³

What was the status of the three spouses of Wu Ding? Concerning their relative status, Katheryn M. Linduff, comparing the burial of Lady Jing and Lady Hao and based on the external position of the tomb of Lady Hao (outside the Xibeigang complex), suggests that Lady Hao was only a “consort wife.”¹³⁴ This assertion is problematic because it supposes that there was a hierarchy of spouses during the Shang dynasty: no document allows for such a conclusion.¹³⁵ However, the elements available (burial, material, oracular inscriptions) relating to the spouses of Wu Ding indicate that they had a very important status vis-à-vis king Wu Ding. This status was linked to their own lineages and also to their sons.

Royal Mothers and their Sons

Roderick Campbell treats Lady Hao (and other spouses) as “royal agent(s)” and denies for Lady Hao and Lady Jing the existence of their own demesnes.¹³⁶ Nevertheless, he adds an important point: “it should be the royal consort's senior male relatives that control the forces of their clan—the political status of the consort being dependent on her role in the patrilineage she married into, not the one she left.”¹³⁷ Indeed, the male relatives of the ladies had a fundamental role to play in managing their own territories but even if royal spouses were “royal agents,” it does not mean that their own status vis-à-vis the king was unrelated to the strength of their own paternal lineages. In other words, even if the spouses of Wu Ding were acting as agents to the royal power, their standing cannot be analyzed without reference to their own lineages.¹³⁸ It is probable that the strength of those lineages played an important role, for the personal status of the spouses (in the context of alliances concluded with the king) but also for the status of the male children of those spouses. The process of selection of the succeeding king (or kings) had to take in account the mother's lineage. The status of the spouse—and her lineage—and the support the sons could expect to receive from their maternal lineage played a key role.

The royal succession cannot be seen as a simple interplay between the personal status of the spouse and the personal choice (or likings) of the sovereign. In other words, the two axioms traditionally used to describe royal (or noble) succession: 子以母貴，母以子貴 (Sons are precious because of their mothers, mothers are precious because of their sons) are incomplete.¹³⁹ If the sons of a king were from different mothers, the succession was also a function of the entourage of the different mothers: the brothers and fathers of the spouses and their allies. Therefore, the third axiom should be 婦/母以族貴 (wives/mothers are precious because of their lineages [of origin]). This last axiom expresses the logic of alliances involved in marriages. One of the results of those marriages was of course the offspring and particularly the male ones.

The identification of the sons of the three spouses of Wu Ding honored in the cyclical sacrifice will shed light on this aspect of the royal succession. In the cyclical sacrifices before the reign of Zu Jia, the order of presentation of the three most important spouses of Wu Ding is as follows: Bi Xin 武丁奭妣辛 = Mother Xin 母辛 (= Lady Hao 婦好)—Bi Gui 武丁奭妣癸 = Mother Gui 母癸 (=婦 = Lady Shu 婦鼠?)—and Bi Wu 武丁奭妣戊 = Mother Wu 母戊 (= Lady Jing 婦妌).

The three successors of Wu Ding, belonging to the same generation and mentioned in the cyclical sacrifices are Zu Ji (= the younger king), Zu Geng and Zu Jia himself. If we take the personal names of two (Zu Geng = Yang 央 and Zu Jia = Zai 載) of those individuals as given in the Zhushu jinian, it is possible to make a first identification, beginning with Zu Geng.

Yan Yiping, based on the inscription Heji 2580, period 1, group bin standard, has identified Mu Gui 母癸 as the mother of Zu Geng.¹⁴⁰ This inscription has been reconstituted as [貞禦子]央于母癸, which I translate as “[test: offering a sacrifice to ask for protection of the prince] Yang to Mother Gui.”¹⁴¹ Given the classificatory nature of Shang kinship terms, those inscriptions cannot be taken as absolute proof but at least indicate a strong connection between the prince Yang and this Mother Gui.¹⁴² Other elements of proof are needed for this provisional identification, which is tied to the identification of the sons of the two other spouses of Wu Ding, Lady Jing and Lady Hao.

Consider the post-mortem situation of those three ladies, not in the cyclical sacrifices of the king Zu Jia (since they would only be introduced in the later iterations of the cycles) but in the inscriptions of the same period mentioning them as “Mother X.” There is an abundance of inscriptions (59) with sacrifices dedicated to Mu Xin 母辛 (hieronym of Lady Hao used at the level EGO-1, that is to say the level of the generation immediately after Lady Hao's) in the inscriptions from the reigns of Zu Geng and Zu Jia. The majority of those inscriptions belong to the group chu 2, period 2, with some inscriptions belonging to the group chu 1. Since the inscriptions of the group chu 2 belong mainly to the reign of Zai/ Zu Jia, the identification of Lady Hao with the mother of this king is highly probable.¹⁴³

