Bringing the Railway to Daming

When Liu Kuan selected these five videos, he actually divided them into three categories. The first two videos on the relationship between food and population were one category, and the two in the middle from the "Ming Dynasty Splendor" series were another category.

The last one, "The real Conferred Gods Are Not in the Cinema, But in Yinxu", is another category, and compared with the first four videos, it is just to make up the numbers.

Because this video is purely for broadening the horizons of the Zhu family, at most it can help them learn some lessons from the history of the Shang Dynasty discovered in later generations.

In terms of video quality alone, this video is definitely the best.

At the beginning of the video, against the backdrop of darkness, a desolate background music sung by many men seems to come from the distant ancient times. At the same time, the 3D picture of Yinxu restored by AI technology in later generations gradually becomes clear in the video.

A serious man explained, "More than three thousand years ago, the funeral of the Shang king was taking place."

There is a text description in the lower left corner of the video, but it is: Tomb of King Wu Ding!

The chanting in the background music gradually became clearer, as if it had come from ancient times to reality.

"The black bird, sent by Heaven, descended and gave birth to the Shang Dynasty..."

"The enormous mausoleum resembles an inverted pyramid, housing a bronze tripod even larger than the Simuwu Ding and numerous other treasures."

"While ancient civilizations of the same period gradually disappeared, their writing systems have survived to this day with remarkable vitality."

"Not far away, over a hundred thousand people lived in the capital city, which was a world-leading metropolis at the time, Dayi Shang!"

"The Shang Dynasty, China's most mysterious dynasty, why was it so powerful? The truth often transcends myth."

The scene in the video returns to the real Anyang Yinxu Museum, and then changes to two large golden bronze characters - Yin and Shang!
Just by watching the beginning of this video, Lao Zhu, Zhu Biao and others felt a tingling sensation as if they were watching a blockbuster movie, a feeling that the previous four videos could not bring.

The main film begins with the remains of human sacrifice pits in Yinxu, and begins to tell the story of the sacrificial customs of the Shang Dynasty.

"In the royal mausoleum area of ​​Yinxu, there are more than 3,000 sacrificial pits for cattle, horses, elephants, and humans, forming a massive sacrificial site covering tens of thousands of square meters."

"The King of Shang expended so much manpower and material resources for one ultimate goal—to deify Him!"

Seeing this, both Old Zhu and Zhu Biao were stunned, wondering: "Conferring the Gods?" Could it be that the Shang Dynasty really had mastered the legendary art of conferring the gods? Were there really gods and immortals in ancient times?
No wonder they thought so.

Although Liu Kuan brought scientific ideas to the Ming Dynasty, in their view, the "crossing" of the cross-river bridge and the railway was not something that could be explained by science as Liu Kuan said, but more like a real miracle.

In particular, Zhu Biao speculated based on several pieces of news he saw in later times that the cross-river bridges and the Beijing-Shanghai railway should still exist in later times.

This is equivalent to the Ming Dynasty at that time suddenly having an extra cross-river bridge and railway. Who else could do such a miracle except the legendary gods?
So although the two believed in the science that Liu Kuan talked about, they also felt that immortals and gods might really exist, but they were just more ethereal and difficult to find than people imagined.

However, as the video continued, Lao Zhu realized that he had misunderstood. The "conferring of gods" mentioned in the video was not the art of conferring gods.

"This was the Shang Dynasty's darkest hour. Government was in chaos, internal strife was rampant, and the capital was forced to move from place to place. Three thousand three hundred years ago, the Shang people relocated their capital to Yin, but the newly built city was destroyed by a devastating fire."

"Next, the new king, Wu Ding, takes the stage, and a battle to change fate is brewing. He will harness the power of the gods to make Shang great again."

"A key step was to use sacrifices to imprint a 'stain of thought' on everyone's mind - only by surrounding the Shang king and offering sacrifices to the heavens could one receive the gods' blessing."

"The King of Shang thus attained supreme status, but this was not enough; he also sought to monopolize the right to communicate with the gods..."

