Battle of Zhuolu 逐鹿之战 | Myths of China E12

So, after the battle of Banquan we spoke about in the last episode, the Huaxia people finally consolidated into a single entity. However, Siyou and the Jiuli tribes were not so keen on this idea of consolidation, and therefore they conducted multiple raids into the Huaxia lands to exert their dominance over the central plains. And of course, this would escalate over time, and before long we have the battle of Zoulu. Now, the battle of Zoulu was one of the most important battles in Chinese history, because it had a monumental effect on the future development of the Chinese as a people and as a civilization. So, what happened in this battle, and how did it affect the future trajectory of the development of the Chinese civilization? Stick around to find out all about it in Hello and welcome to the Chainsmoking Writer's channel, where we share the myths, legends and histories of the Chinese people, from the first creation myth to the last imperial dynasty. More than 6,000 years of stories, one video at a time. So, if you like this kind of stories and videos, please remember to subscribe to the channel. So, after the defeat of Yan Di at the battle of Banquan, which we spoke about in the last episode, the Shennong tribe was assimilated into the Xuanyuan tribes, which effectively consolidated the Huaxia people into one single entity. Now, it was around this time that Siyou and the Jiuli people discovered copper ores, and they came up with a way to cast it, mix it with tin and cast it as bronze. And because of this discovery, they were able to create bronze weapons and bronze armour, effectively bringing the people into the early bronze age. Now, with this discovery, Siyou and the Jiuli people basically had a technological advantage over the Huaxia people, in terms of equipment and in terms of tools. And so, Siyou thought to himself, well, since I'm stronger now, I should be the king of the land, I should be the overlord of this realm. And before long, he got the support of his 81 brothers and their clans, and he went on to convince the Miao Man people of the south to join him in his cause. He even went as far as recruiting the mountain demons, Zhimei, and the river demons, Wangliang, and the evil spirits, Shenshu and Yulu, to aid him in his fight against the Huaxia. Now, being a formal vessel of Yandi, Siyou very smartly used the excuse of restoring Yandi and his realm to invade the Huaxia people. And thus, under that banner, Siyou raised his great bronze army and they marched into Huangti's domain. Now, the two armies met on the fields of Zhulu, which is in today's Zhulu county, northwest Hebei. And Huangti's great beast army, who proved so adept at fighting in the previous battle at Panquan, could not stand up against the great bronze warriors and the demons that were sent out by Siyou. And it wasn't long before they were routed. And seeing the fleeing enemy, Siyou blew a great thick fog out of his nose. Yeah, the guy can blow fog out of his nose, so let's go with it. So he blew out this great thick fog that covered the entire battlefield, and it trapped Huangti and his forces within the battlefield. Having no visibility and no way to tell north from south, east to west, they could not escape from this battlefield. Under the conditions, Huangti's forces were at a very real risk of being annihilated and being wiped out once and for all. So what to do? They tried all ways and means to find their way out of this predicament, but they couldn't do anything about it. Now, after being trapped in the fog for three days, being harried and chased by Siyou's soldiers and warriors, they were really at their weakest ends. And it was at this time, one of Huangti's followers, Fengguo, he looked up to the sky and he found inspiration from the North Star and the Big Deeper constellation. So what he did was that he came up with an idea to invent this contraption which we call the Zi Nan Che, or the South Pointing Chariot, or the South Pointing Car. And what this chariot did was that it would point unwaveringly towards the south. Now how this South Pointing Chariot worked is pretty ingenious, and considering that it's more than four to five thousand years old, it's pretty mind-blowing. So what they did basically was that they had this figure of a pointing man. And in this case, he would be pointing south once they found the direction south. Now the bottom of this figure was connected via a differential gear train to the shafts of the carriage's wheels. And what this does is basically no matter how the carriage turns, the figure will always be pointing in the same direction that it was set up to point in. In this case, south. And so you have a method of knowing which direction you're moving. You know, no matter how you twist and turn, and no matter how far you went, you will always know where south is. And it was through this South Pointing Chariot that Huangdi and his forces were able to escape the battlefield and escape the fog. So Huangdi and his followers managed to escape from the battlefield and from the fog. But however, that's not the end of the story. Siyou and his soldiers were still constantly chasing them down and harassing them. Huangdi and his followers would still be on a series of retreats. Every time Siyou and his soldiers caught up, they were engaged and Huangdi would lose the engagement and retreat further. So it was an entire series of engagement, retreat, engagement, retreat. And as you can imagine, it was a very bad time for the Huaxia people and Huangdi was at a loss at what to do. How can he turn this situation around? How can he gain the upper hand? And so one night as he was pondering these problems, he fell asleep. A gold-armoured deity appeared to him in his dreams and beckoned Huangdi to follow him. Huangdi, of course, followed this deity and they made their way to the palace of the Queen Mother of the West, or Si Wang Mu. So the Queen Mother smiled kindly at Huangdi and asked him gently, Oh sovereign of men, why do you look so vexed? Huangdi replied, Oh Queen Mother, I am so troubled because I can think of no way to defeat Siyou and protect my people from harm. Upon hearing that, the Queen Mother nearly smiled and responded in a kind of off-handed way, and told him, Oh it is but a small matter. I will get the Holy Maiden