During the reign of the Zhou Dynasty, the influence of the Zhou royal family was limited to Wang Ji (close to present-day Luoyang, the capital of Eastern Zhou at that time). As early as the reign of his grandfather King Xian of Zhou, the power of the Qin state expanded rapidly, with Xi Rong as its hegemon. During the reign of King Zhou, King Qin Zhao basically replaced the son of King Zhou. Therefore, whether the King of Zhou was wise or not, it was useless to save the struggling Zhou Dynasty. By the time King Zhou was in power, the royal family had already declined. I feel that the records in the history books are so chaotic, and there is even such a bizarre statement as the King of Zhou Zhao's "high debt", (this allusion was made up by Yan Shi of the Tang Dynasty, but many people regard it as the correct history) There is no accurate statement about the process or time, as well as the end of the last Tianzi, and few people study this issue. (The topics of the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Warring States Seven Heroes are all debated badly)
According to the "Records of History", in 256 BC, the last joint attack on Yiyang by the Western Zhou state attached to the Zhou royal family ended in failure, and the king of Qin Zhao sent a raid on the western Zhou state, and the western Zhou duke personally went to the qin state to kowtow to apologize (many people in later generations confused the western Zhou duke and the zhou zhao king, saying that the king of Zhou zhao personally surrendered, and finally died because of the rush), sacrificed the land population (36 yi, 30,000 mouths) and was released... In the same year, Ji Yan, the prince of Zhou Zhao, who lived in the Western Zhou King's City and reigned for 59 years, died of illness, "(the original is Zhou Jun, Wang Zhao) The people of the Zhou Kingdom fled eastward, and the Qin State seized the treasures including Jiuding and moved the Duke of Western Zhou to the Shan Xin Fox... Seven years later, King Xiang of Qin zhuang destroyed the Eastern Zhou kingdom, and the Zhou royal family was completely destroyed...
In 1928, after a heavy rain in Luoyang Jincun, the villagers found eight Tianzi tombs, which according to historical records were the resting places of the eight Tianzi after the Zhou royal family, and the exquisite and luxurious degree of funerary products in the tombs far exceeded that of all the princes' tombs that had been excavated... In addition, Luoyang Zhoushan buried three Tianzi of the middle zhou dynasty, as well as the last tianzi of Zhou Zhao.
Among them, the zhou ling king's fiefdom was as high as 55 meters, which was as high as more than a dozen floors (the Qin Emperor's mausoleum built by more than 700,000 people after more than 200 years was only 115 meters), and at that time, the territory of the Zhou royal family had been divided up many times and only a hundred miles were left. The tomb of the last Tianzi King of Zhou Zhao was also more than twenty meters high, and at that time, the Zhou royal family had already died.
In 440 BC, the Zhou royal family had its last civil unrest, the two tianzi were killed one after another, and the victorious King Zhou Kao, in order to stabilize his younger brother who assisted him on the throne, gave him all the remaining land left in the Zhou royal family to continue the office of The Duke of Zhou and establish the "Western Zhou Kingdom". The monarch of the Western Zhou State should be called the Western Zhou Gong, but the two titles of "Western Zhou Jun" and "Western Zhou Gong" appear in the history books.
"Jun" is obviously lower than "Gong", and in the historical record of Zhou Benji, there is first a record of Western Zhou Jun going to Qin to apologize for his sins, and later there is a statement of "Zhou Jun, Wang Zhaopao" (I don't know how to understand this paragraph, is it Western Zhou Jun, Zhou Zhao Wang died one after another, or the Zhou Dynasty monarch Zhou Zhao Wang died), but at the end there is a record of "Western Zhou Gong" being moved to a single heart fox, whether the Western Zhou Gong died or not? In the end, everyone was confused...
At that time, the Qin army should have occupied Luoyang, and it was easy to completely destroy the Zhou royal family, but chose to leave the royal family behind, until the death of the last Tianzi King Zhou Zhao, to seize Jiuding and exile the Duke of Western Zhou...
The historical record is generally very simple, but why did Sima Qian add the four words "Zhou Min's eastern death"? Zhou Min did not choose to flee when the Qin army attacked Luoyang, but fled after the death of King Zhao of Zhou, is it to show that the Zhou royal family still has the people's hearts in the end?
Luoyang was the center of the world throughout the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the most densely populated area, even though the 600-mile Wang Qi in the early years of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was only a hundred miles left in the last year of the Warring States Period, but the core of Luoyang was always under the control of the royal family. Seven years later, Lü Buwei destroyed the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and the former royal homeland became his food estate, with as many as 100,000 residents, no matter how much immigration could not have increased so much in just a few years, so did the so-called 30,000 refer to members of the royal family, not including their people?
How old was King Zhou zhao when he died? This, now without an exact number, should be in their eighties or even a hundred. As the last heavenly son of the Zhou Dynasty, how much of a nest did the king of Zhou Zhao have? The wise see the wise, what do you think? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss.