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lunanoc · 8 months

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so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #dmbj novels #i cannot believe i actually wrote this this was not planned #like at all #this was meant to be an unhinged liveblog mini thing #not whatever this is #i guess the crack theory conspiracy theorist is going public #if you don't know where i'm going with this that's ok i don't either

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bookofjin · 2 months

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Origin of the Western Qiang, Part 2 (HHS087)

[The history of peoples collectively known as Rong from the end of Western Zhou until the destruction of the Yiqu kingdom by Qin in 272 BC.]

During King Yi [of Zhou, r. 885 – 878 BC] there was decline and weakness, and the Wild Domain did not come to court. Therefore he instructed the Duke of Zong to lead the Six Regiments and attack the Rong of Taiyuan. He arrived at Yuquan, and captured a thousand horses.

King Yi was King Mu's grandson, his personal name was Xie

King Li [877 – 841 BC] had not the Way, and the Rong and Di robbed and plundered. They then entered Quanqiu and killed the kin of Qinzhong. The King instructed to attack the Rong, but they did not overcome.

Reaching the fourth year of King Xuan's reign [824 BC], he sent Qinzhong to attack the Rong. He was killed by the Rong. The King therefore summoned Qinzhong's son, Duke Zhuang [of Qin, r. 822 – 778 BC], and gave him 7 000 troops. He attacked the Rong and routed them, and because of that held them back a little. Twenty-seven years later [797 BC], the King dispatched troops to attack the Rong of Taiyuan, they did not overcome. Five years later [792 BC], the King attacked the Tiao Rong and the Ben Rong. The king's regiments were defeated. Two years later [790 BC], the people of Jin defeated the Northern Rong at Fenxi. The Rong people wiped out the district of the Marquis of Jiang. Next year [789 BC], the King campaigned against Shen Rong, and routed them.

Ten years later [779 BC], King You instructed Boshi to attack the Rong of Liuji. The army was defeated and Boshi died there. That year, the Rong besieged Quanqiu, and captured Duke Xiang of Qin's older brother Bofu. At the time King You was muddled and oppressive, and the Four Barbarians invaded one after the other. Thereupon he deposed the Queen Shen and installed Baosi. The Marquis of Shen was angry and together with the Rong robbed Zhou. They killed King You at Li Mountain [in 771 BC], and Zhou then moved east to Luoyi. Duke Xiang of Qin [r. 777 – 766 BC], attacked the Rong and saved Zhou. Two years later [769 BC?], the Marquis of Xing greatly routed the Northern Rong.

Reaching the end of King Ping [r. 770 – 720 BC], Zhou thereupon waned for a long time. The Rong pressured the various Xia. From Long Mountain and eastward, reaching the Yi and Luo, the Rong were present here and there. From that point, the headwaters of the Wei had the Rong of Di, Kai, Gui, and Ji. North of the Jing there were the Rong of Yiqu. In the Luo river-lands there were the Rong of Dali. South of the Wei there were the Li Rong. Between the Yi and Luo there were the Rong of Yangju and Quangao. Westward from the headwaters of the Ying there where the Rong of Manshi.

During the Spring and Autumn period, they were interspersed among the Central States, and made pacts and held assemblies with the various Xia. Duke Zhuang of Lu attacked Qin and defeated the Rong of Gui and Ji.

In the Zuo Transmittals' 18th Year of Duke Zhuang [684 BC], the Duke pursued the Rong to Jixi. In Du Yu's annotations, the Rong invaded Lu. The people of Lu did not know about, after they had left, they then pursued them. 24th Year [678 BC], the Rong invaded Cao.