If we examine the case of the two other main spouses of Wu Ding, whose hieronyms are respectively (for the generation of the sons of Wu Ding) Mu Gui 母癸 and Mu Wu 母戊, the number of inscriptions is more limited. Concerning Mu Gui, there are four partial inscriptions: Heji 23461, 24136, period 2, group chu 2, and ying 英 1973 (two inscriptions).¹⁴⁴

For Mu Wu alias Lady Jing, the situation presents an anomaly, considering the elevated status of this spouse while she was alive: no inscription mentioning a Mother Wu 母戊 dates from the second period (reigns of Zu Geng and Zu Jia). In other words, no inscription dating from the generation of those two sons of Wu Ding mention sacrifices dedicated to this spouse. If the absence of inscriptions for the reigns of Zu Geng and Zu Jia is not due to a documentary gap, it could be seen as a reluctance from those two kings to honor Lady Jing. It also indicates that Lady Jing could not have been the mother of either one of the two kings.

No inscription dedicated to this lady Jing during the reign of Wu Ding is directly about her death. This information is difficult to interpret: could she have been still alive after the king's death? Wang Ning 王寧 mentions the inscription H 395 of the Huayuanzhuang corpus, recording a sacrifice offered to a Mother Wu (Mu Wu 母戊) in the context of painful teeth; Wang identifies this Mother Wu with the deceased Lady Jing and the mother of the younger king Xiao Ji. Since the corpus abundantly mentions Lady Hao as a live person, Lady Jing's death should therefore have happened at the end of Wu Ding's reign, before the death of Lady Hao.¹⁴⁵

The importance of Lady Jing's territory (to which the size of her tomb bears witness) made her a force to be reckoned with: she was the primary interface between the Shang king and her territory of origin, that is to say its male leaders. Indeed, Jing was one of the territories with which the Shang king allied himself.¹⁴⁶ Based on those elements, and on the fact that there is only one inscription related to Lady Jing post-mortem, I conclude that Lady Jing was the mother of the “younger king” 小王: her son was not able to offer sacrifices to his own mother since, as we have seen, the younger king died during the reign of Wu Ding, probably predeceasing his mother.

Many researchers have linked the younger king to Lady Hao. Among them is Cao Dingyun who, based on the fact that Lady Hao died before the two other royal spouses attributed to Wu Ding in the cyclical sacrifices (Bi Gui 妣癸, Bi Wu 妣戊), made her the mother of one of Wu Ding's sons, Zu Ji 祖己 (the younger king), corresponding to the Xiao Ji 孝己 of the received sources.¹⁴⁷ Cao Dingyun mentioned several received sources stating that Xiao Ji's mother died young; and since the placement of the three spouses of Wu Ding in the cyclical sacrifices put Bi Xin before the two others, the author concludes that this royal spouse died before the others and that would confirm indications given by later sources. The connection is based on received sources which evoke the “falling from grace” of a prince whose mother died young.¹⁴⁸ Nevertheless, since it is only through those later sources that the link between a “younger king” and the Lady Hao has been made, there is no direct proof of a mother–son link between Lady Hao and the younger king in the royal inscriptions.

The main clue in Cao Dingyun's hypothesis is in fact the position of Lady Hao (=Bi Xin) in the cyclical sacrifices after the reign of Zu Jia: she is the first spouse mentioned, before the two others, the order being Bi Xin, Bi Gui, and Bi Wu. Chang Yuzhi interprets this order as representing the order of death,¹⁴⁹ in which case Lady Hao would have been the first spouse to die. There is another explanation: the order in the cyclical sacrifices could also be the order of status. The fact that a lot of inscriptions dating from the reign of Zu Jia mention sacrifices to Mother Xin = Lady Hao points toward the honor that her son, Zu Jia himself, extended to his own mother. Since the following kings were sons and grandsons of Zu Jia and not of the other spouses, it would appear natural that they gave the first place to their own ancestress. I propose that the three sons of Wu Ding honored in the cyclical sacrifices be linked to the three spouses of this king this way:

Lady Jing 婦妌 (=Mu/Bi Wu 母/妣戊) was the mother of the younger king;

Lady 婦 (= Lady Shu 婦鼠?) = Mu/Bi Gui 母/妣癸 was the mother of Zu Geng;

Lady Hao 婦好 = Mu/Bi Xin 母/妣辛 was the mother of Zu Jia.¹⁵⁰

A Preliminary Assessment of the Shang Royal Mode of Succession

Is it possible to deduce any formalized mode of transmission of the royal power from the connection we have established between mothers and sons, knowing that those sons had the same father? The answer is nuanced: if we posit the existence of formal rules, the example of the younger king is inconclusive, since his title appears to be a unique case. The choice of this prince as an heir apparent by the king Wu Ding was probably linked with the political necessities of his reign. This decision came to naught, because of the death of the younger king before the end of the king's reign. Were the two other princes, sons of Wu Ding, elevated to the throne by virtue of a rule? The documents available do not allow for this conclusion. Furthermore, the observable status of at least two of the mothers of the succeeding kings (Lady Hao/Bi Xin and Bi Gui) seems to have been equivalent. In other words, the later sources mention of the difference between sons of the principal spouses (dizi 嫡子) and sons of the concubines (shuzi 庶子) do not apply to Shang period.

