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King Wen, King Wu and the Mandate of Heaven

 

The story of the Mandate of Heaven revolves around the idea that Heaven (Tian) confers a Mandate (Ming) on a ruling family, a mandate that can be revoked for immoral or evil behavior that flaunts the ancestors or harms the people. According to this story, the last Shang kings were such tyrants, ignoring the ancestors, oppressing the people and indulging in murderous drunken debauchery. Their overthrow by the rising Zhou line is the story of the establishment of an order that renews the time, an order under which communication with the spirits is re-established and the blessings once again flow for all in a Golden Age.

 

King Wen, King Wu and the Duke of Zhou

The story centers on King Wen (Wenwang), the spiritual father of the Zhou or “Pattern King” who brought them to prominence, and his sons King Wu (Wuwang) and the Duke of Zhou, the Martial King and his War Leader who received the Mandate and launched the armies. The key events begin with the marriage of the daughters of the Shang ruler Di Yi to King Wen, spiritual father of the Zhou, seen in Figures 11 and 54. From this marriage came King Wu and the Duke of Zhou.

 
King Wen, who watched and waited for the signal from Heaven all his life, died before it came. It was King Wu who actually received the Mandate for Change when he was in mourning for his father at his military capital, Feng (name of Figure 55). Empowered by clear omens from Heaven, he broke all tradition, left the Mourning Hut and ordered his war leader, the Duke of Zhou, to launch the armies (Figure 7). They crossed the Great Stream into Shang and fought a critical battle at Muye, the Mu wilderness, which ended in a complete rout of the Shang armies, many of whom deserted and fought with the Zhou. After the battle, King Wu and his entourage entered the Shang capital and executed the Shang tyrant and his concubines.

 

Renewing the Time

The result of this, in Chinese thought, was the re-establishment of the ritual connection with Heaven and a re-ordering of the world through which blessings (fu) could flow once more. The story of the Mandate of Heaven was inscribed into the book and tradition of Change and became an enduring myth in the culture. It is the story of the good king who, waiting on Heaven’s blessing, overthrows a corrupt tyrant, renews the time and helps the people, restoring a golden age of ancient virtue to the land. Even today, using the Change is called “talking to Good King Wu.”