About ten years later, Jin wiped out the Li Rong. At that time the Rong of Yi and Luo were strong, and to the east they invaded Cao and Lu. Nineteen years later [in 649 BC], the thereupon entered the King's city. At that point Qin and Jin attacked the Rong to save Zhou. Two years later [647 BC], they again robbed the imperial capital. Duke Huan of Qi [685 – 643 BC] summoned the various feudal lords to defend Zhou. Nine years later [638 BC], the Rong of Luhun moved from Guazhou to the Yi river-lands. The Rong of Yunxing moved to within the Wei, to the east reaching unto Huanyuan. Those located north of the Henan Mountain were called the Yin Rong. The offspring of the Yin Rong thereupon multiplied widely.

Duke Wen of Jin [r. 636 – 628 BC] wished to put in place a legacy of hegemony, and therefore rewarded the Rong and Di for opening the roads, and so succoured the royal house. Duke Mu of Qin [r. 659 – 621 BC] obtained Youyu, a man of the Rong, thereupon had hegemony over the Western Rong, enlaring his territory a thousand li.

Youyu had previously been man of Jin who absconded to enter among the Rong. The King of the Rong heard that Duke Mu was worthy, and sent Youyu to observe Qin. Duke Mu of Qin treated him with the courtesy due to a guest. Qin dispatched to the King of the Rong female musicians. Youyu admonished [the Rong King], but was not heeded. Youyu therefore surrendered to Qin and made plans for attacking the Rong.

Reaching Duke Dao Jin [572 – 558 BC], he sent Wei Jiang to make peace with the various Rong, and managed to put in place a legacy of hegemony. At that time, Chu and Jin were strong and flourishing, and awed into submission the various Rong. The Luhun, Yi, Luo, and Yin Rong served Jin, and the Manshi followed followed Chu.

Wei Jiang was a grandee of Jin. See the Zuo Transmittals' 11th Year of Duke Xiang. [562 BC]

Later the Luhun rebelled against Jin. Jin ordered Xun Wu to wipe them out. Forty-four years later, Chu seized the Manshi, and fully took their people prisoner. At that time Yiqu and Dali were extremely strong. They build several tens of cities, and both declared themselves Kings.

Xun Wu was the son of Jin's grandee Zhonghang Muzi. See the Zuo Transmittals' 1st Year of Duke Zhao. [541 BC]

Arriving at the 8th Year of King Zhen of Zhou [461 BC], Duke Li of Qin [r. 476 – 443 BC] wiped out Dali, and seized their territory. Zhao likewise wiped out the Dai Rong, which were precisely the Northern Rong. Han# and Wei then together gradually annexed the Yi, Luo, and Yin Rong, and wiped them out. Those of their remnants who escaped all fled west across the Qian and Long [Mountians]. From that point, the Central States had no Rong robbers, and there only remained the Yiqu of them.

25th Year of King Zhen [444 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu and captured their king. About a hundred years later [331 BC], Yiqu defeated the Qin regiments at Luo. Four years later [327 BC], the state of Yiqu was in chaos. King Hui of Qin dispatched the Chief of Multitudes Cao to bring troops and settle them. Yiqu thereupon became subject to Qin. Eight years later [319 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu, and took Yuzhi. Two years later [317 BC], Yiqu defeated the Qin regiments at Libo. Next year [316 BC], Qin attacked Yiqu, and took the twenty-five cities of Tujing.

Reaching King Zhao's instalment [in 306 BC], the King of Yiqu came to court in Qin. Thereupon he had intercourse with King Zhao's mother, Queen Dowager Xuan, and they begot two sons. Arriving at the 43rd Year of King Nan [of Zhou, 272 BC], Empress Dowager Xuan lured and killed the King of Yiqu at the Ganquan Palace. Following that, they raised troops and wiped them out, and first set up Longxi, Beidi, and Shang commanderies there.

The Rong originally had no lords or chiefs. At the end of the Xiahou clan and at the juncture of Shang and Zhou, some of them followed the feudal lords on campaigns and attacks and had merit. The Son of Heaven gave them feudal ranks and used them as the Vassal Domain. In the time of Spring of Autumn, the Luhun and Mangshi Rong claimed to be Counts [zi], and in the Warring States period, Dali and Yiqu claimed to be Kings. Reaching their decline and destruction, the remnants of their kind all turned back to their old customs and became chieftains.

