King Wu of Zhou defeated the army of King Zhou and founded the Zhou Dynasty, thus bringing the dark days of the Shang Dynasty to an end. In history, the Zhou Dynasty is divided into two periods -the Western Zhou (1046 BC-771 BC) and the Eastern Zhou (770 BC-256 BC).
King You of Zhou was the last sovereign of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He was indolent and licentious and neglected all state affairs as he spent all his time and energy in the pursuit of decadent pleasure. Ministers who counseled him to administer the affairs of state in a proper way, were punished without mercy. When he pleaded for a minister who had given advice to the King and been punished, a minister named Bao Xiang was thrown in prison and left there years. His family could think of no way to save Bao Xiang, so finally they purchased a beautiful girl from the countryside, and presented her to King Zhou as a concubine after carefully training her. This was just so that Bao Shang would be set free and reunited with his family.
The girl was named Baosi and she was very beautiful and quickly won King You’s favour. However, Baosi did not like King You. So she had never laughed once after entering the palace.
King You was infatuated with her and so he ordered that anyone who could amuse the new empress would be rewarded with 1,000 taels gold. Many people went to the palace to make suggestions as to how to amuse her. However, the empress did not laugh even once and they were all beheaded by King You.
An obsequious villain named Guo Shifu said to King You, “To prevent the Quanrong nomads from encroaching on the frontier, we built dozens of warning beacons on Lishan Hill near the capital in the past. If the Quanrong came, the soldiers there would light the warning beacons. Seeing the beacon fires, your vassals all over the land would come to the capital to fight. Now it is peaceful. If we had the beacon lit, those vassals would be fooled. The empress would see the military forces running hither and thither. She would be very amused and would laugh. ”
King You had the beacon fire lit as Guo Shifu advised. He sat with Baosi on the gate tower, waiting to see the fun.
Fire blazed from the beacon tower. Many of the king’s vassals led their troops to the capital, but found, to their surprise, not one Quanrong solider.
King You sent word to tell those who had come that it had all been a joke to amuse the Empress. There was no danger. They could go home. The vassals were very angry. They were also hungry and tired and had to return home that same night.
King You asked Baosi, “Did you find that funny?”
Baosi gave a broad grin. King You was very happy as he had finally got to see the smiling face of his favorite concubine. He awarded 1,000 taels of gold to Guo Shifu. On a number of subsequent occasions the King had the beacon fires lit just to amuse Baosi. The nobles grew more and more enraged.
Then one time the Quanrong really did mount an attack upon the Zhou capital Haojing. King You immediately ordered that the beacon fires be lit. However no armies came to his succour. King You and Guo Shifu were killed and Baosi was captured. The Quanrong army withdrew only after setting fire to the capital.
Fearing Quanrong would come again, the new Zhou King Ping moved the capital eastward to Luoyi in 770 BC, thus beginning the time of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