The video then uses the ruins of Yinxu to tell the story of the Shang Dynasty's divination, sacrifices, military affairs and other things related to "conferring the gods".

The first point that the video focuses on is the military capabilities of the Shang Dynasty, which shocked people like Zhu Biao and Zhu Su who thought they had read a lot of books and had some knowledge of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The video shows that there are many chariots in the ruins of Yinxu, and they are of various shapes. From horse bridles to carriages, many of them have bronze parts, which seem to be not much behind the chariots of the Spring and Autumn Period.

How numerous were the Shang Dynasty chariots? Oracle bones even record incidents of chariot accidents involving powerful officials.

In addition, the King of Shang was extremely fond of divination, and he would consult divination for both big and small matters.

For example, when Wu Ding was away on military campaigns, he missed Fu Hao and would use oracle bones to divine, asking the heavens about Fu Hao's condition. These oracle bones have been preserved to later generations and are even considered the earliest love letters.

In addition, the Shang Dynasty had many heroic generals, such as Fu Hao, the female god of war, and General Yading, who was born in Huainan and had a bronze arm reattached after his arm was broken.

It was precisely by relying on the powerful bronze chariots, armor and many powerful generals that the Shang Dynasty was able to conquer the rebellious forces in all directions and force the princes to accept the "deification" of the Shang Dynasty and obey the rule of the Shang Dynasty.

However, this ritual of "conferring gods" gradually got out of control and even became crazy in the late Shang Dynasty, especially during the reign of King Zhou Di Xin.

King Zhou not only used captives from conquering hostile forces as sacrifices, but even used some ministers and princes who disobeyed him as sacrifices.

As hatred accumulated internally and externally, King Wu of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Ji Fa, realized that the time had come to attack the tyrannical Shang Dynasty. He led his troops eastward and defeated the hundreds of thousands of Shang Dynasty troops in the Battle of Muye, and then occupied the Shang capital of that time, Chaoge.

The Shang Dynasty thus fell, being replaced by the Western Zhou Dynasty. The video has reached its end, and it discusses the many tombs of the Shang kings. One of these tombs is empty, believed to be the tomb of King Zhou Di Xin—who died by self-immolation after his country was destroyed, and naturally could not be buried in a royal tomb.

Finally, the video ends by telling the stories of some archaeologists.

After the video's credits were finished, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed: "Shang was unrighteous, so Zhou attacked it; King You of Zhou played tricks on the princes by lighting beacons on them, and Haojing was destroyed by the Quanrong, which led to the princes vying for supremacy."

"Qin unified the six kingdoms, but the second emperor was unjust, and the people rebelled. During the early Han Dynasty, the people were destitute, and the Green Forest and Red Eyebrows rebelled. During the late Han Dynasty, the people were destitute, and the Yellow Turban Rebellion also occurred."

"Emperor Yang of Sui was unjust, and eighteen rebel kings emerged; at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the emperor and his ministers ignored the lives of the people, and even Huang Chao broke into Luoyang."

"Besides the Song Dynasty, which was destroyed by the barbarians due to its weakness, the Yuan Dynasty, our Ming Dynasty, and even the Qing Dynasty, all destroyed their countries because they forced the people to have no way to survive."

"The causes and consequences of the rise and fall of dynasties are clearly recorded in history books. How is it that no dynasty has been able to avoid this?"

Zhu Biao, Zhu Chong, Zhu Su and other princes and grandsons of the emperor were speechless for a moment.

Seeing that Old Zhu had finished speaking and looked over, Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty, there's a saying on the internet in later generations: 'The only lesson humanity has learned from history is that humanity has never learned any lessons from history.'"

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others pondered it and felt that it seemed reasonable, but also unreasonable.

Liu Kuan added, "In fact, every dynasty not only faces problems that the previous dynasty faced and failed to solve, but also faces some new problems."