#hhs087

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quitealotofsodapop · 1 year

Note

[That or they accidentally created their "MK" via Pinocchio-esque ai/robot on accident and now they're freaking out about it.]

Hmm...maybe MK is made via egg BUT their Bai He (or equivalent, maybe mixed with other parts of the other kids, cus I doubt Fabledconnection is gonna go as big as Shadowpeach in the family department) is an AI similar to Sophia from Persona 5 Strikers?

I can imagine the Fabledconnection duo either made her on accident, or they straight up adopted a lesser known "artifical human" fairytale entity that translated into an AI in the Library World.

Theres Chinese accounts of artifical humans all the way back to 400 BCE - in a Liezi text, an artificer named Yan Shi shows off his creation to the King (King Mu of Zhou), which is so lifelike that the King tears the automation apart right then and there.

Another potiential AI child is Olimpia from Der Sandmann (1817), a "perfect girl" clockwork automata created by an alchemist who has a similarly tragic end.

Fableconnection finds a wee AI child with a terrible ending? Their child now. Smash!LEM hacks the Library database to make it so.

Smash!SWK, hears front door open: "Hey love- whoa! Whats that?!" Smash!LEM, holding the AI child like a laptop: "...a robot kid I stole from the Library archives." Smash!SWK: "...alright then."

The other monkeys at the next Wukongverse meeting have a lot to ask about.

#wukongverse #smash legends #fabledconnection

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thelaithlyworm · 24 days

Link

[ID Wu Xie from the movie Time Raiders, putting on the heavy iron mask of an ancient feng shui scholar. End ID]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei, 盗墓笔记 | The Lost Tomb (TV 2015), 盗墓笔记2之怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (TV 2019), 盗墓笔记2之云顶天宫 | The Lost Tomb 2: Heavenly Palace on the Clouds (TV 2021), 终极笔记 | Ultimate Note (TV), 沙海 | Tomb of the Sea (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Iron Mask Scholar & King Mu of Zhou Characters: Iron Mask Scholar, Lushang-wang, King Mu of Zhou (DMBJ) Additional Tags: Meta, History, Conspiracy Theories, Identity Porn, (this one is short i swear) Series: Part 16 of DMBJ Meta Summary:

Okay okay okay, I wrote a version of this with quotes and chapter references but it’s quite long so I suspect not many people have read it. (No judgement, I know it’s long, I feel it.) But this definitely is something I want to talk about, so I’m doing a paperplane version as a taster.

Ch 1: The King Mu of Zhou | Iron Mask Scholar Theorem Ch 2: The Wu Xie Corollary

Xie Yuchen: So, replacement is another form of immortality. The immortality of an identity. Wu Xie, you have no choice.

(Ultimate Note, Ep 36)

#dmbj #meta #sand sea #ultimate note #tibetan sea flower #time raiders #the king mu of zhou | iron mask scholar theorem #the wu xie corollary

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taomubiji · 2 years

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Zhang Qiling's Childhood

I. Introduction

Zhang Qiling's childhood takes place from around the 1890s to the 1910s. We are not given many dates, but we are given ages and other helpful information. Everything in this post happened before Zhang Qiling reached the age of 13.

This post is based on the novels only and includes MAJOR SPOILERS from the novel Tibetan Sea Flower. Additionally, this post will include information from the novels that were left out/changed in Ultimate Note and Tomb of the Sea.