It does not mean that heirs to the royal power were not selected; but this selection was not formalized at that time, and it was dependent on circumstances. The royal succession was an individual competition between brothers but also probably the result of marital alliances, the choice made by the reigning monarch playing an important role, of course, as the example of the “younger king” shows.

There might be another element linked to the choice of a king. Zheng Huisheng 鄭慧生 has suggested that the paradoxical evocation in the Shi ji of the last Shang king, Zhou Xin 紂辛, that is to say Di Xin 帝辛, was in fact the generic description of the personal qualities expected from a Shang monarch:¹⁵¹

帝紂資辨捷疾，聞見甚敏；材力過人，手格猛獸。；

The god-king Zhou's intelligence and discernment was quick, his hearing and sight particularly acute, his natural abilities surpassed (those of other) men, and he could vanquish wild beasts with his bare hands.¹⁵²

Therefore, a Shang king would have also been chosen because of his personal prowess. It might be that, indeed, young princes were evaluated by the king during their “apprenticeships,” those personal qualities constituting part of the elements leading to the final choice.

The reign of Wu Ding was marked by selection of an heir designated as “younger king.” While Zai/Zu Jia was not honored with this title, he became eventually the reigning monarch, after the death of the first heir apparent (the “younger king”) and what appears to be an episode of struggle with his reigning brother, Zu Geng. The received sources present the difficult process under the guise of a virtuous flight from his ritually improper elevation to the dignity of heir-in-waiting by Wu Ding, instead of his elder brother, Zu Geng.

The Huayuanzhuang inscriptions open a window into the circumstances surrounding this choice of Zai/Zu Jia by the king Wu Ding: he was in charge of his own demesne (at the eponymous Zai place) and his interactions with Lady Hao, his mother, on the one hand, and with the reigning king himself on the other, were probably keenly observed by the monarch. The alliance contracted by Zai/Zu Jia with the king, through the use of jade bi, reflected one of the processes through which his position as a possible heir to royal dignity was cemented. Did Zu Jia reach the throne according to a rule or because of historical circumstances? The received sources, as we have seen, give a quite ambiguous image of this sovereign accession to the royal position. His capabilities, put to the test, differentiated him from his “competitors,” that is, his brothers. Nevertheless, this competition was not won immediately. Zu Geng had first the upper hand, probably helped by the lineage of his own mother, Mu Geng.

When Zai/Zu Jia finally became king, he was in need of firmly establishing his own legitimacy. Obviously, the legitimacy of a Shang king depended on the identity of his father. It is probably no coincidence that the title di 帝 (that I have translated by “divine”)¹⁵³ was conferred by Zai/Zu Jia himself to his own father, Wu Ding, as this inscription shows:

Heji 24982, period 2, group chu 2: 甲戌卜王曰貞勿告于帝丁。不 [用?]

The day jiaxu cracks, the king tested: do not make the announcement to the divine Ding (= Wu Ding); the sacrifice xi [is not implemented].¹⁵⁴

This new title given by Zai/Zu Jia to his own father thus elevated above other ancestors, was done in order to reinforce the direct link between father and son.

The king Zu Jia had also to affirm his authority over the Shang royal lineages. I surmise that this was done through:

• a policy of alliances with the princes, either descendant of past kings or other brothers also sons of Wu Ding;

• the foundation of a series of sacrifices offered to a series of ancestors beginning with Shang Jia, and organized in cycles, the Zhouji.

The first iteration of the cyclical sacrifices, under his reign, was not exactly a fixed and final system: while the direct predecessors of Zu Jia (Zu Ji and Zu Geng mentioned as Brother Ji and Brother Geng) were included, none of the three spouses of Wu Ding, each mother to a future king, was. This absence was, of course, linked to the difficulties involved in the process of succession itself, difficulties emerging in part from the practice of marital alliances, that is to say the marriage of a king with several spouses given to him by different (Shang and non-Shang) lineages. Those alliances gave birth to instability after the end of the reign of Wu Ding: two of his sons, each coming from a different maternal lineage, were in position to succeed him, a situation that led to rivalry.

This episode of instability, while well documented, is not the first occurring during Shang period. One could say that it is the reiteration of a series of crisis of succession happening before the reign of Wu Ding. The insights gained during the examination of the Zai/Zu Jia crisis will be invaluable when examining his reign and the troubled period preceding and leading to his accession to the throne. It will also allow further research to analyze the long term implications of those crisis for the evolution of the royal Shang lineage and the devolution of the royal power.