of the Nine Heavens, or Jiu Tian Xuan Nu, to teach you a way to defeat him. So the Holy Maiden, or Jiu Tian Xuan Nu, delivered this manuscript. This manuscript of military tactics and strategy is called the Yin Fu Jing to Huangdi, and instructed Huangdi to study the entire manuscript and memorise it by heart. If he could do that, victory would be within reach. And being of superior intellect, Huangdi memorised and internalised the entire manuscript within no time. Huangdi then went on to teach his soldiers how to build formations according to what was recorded in the Yin Fu Jing. These formations had so many variations and so many changes that it was able to transition into 1,800 forms to deal with all kinds of situations on the battlefield. This was drilled into the soldiers over and over and over again, until it became second nature to these armies on how to move and how to react to any situation that might arise on the battlefield. Huangdi then ordered his men to capture this mythical beast called the Kui from Liupo Shan, or Liupo Mountain. This Kui was a beast that had a thundering roar that could move the heavens and earth when it goes... and most probably maybe even cause earthquakes. It had a skin, a tough skin, that actually shone like crystals in the myriad of colours when light hits it. When his men captured the beast, Huangdi ordered them to skin the beast and make a giant great war drum out of the skin. This was to boost the morale of his men on the battlefield. He then ordered another group of his men to go into Lei Ze, or the Thunder Marshes, to capture this creature called the Thunder Beast. According to records, this is a beast that had the face of a man and the body of a dragon. Now, this is the interesting part. You can slap this beast on the tummy and it would produce a clap of thunder that can be heard for miles around. Imagine this when you're slapping the belly of a beast and you get thunder roaring over the land. That's interesting. Back to the story. The thing is, they managed to capture this Thunder Beast and Huangdi ordered the beast to be killed. The ticker's bone in this beast was made into a drum mallet to strike the great war drum that was made from the Kui's skin. When all the preparations were made and when Huangdi felt that his men were sufficiently trained and prepared, the two armies met again on the fields of Zholu. At this time, Ciyou was pretty confident that he could just wipe Huangdi out simply, easily, based on previous experiences. With a mighty roar, Ciyou ordered his entire army of bronze warriors, demons and evil spirits and he ordered all of them into a full frontal assault against Huangdi's men. While on the other side of the battlefield, Huangdi made sure that his soldiers, his forces, were lined up properly according to the formations that he has taught them to avoid the assault on their lines. So here you have this great charging army of bronze warriors, demons and spirits. The mountain spirits had a shriek or scream that would shatter any man's heart. The water demons, the river demons, they would mesmerize any man who laid eyes on them and they would eat them up alive. This great bronze army had the best equipment and the best weapons that anyone has seen in the land at that time. All these people are charging towards Huangdi's army, who were stoically holding formation and quietly waiting for the lines to meet. Once Ciyou's army was almost within engagement range, Huangdi gave the order and the great war drum was struck. The thumping of the war drum sent shock waves across the air and it caused the battlefield to rumble and to shake. Right after that, great war horns were sounded. The sounds of these war horns were mimicking the roar of dragons and it gave the illusion that there were tens of thousands of dragons hiding within Huangdi's army that were charging into battle. The rumbling of the drums and the roar of the horns and all this cacophony that was going on, it really caused great confusion within the ranks of Ciyou's armies. The river demons, the mountain demons and the evil spirits were so scared, they were so afraid of what they thought were dragons coming for them, that they actually started a stampede within the ranks. The whole army was thrown into disarray. Having seen what happened, seeing what was happening in Ciyou's ranks, Huangdi ordered the movement of his soldiers, his men, and they changed formations to encircle the enemy, while Huangdi himself led a troop, a crack troop of his followers to engage in battle directly. With this sudden turn of events, Ciyou was caught totally off guard. With Huangdi personally leading a charge into the thick of battle, I guess Ciyou kind of lost his bearing and somehow in the heat of battle, Ciyou was slain. He died in battle. With their leader gone and being encircled by Huangdi's forces, what happened next I think would be best described as a massacre. They were practically wiped out. After the battle, of course there were a fair few that managed to escape this brutal massacre. Whatever remains of the Jiuli tribes were basically broken. These people, of course, they were feared repercussions and vengeance. They basically scattered, they dispersed all over the land. Of course, some of them would be assimilated into the Huaxia people, but whoever was not assimilated, they dispersed and they escaped. With one part of them escaping to the northeast and joining up with the Tongyi. A very big part of them actually escaped southwest, outside the influence, outside the sphere of influence of Huangdi and the Huaxia people. These people that went to the southwest, and joined up with the Miao Man people, would later evolve and develop into what is today known as the Miao tribes, the Miao people of Sichuan. They are still around today. The interesting part of this is that while the Han Chinese today would recognize Yandi and Huangdi as their common ancestor, the Miao people of Sichuan, until today, they are still worshipping Ciyou as their ancestor. The Miao people recognized Ciyou and they worshipped him as kind of a guardian deity and their common ancestor. The Miao people refer to him as Jiqip Youlao. I'm sure I butchered that pronunciation. While Jiqip translates to old man or grandfather, Youlao translates to hero. If you go into the Miao regions in Sichuan today, they