PLEASE let me know if there are any inaccuracies or if you have any questions. This is the first part of a ZQL timeline, so I want to make it as accurate and non-confusing as possible when I post the whole thing on AO3. Thank you to everyone who helped me with this 🥰

Sources are on the wiki page:

Book Wiki ZQL Page

II. Birth (1890-1911)

Zhang Qiling was born on a sunny day in November. His exact birth year is unknown but based on Sand Sea and Tibetan Sea Flower, he was likely born sometime between 1890 and 1911.[Explanation of how this was calculated]

Zhang Qiling's parents were Bai Ma, a Tibetan doctor, and an unnamed father from the Zhang Family. Zhang Qiling's father met Bai Ma when he went to deliver goods in Nepal. Normally, the Zhang family intermarried to keep their blood pure, but Zhang Qiling was an outlier. His mother was someone from outside of the family.

III. Early Years

A. The 3,000-Year-Old Baby

As a baby, Zhang Qiling's father brought him to the Zhang family during the winter. The Zhangs were a powerful family that controlled historical events over countless dynasties. They have a long life span but bear intolerable side effects as a result.

Around the same time, the Zhang family opened King Zhou Mu's dragon-patterned box and took out a baby that had been sleeping for 3,000 years. This 3,000-year-old baby would have been a sign that perfect immortality—that is immortality without any negative side effects—was achievable. The hope of one day attaining perfect immortality and living free of intolerable side effects was at the core of the family's survival. But the 3,000-year-old baby had died, and perfect immortality was an extravagant hope. The baby was replaced with Zhang Qiling to fool the rest of the family and further the lie of immortality.

Zhang Qiling grew up without knowing his birth parents in the Zhang family's mansion located in the mountainous area of Jinling. At an early age, he was protected like a god and received rigorous training and education. He was also under a great deal of pressure from the family. Zhang Qiling didn’t talk or play with the other children and was generally a very lonely child.

B. The Conspiracy Is Exposed

It’s not known how long the lie about his birth lasted, but eventually the family’s lies and conspiracies were exposed, and as many in the family started rejecting the old social system, they became divided. Zhang Qiling was deemed the main culprit for dividing the family and was regarded as a disgrace by the very same people who had used him to rule it.

C. A Crisis Emerges

The Zhang family's rule soon began to decline and severe civil strife emerged. Two factions of the Zhangs, the main clan system and Fo Ye's family, fought in Sizhou City. As a result of this infighting, the Zhang family patriarch died and the city was flooded. Normally, the patriarch would correctly estimate his time of death and hand the new patriarch a special bronze bell. This bronze bell could not only offset the effect of other bronze bells, but was also the key to accessing a room where the Zhang family kept valuable secrets, including information on the Ultimate. These secrets were the duty and purpose of the family, and because of the patriarch's untimely death, they lost their reason for existing and a crisis emerged.

Conspirators at that time (likely the Wangs) wanted to prevent the Zhang family from finding out the Zhang patriarch was buried with the bell. And since the conspirators controlled the government, they were able to completely seal off the city. However, some in the Zhang family knew what had happened and went looking for the bell in the sealed-off city.

D. Looking for the Bronze Bell in Sizhou City

After Zhang Qiling was adopted by an unknown Zhang man, his adoptive father and that part of the family brought Zhang Qiling into the city to look for the bell. At eight or nine years old, Zhang Qiling was used as a blood bag because of his rare qilin blood. He was also a laborer and entered the narrow spaces that adults couldn’t to find artifacts. It was against the rules to bring such a young child into the field, but like other adopted Zhang children, Zhang Qiling had no one to protect him. The family failed to find the bronze bell and many of them, including Zhang Qiling's adoptive father, died as a result of the infighting while looking for the bell. Zhang Qiling managed to escape and knew that the secrets were still buried in the ancient city.

#dmbj #daomu biji #zhang qiling #xiaoge #explanations #photo was from npss weibo for the zhh play #but he recently set his posts to be deleted after 6 months #so og post is gone #blood tw #tmbj

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liberty-or-death · 2 years

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Shen Qiao's Name - The Insults (Part 2)

We’ve talked about what Shen Qiao’s name means. So now I’ll be highlighting what his name gets mistaken for.

