Shi, Duke of Shao (diedc. 1000 BCE), bornJi Shi, posthumous nameKang (康), also known asLord Shao orDuke of Shao,[a] was a high-ranking minister of the earlyZhou dynasty. He was a member of theroyal clan, the founding lineage head of thestate ofYan, and elder of the minor polity Shao (召國). AfterKing Wu of Zhou's death,Lord Shao supported theDuke of Zhou in his regency and helped suppress theRebellion of the Three Guards. He remained a major figure at court for decades.

The earliest biography of Lord Shao, inSima Qian'sRecords of the Grand Historian, states merely that he was a member of same ancestral temple kinship group as the house of Zhou.^[1]Wang Chong'sLunheng calls him the elder brother of the Duke of Zhou.^[2]Huangfu Mi states Lord Shao was the son ofKing Wen of Zhou by a concubine.^[3] Modern scholarship has not significantly modified this view.Edward Shaughnessy called Lord Shao half-brother to the Duke of Zhou in a 1989 paper.^[4] Maria Khayutina, writing in 2015, reads theGu Ming (顧命) chapter of theShangshu as ordering the lineages who visit the ailingKing Cheng of Zhou by their seniority rank within theJi ancestral temple. With Shao in the first position, prior to the lineages founded by the sons of King Wen she reasons this lineage was founded earlier.^[5]

For his role in theZhou conquest of Shang, King Wu created Lord Shao the regional lord ofYan, but he never went to his lands, sending a son to mind them in his stead.^[1] Lord Shao was also appointed as the Grand Protector (太保), one of theThree Excellencies, the highest ministerial positions in the capital.^[4] The Duke of Zhou was another.

Two years after the conquest, before Zhou power had been completely consolidated, King Wu was dead. His son was considered too young to be fit to rule, and the Duke of Zhou unilaterally took power.^[4] The precedingShang dynasty had handled succession by distributedagnatic seniority,^[6] a pattern which followed would have put the Duke of Zhou next in line for the throne. An illegally excavated manuscript version of a chapter ofShangshu, part of theTsinghua bamboo slips, allows for the reading that the Duke of Zhou had performed a sacrifice to the ancestral spirits to divine whether he was their chosen successor to the ailing King Wu.^[7] The traditional reading interprets this passage to indicate the Duke of Zhou offering his life if the king's could be spared. In both readings, this ceremony is suggested by the other two Ducal Ministers.^[8]

Traditionally, the Duke of Zhou is considered to have assumed regency rather than kingship.^[9] In any case, the son of the vanquished Shang king and affiliated groups, possibly aided by Zhou royal brothers,^[b] took the opportunity to rebel in an action called theRebellion of the Three Guards. Lord Shao allied with the Duke of Zhou, and after three years the rebellion was suppressed.

With the violence quelled, King Wu's son, now three years less young, along with the victorious Lord Shao and Duke of Zhou, entered into a triple alliance, sharing power delicately between them. Lord Shao was given power over the lands to the west of the twin capitals Feng and Hao, on the Wei river in present-dayXi'an,Shaanxi. This included his lineage's power base near the predynastic Zhou capital of Xishan;^[11] the Duke of Zhou was given control over the lands to the east.^[1] It was during this timeframe Lord Shao went to survey the site of the new capital city Luoyi (present dayLuoyang,Henan), which would control both the strategic ford which had facilitated the Zhou conquest in the first place, as well as the pass through the mountains to the Zhou homeland.^[12] The portents were also auspicious, and Lord Shao hadrammed earth city wall constructed in a month's time.^[13]

Multiple episodes carried by theShangshu relate to this period of time, and two in particular relate to each other and the power struggle at court.Jun Shi (君奭), a piece of persuasive writing from the Duke of Zhou to Lord Shao is one, and the other isShao Gao (召誥), mostly by Lord Shao.

The language is archaic, and admits multiple readings. The traditional reading takes into account a cryptic statement that Lord Shao was unhappy at court to readJun Shi as a plea from Lord Shao to remain in his position and help coadminister government affairs until the new king is ready.Shao Gao is then read as an exhortation to the new king to do a good job.^[14]

An alternative reading pits the two chapters against one another, with Lord Shao highlighting how theMandate of Heaven flows only to the eldest son, and the Duke of Zhou calling upon a panoply of worthy ministers of yore to support his platform of how crucial capable ministers are to good government, quoting Lord Shao's own words back at him about how the two of them would work together, asserting that heaven's mandate had come jointly to the Zhou as a group, and ending with an impassioned plea where he addresses Lord Shao as his brother.^[15][c]

Although the two texts are clearly closely related, which is the response to the other is debated.^[18] And whether they are read from a traditional or revisionist viewpoint, regardless of the personal, political, or philosophical motives behind either man's words, soon thereafter the young King Cheng stepped fully into his authority, and the Duke of Zhou disappeared from the political scene for the remainder of his life.

Lord Shao served four generations of Zhou kings: King Wen, King Wu, King Cheng, andKing Kang.^[1] He features prominently in the laterShangshu chapterGu Ming, which describes the inauguration ritual of King Kang. In it, Lord Shao can be seen to command great respect at court. He is listed first in each enumeration of participants, gives orders to other functionaries to help prepare for the proceedings, performs ritual actions rivaled only by the new king and the Master Ritualist, and reads the command of accession to the king.^[19]

Wang Chong'sLunheng claims that Lord Shao lived over a hundred years,^[2] and epigraphic records securely dateable to the middle years of King Kang's reign tend to support rather than refute this claim.^[20]

TheClassic of Poetry ode "The Sweet Pears" (甘棠) is said to have been composed in his honour.^[1] The poem says:

蔽芾甘棠，勿翦勿伐，召伯所茇。
The lush and flourishing sweet pear tree, do not trim it, do not cut it down—it was where Duke of Shao once camped.

蔽芾甘棠，勿翦勿敗，召伯所憇。
The lush and flourishing sweet pear tree, do not trim it, do not damage it—it was where Duke of Shao once rested.

蔽芾甘棠，勿翦勿拜，召伯所說。

The lush and flourishing sweet pear tree, do not trim it, do not bend it—it was where Duke of Shao once gave counsel.

ChineseWikisource has original text related to this article:

Jun Shi, chapter in theClassic of Documents

ChineseWikisource has original text related to this article:

Shao Gao, chapter in theClassic of Documents

ChineseWikisource has original text related to this article:

Gu Ming, chapter in theClassic of Documents

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