"So, even if a new dynasty can learn some lessons from the previous one and solve some problems that the previous dynasty failed to solve, there will always be new problems that continue to accumulate and eventually drag down the dynasty."

"If we want to prolong our national prosperity, we must constantly address the various problems facing the country. This requires us to do our utmost in domestic affairs, military affairs, science and technology, education, and other areas, so as not to pass on chronic illnesses to the country from generation to generation."

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and sighed, "That's true. Otherwise, why is it said that 'conquering the world is easy, but ruling it is difficult'?"

Perhaps feeling the topic was too heavy, Zhu Biao spoke up, "Father, I feel that the Shang Dynasty's method of deifying the gods by offering sacrifices to them was a 'stigma' for the people. This is similar to the Han Dynasty, when successive dynasties used Confucianism to unify people's thinking and instill loyalty and respect for the emperor."

"Of course, from our current perspective, whether it's the Zhou rituals that followed the Shang Dynasty or the Han Dynasty's exclusive emphasis on Confucianism that followed the Qin Dynasty, both are better than the Shang Dynasty's method of maintaining ideological control through sacrifices and even human sacrifices to deify the gods."

"However, from the Han Dynasty to the present day, successive dynasties have relied on Confucianism to maintain their rule for over a thousand years. It's time for further reform and progress."

"My brother-in-law brings scientific ideas that can make up for the shortcomings of Confucianism. It can be said that it is just in time."

Wow, Zhu Biao's words not only surprised Liu Kuan, but also Old Zhu was quite surprised.

"Biao'er is right." Old Zhu stroked his beard, smiling. "It's high time for our Ming Dynasty to promote scientific thought. It's time for our Ming Dynasty to flourish!"

At this time, Zhu Xiongying also said, "Grandpa Emperor, I believe that the reason why the Shang Dynasty was so powerful during the reign of Wu Ding was mainly due to its powerful bronze technology."

"It's a pity that the Shang Dynasty had no benevolence or righteousness towards the people of the world. Later, King Zhou even killed his own people, causing him to lose the support of people both inside and outside the country."

"Additionally, bronze technology didn't make significant progress, and the feudal lords gradually mastered bronze technology over the course of hundreds of years, becoming increasingly powerful. This ultimately led to the downfall of the Shang Dynasty."

"Thanks to the various scientific technologies brought by our teacher, our Ming Dynasty is now far more powerful than any other country in the world in terms of national strength and military power. Our situation is somewhat similar to that of the Shang Dynasty. We should learn from the history of the Shang Dynasty."

"We must not only be benevolent and righteous towards all nations, but we must also ensure that we remain benevolent and righteous towards the people of our Ming Dynasty. Furthermore, we must persist in developing science and technology, and always maintain our absolute lead in national and military strength. Only then can our nation prosper and endure."

When Zhu Xiongying said this, almost everyone looked at him sideways, which was even more surprising than when Zhu Biao said that.

After all, Zhu Biao was already in his thirties, and with his knowledge and experience, it was not surprising that he could say such insightful words.

But Zhu Xiongying was only seventeen years old, and he could say such insightful words, which surprised and impressed everyone.

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed even more heartily after hearing this.

"Xiong Ying, you're right! If you have this insight and educate your sons and grandsons well in the future, our Ming Dynasty might be able to guarantee five generations of wise rulers!"

Seeing this, Zhu Tan smiled and said, "Five generations is not enough? With the 'Imperial Ming Ancestor Instructions' left by my father, our Ming Dynasty must have six, seven, or even eight generations of wise rulers!"

He thought that this flattery would surely please Zhu Yuanzhang, and that Zhu Yuanzhang might even support him in establishing vassal states overseas.

Who would have thought that after hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang stopped laughing and seemed a little unhappy.

Seeing this, Liu Kuan laughed secretly: It would be strange if Old Zhu could be happy. In history, "The Imperial Ming Ancestor's Instructions" was shelved by successive emperors, and was even used by ministers to blackmail the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

It has a counter-effect. (End of this chapter)