But first, the insult.

In Chapter 14, Shen Qiao meets Mu Tipo, who essentially wants to make him his sex slave. The conversation was as follows.

Mu Tipo, “The ‘Qiao’ as in Da Qiao, Xiao Qiao? You’re worthy of that name."

Shen Qiao, “Qiao as in Mountain."

Mu Tipo raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Mountain as in ‘Sacrifices are given to the Gods of the Mountain and Rivers’? That ‘Qiao’s too harsh a name, a beauty shouldn’t be named that.”

Shen Qiao didn’t smile, “I think it’s a good name.”

“Okay, okay. As long as you’re happy. Do you have a courtesy name? Or I’ll just call you Xiaoqiao? Ah Qiao?” - Translated by myself

(I’d deviate a little here and explain Tipo 提婆‘s name as well. Tipo’s translates to Diva, a celestial being in Buddhism. Most names in Thousand Autumns have a specific meaning so feel free to request if you want me to explain any names in particular.)

So just who were Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao

Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao are sisters who lived during the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The two ladies were known for their beauty during their time. One of them married the general Sun Ce, the other married another general Zhou Yu. Both men were crucial in establishing the foundations of the Eastern Wu state during the Three Kingdoms. Both sisters were also mentioned in the classics, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. (The sisters are famous historical characters that are featured in Honor of Kings and Dynasty Warriors lol)

🦄 My analysis

So what is Tipo implying by linking Shen Qiao to the two sisters? Firstly, it’s a play on his looks (Tipo already notes that Shen Qiao was very pretty). And secondly, he’s obviously not taking Shen Qiao seriously. (The two women were known more for looks and marrying rich husbands). If you extrapolate this further, it ties in with the theme that everyone in the earlier part of the novel thought Shen Qiao was a pretty helpless boytoy that was dependent on Yan Wushi for protection.

Additional Meta

Shen Qiao's Name - The Poem

More Thousand Autumns meta

#thousand autumns #thousand autumns meta #shen qiao #qianqiu #qian qiu #qian qiu meta

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the-monkey-ruler · 2 years

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An Oriental Odyssey (2018) 盛唐幻夜

Director: Zhou Xiaopeng

Screenwriter: Miao Juan

Starring: Wu Qian / Zheng Yecheng / Zhang Yujian / Dong Qi / Yuan Wenkang / more...

Genre: Romance / Fantasy / Costume

Country/Region of Production: Mainland China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Date: 2018-10-18 (Mainland China)

Number of seasons: 1

Episodes: 50

Single episode length: 45 minutes

Also known as: House Slave Mule / An Oriental Odyssey

Type: Crossover

Summary:

Luoyang in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Ye Yuanan, the daughter of the official of the household department, was very fond of fighting against injustice and when the oiran was being killed, he accidentally got hit and was acquainted with the heroic head catcher Zhao Lanzhi. The two worked together to solve the case and got to know each other well. Yuan'an rescued Mu Le, a mysterious man with amnesia from the market, and took him as a domestic servant. Unexpectedly, the stubborn Mu Le was absolutely loyal to him, and love and obsession gradually sprouted.

In cases such as Luotian Cave and King Jing's Mansion, the three cooperated closely, repeatedly solved strange cases, and defeated the conspiracy of Guoshi Tianqiao who was hidden behind these cases to seize the most precious nine-star rosary. Princess Minghui, a member of the flyover, fell in love with Lanzhi, and threatened Lanzhi's marriage with Yuan'an's life. Yuan'an feels disappointed, and is angry to marry Mu Le, but he is misunderstood by Mu Le. When Mu Le was sad, he realized that he was a prince in trouble in a foreign land, so he stole the nine-star rosary engraved with strange magic and returned to his country for revenge. Yuan'an, Zhao Lanzhi, and Minghui came after them, and the four joined hands to quell the chaos, and thus they found the place of true love.

