Jiu Ji Xin Shi--Research On Zhou Gong's Deeds

As is known to all, Zhou Gong, an outstanding statesman, great thinker in early Zhou Dynasty, is a significant historical figure, who has a great influence not only in his time but also in the coming time. There are, however, many different ideas about his deeds.Zhou Gong and Guan Shu were borne by the same mother. Some historical documents showed that Zhou Gong was the elder brother, but others went just by contraries. Through thorough analysis, I found that he was the third child, next to Wu Wang, and that Zhou Gong was older than Guan Shu.There are a lot of controversies in the academic circles about Zhou Gong's political status after Wu Wang's death. As a matter of fact, during the time of Yinzhou, the regulation in force was that the successor to the throne must be the king's eldest son. Because Cheng Wang was very young when Wu Wang died, Zhou Gong acted as regent as the prime minister and seven years later Cheng Wang became the real emperor. In some passages ofSHANGSHU, "King" didn't refer to Zhou Gong, because Zhou Gong didn't proclaim himself King when he acted as regent.Before Wu Wang's death, Zhou Gong had played an important role in assisting him in governing the country. In addition to that, he did even more to stablize the country and consolidate the political power of Zhou Dynasty when he acted as regent. The comments and summaries about his achievements when he was a prince regent in SHANG SHU DA ZHUAN are basically factual. There were only some deviations in understanding some concrete issues later.There are no evident documents that can prove Zhou Gong or Bo Qin was granted Lu Kingdom. Actually, they were both made prince; the difference is only in the fief. The territory granted to Zhou Gong by Wu Wang was now where Lushan, Henan province lies. The situation changed greatly after Wu Wang's death. It was not until the East had been put down, the 8* year of Cheng Wang, that Bo Qin was granted at Qufu. And only then Lu kingdom was established.In this article, many research methods of the study of historical documents have been employed and many conclusions are based on the reinterpretation of the documents. Therefore, this article is followed by other three papers which express my personal ideas about the value of JIN BEN ZHU SHU JI MAN, my understanding of JIN TENG in SHANG SHU and about the sequence of ZHOUGAO. They are actually the basis of this article and therefore are closely related to the study of this article.