Di Xin

Di Xin 帝辛 (posthumous name), still called Zhou Wang (紂王) or Zhou Xin (紂辛), is the last king of the Chinese dynasty Shang, successor of its father Di Yi (帝乙). It would have had for Zi family name (子) and a personal name Shou (受). Its dates of reign are -1154 ~ -1122 according to traditional historiography, and -1086 ~ -1045 according to a more recent evaluation based on the oracular inscriptions.

Its reputation is that of a sovereign of an appalling tyranny, magnet to make suffer people and inventing many new forms of Torture, devoting itself to the vice, because of what it would be known in certain mediums like the god of the Sodomie, under the name of Chou Wang . The general detestation with respect to its behavior would have involved defections, allowing king Wu of the kingdom close and ferroaluminium to the Zhou to overcome it with the battle of Muye (牧野). Di Xin would have put fire at its palate and would have been let burn inside.

The Chinese historians of antiquity retained the name of two of his/her older brothers, born from a concubine, Wei Zi (微子) and Wei Zhong (微仲), of two wire, Wu Geng (武庚) and Lu Fu (祿父), and of two paternal uncles, Bi Gan (比干) and Ji Zi (箕子). After the victory of Zhou, Wei Zi would have become their ferroaluminium and would have been seen entrusting the control of the Shang territory, which will become the State of Song. A Korean legend makes of Ji Zi the founder of the kingdom of Gija Joseon.

Young person, Di Xin would have shown much talent and military courage, gaining a victory over Dongyi (東夷), rival people of the East, at one period when, according to certain historians, the control of the king did not extend beyond from a score of kilometers around the capital. Thereafter, it would have been let submerge by its taste of alcohol and the women and would have become cruel, organizing drinking bouts and orgies in its palate and liking themselves, in company of Daji (妲己), his preferred concubine, to make torture and carry out all its opponents, of which his/her uncle Bi Gan which had come to make him remonstrances. His/her other uncle Ji Zi, trying in his turn to bring back it to the reason, should have claimed to be insane to have the safe life, but was not imprisoned less by it. The end of its reign thus is traditionally regarded as one period of extreme moral decline, which constitutes the backdrop of the Nomination of the gods , historico-fantastic novel of the Dynastie Ming whose Di Xin and its contemporaries are the heroes.

Nevertheless, much of modern academics like Gu Jiegang (顧頡剛), historian and philologist, suspect that its character was blackened gradually to put the History in coherence with the concept of Mandat of the Sky. Indeed, as one goes up in time starting from the Qin dynasty, the comments on Di Xin become less and less désobligeants, and more increasingly eulogistic, complimenting its intelligence and its bravery. Commenting on the account of the end of Shang, Zi Gong (子貢), disciple of Confucius, expresses as the opinion as one had lent to Di Xin, deposed sovereign, in addition to his clean, all turpitudes of the kingdom.

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