Source: http://chinesemov.com/tv/2018/An-Oriental-Odyssey.html

Link: https://www.nunuyy5.org/dianshiju/5343.html

#An Oriental Odyssey #盛唐幻夜 #jttw media #jttw television #television #live action #Tang Sansang appearance #tang sanzang cameo #Tripitaka cameo #crossover #Tang Sanzang #monk tripitaka

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tytangfei · 2 years

Photo

“I thought by doing so I could feel a bit of your sincerity. It seems like I was wrong. You don’t like me at all...I am attached to Pingxi Royal Highness. So, Grand Tutor, please talk to His Majesty and the Empress Dowager and convey my willingness to marry him. As for the date of the wedding, it can be the same day as your wedding.”

Be My Princess (2022)

+ bonus

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kdram-chjh · 3 years

Photo

Cdrama: Celestial Authority Academy (2021)

Gifs of Intro of cdrama “Celestial Authority Academy”

【FULL】 Celestial Authority Academy EP01 | 通天书院 | iQiyi

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLq-YCajjxI

#Celestial Authority Academy #通天书院 #Tong Tian Shu Yuan #2021 #iQiyi #cdrama #chinese drama #youtube #episode 1 #Zhou Yan Chen #Johnson Zhou #Xu Hao #Gao Mao Tong #Qin Fen #King Roi #Han Mu Bo #Jin Yong San #Meng Zi Di #Liu Yu Tong

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lunanoc · 8 months

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PART III: WHO ARE KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN, AND WHY IS IT EVEN IMPORTANT

finally we’re reaching the end of this thing

(to see previous disclaimers and context here’s part I and part II of this madness)

blanket spoiler warning for the books once again

more disclaimers, the entirety of this part is where i veer solidly into crack theory and full-on interpretation, so while everything i’m presenting here does have arguments based on sources that’s important we do love sources, it’s very much speculation and not hard fact

now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the really wild stuff

with the various versions of “king shang of lu”’s and the iron-masked gentleman’s story, along with king mu of zhou’s story more or less unpacked (or as unpacked as they can be given we don’t know everything or even have a definitive truth), the real question then becomes what exactly you do with that information

based on what we’ve determined so far through the various versions of these characters’ stories, and taking into account the dubious nature of some or all of them to some degree, i feel there are a few base assumptions and conclusions you can come to, and that i’ll be working with from here on out:

the silkbook that wu xie found in “king shang of lu”’s coffin was indeed a fake, and was placed there with wu xie in mind, knowing that he would find it, and its purpose was to ease wu xie into the game the wu and xie families had been playing with the wang family. whether it was wu sanxing himself or the wang family who did it isn’t certain, and while either is a solid option, @tiesanjiaoshenanigans raised some solid arguments in favor of it being wu sanxing that you can read in their reblog here. in any case, it’s highly unlikely that it was xiaoge. grain of salt because i haven’t reached this point myself, but i’ve looked into a particular passage in ten years (Ten Years, Ch. 31, Key) where wu xie thinks back on the seven star palace, and while he does speculate that wu sanxing had a hand in using the silkbook jin wantang brought to him for his own purposes, wu xie also works on the assumption that it was xiaoge who swapped out a real silkbook for the fake one that contained the first version of king shang of lu’s story, and that his unease was due to recovered memories. granted wu xie does also speculate that he’d had the impression that xiaoge had been to the seven star palace several times before, which is entirely possible due to its significance in relation to “the truth of the world” (credit to @kelly42fox for speculating that maybe the headless corpse thrown into the sacrificial ding cauldron at the entrance of the seven star palace was in fact that missing blood zombie that xiaoge had subdued on a previous visit, and it was this memory that was triggered). however, while wu xie’s word is generally the most trustworthy simply because he’s dmbj’s main narrator, bases his assumptions on logic, and readily course corrects when he’s proven wrong (so in that sense he’s not the type of unreliable narrator who deliberately misleads the reader), he’s still a limited pov character, and what wu xie thinks he knows isn’t always necessarily the truth. because again, xiaoge planting the fake silkbook implies either he or chen pi ah si had a solid motivation for deceiving wu xie specifically, which seems odd all things considered