are still in their traditional garbs and they still stick very closely to their old traditions and culture. In fact, it's one of the major tourist attractions to go there. If you go there today, many of their culture, traditions and festivities, their festivals, are still deeply rooted to Ciyou and his stories. If you ever travel to China and specifically the Sichuan region, you might want to check this out. Now back to the Huaxia side of the story. What happened after this battle? The thing is, now that the last major threat is gone, the Huaxia and Huangti and his people has total dominance over the central plains, the central regions. It sort of acted as a catalyst for further assimilation of smaller tribes and smaller clans in the region. So Huangti effectively became the de facto ruler of the entire realm. This, in a way, provided a very good breeding ground for the development of society and the development of technology. A lot of new discoveries and inventions were actually made during Huangti's time. Things like the first writings, silk, even alcohol. All these stories we will talk about in future episodes, so keep your eyes peeled. The point is, this consolidation and assimilation of all the peoples in the region into one single entity, in a way provided society with the stability that it needed to make a leap from more or less a semi-prehistoric life into what we will call civilisation, cultured civilisation. This was like the turning point in the early development of Chinese civilisation and that is why we call Huangti as the father of Chinese civilisation, because of these events that happened. If you enjoyed this story and you find that you actually learned quite a few things from it, remember to give this video a like and subscribe for future videos. Now, we'll go into the bonus facts section. Now, this story about the Battle of Zoulu, of course it is part historical, part mythological with a lot of exaggerations. What with the demons and the spirits and fog coming out of the nose. However, if we look beyond the mythical and the magical facade, there are some traces of what happened that we can find from this story. Number one, Siyou and the Jiuli tribes were often depicted as being monstrous and almost demon-like, almost inhuman. However, we know that the Jiuli tribe and Siyou's followers were a very united people back in the day. They had a tradition of wearing very ornate masks that were decorated to be very fearsome and very monstrous looking when they go into battle. That is most probably where the stories of Siyou commanding an army of demons and evil spirits come from. Number two, the discovery of metal ores could most probably be accidental. Natural metal ores could have been exposed in the open through intense forest fires or lightning strikes. This intense heat might have melted the metal elements of the ores and created these early ingots or nuggets of metal. The people could have discovered them and specifically in this case, copper. With the addition of tin later on, they combined to make bronze. It is believed that Siyou and the Jiuli people were one of the earliest, at least on the East Asian continent, to discover bronze casting. This technological advantage allowed them to basically have better equipment and better weaponry to aid them in their battles against the Huaxia people. Number three, apart from the technological advantage that Siyou enjoyed over Huangdi and his Huaxia tribes, another reason that you could attribute to Siyou's initial winning over Huangdi in their engagements was because of the battleground. The battles were fought mainly downstream of the Yellow River, the downstream regions of the Yellow River. The Huaxia people came from upstream of the Yellow River, further up north. The downstream area where the battles were taking place was an unfamiliar terrain. It was a region that is more humid, wetter and you always have rains and drizzles falling throughout the year. This is something that is very unfamiliar to the Huaxia people, the original Huaxia people that actually came from a drier climate. These rains and humidity most probably will contribute to heavy fog and mist that covered the land. That would explain the part about Siyou blowing fog out of his nose. That is a possibility. That will contribute to the early defeats that Huangdi suffered at the hands of Siyou because unfamiliar terrain. They don't even know what the heck was going on. Siyou and the Jiuli people would be able to take the climate and the terrain and squeeze as much advantage out of it as possible. Number four, now even though Siyou and the Jiuli tribes enjoyed advantage, technological advantage and terrain advantage in the early days of their engagements, we cannot forget the fact that the Huaxia people and Huangdi enjoyed a numerical advantage and they had a stronger and deeper foundation to build upon. Don't forget Huangdi was known as a very smart person. Over time, after the initial conflicts, they kind of figured out the terrain, they figured out the climate and they figured out the pattern of attacks, the way that the Jiuli people were attacked and the timings of their attacks. We can see that Siyou and the Jiuli people slowly lost their climate and terrain advantage once the rain season was over. When the weather and the climate became more dry, somewhere around autumn or after the autumn period. That was the battle that Huangdi and the Huaxia people won. They actually won in autumn. We know that because most of the worship rituals and the ceremonies to worship Siyou is actually held in somewhere around October. So indirectly, we can assume that the time, the period between October and November, that was the time that Siyou and the Jiuli people actually lost that battle. Now I hope you enjoyed today's videos and story and if you do, please remember to smash the like button and subscribe to the channel for future videos. If you'd like to support my work or connect with me on other social media platforms, all the links are in the description section below. If you have any suggestions or any feedback you'd like to give me regarding my videos and productions or otherwise, I would like to hear from you in the comment section. Just leave me a comment, I will definitely get back to you. I guess that's it for now. I will see you in the next episode.