the wang family’s version of the tale of king shang of lu is the closest we have to the truth simply by virtue of it being the most detailed, of providing additional information that conveniently sheds light both on things mentioned in prior books and things mentioned in later books, and of it being a tale they clearly believe in. while it’s likely not the entire truth, both because they have a clear bias, and because they themselves are lacking key elements of this history, namely what “the truth of the world” is and what their feud with the zhang family truly stems from (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 146, Wang Zanghai), it’s the best candidate so far

the iron-masked gentleman from the first two versions of “king shang of lu”’s story and the owner of the fox mask from the wang family’s story are the same person, and there might be more to his identity than you’d think

with all this being said, what’s left to consider is the possible identities of the characters in this story, namely king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, and king mu of zhou, and the ramifications of those possibilities

let’s start with the iron-masked gentleman, as he’s arguably the most nebulous of the three, and for the sake of convenience i’m going to refer to him as just iron mask from here on out since that’s what he’s best known as

ironically however, the first detail i want to bring attention to regarding him is that he specifically wears a fox mask adorned with “patterns often found on bronze ware”, bronze ware being so precious a material at the time that it was used almost exclusively for ritual objects, most often funerary ones (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). later, we learn from the wang instructor that similar fox masks were correlated with a specific group of tomb robbers operating in shandong (where this story takes place) during the same time period (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). based on this alone, i feel it’s safe to say that some type of parallel is being drawn between both iron mask, and if not this particular group of grave robbers, then at the very least the activity of robbing tombs. this detail will be important in a bit

for now, let’s look at how iron mask is presented to the reader in the various versions of king shang of lu’s story we’re successively given:

in the first version taken from the fake silkbook, iron mask plays a fairly neutral role despite helping king shang of lu to find the famed jade burial armor, which ironically in this version he also reveals the existence of to the man he advises

in both the second version briefly mentioned by xiaoge and in the third version given by the wang family, iron mask plays a more duplicitous role, either by stealing the jade armor for himself, or by sharing in duping the ruler of the state of lu to acquire his resources to find the jade burial armor in king mu of zhou’s tomb

according to the wang family’s version of the story, iron mask wasn’t king shang of lu’s advisor, but rather the advisor of the ruler of the state of lu, and as such, while he wasn’t in a position of direct power himself, he was in a position to influence said power, and he clearly did given he deliberately swayed the ruler of the state of lu into granting resources to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb. it’s also noteworthy enough to mention that the state of lu happens to be where confucius was born among other eminent scholars of the spring and autumn period, the intellectually prosperous period preceding the warring states period, and the one during which king mu of zhou supposedly began to implement his plan by incorporating the guarantee of tomb robbing into chinese tradition itself (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 135, Stone Box). as such, the state of lu had a particularly important cultural influence on the rest of china both at the time and going forward. what i’m getting at by bringing this up is that iron mask was therefore not only in a position to influence the court of just any of the many states of the eastern zhou dynasty, he was in a position to influence one of the more prominent states of the time that had been a hub for some of the foundations of chinese culture for millenia to come. that iron mask was the one to recommend “king shang” to the ruler of the state of lu in the first place, clearly long before king shang ever had any sort of prominent position at court, further solidifies this idea.

and while there’s no direct evidence to infer that king shang, iron mask, and king mu might have been searching for and robbing tombs before iron mask ever brought up the idea of robbing king mu’s to the ruler of the state of lu, the previous connection between iron mask and the grave robbers with fox masks seems to hint at that possibility, and the narrative, by drawing this parallel, lends itself to interpreting iron mask and these fox-mask wearing grave robbers as some sort of organized collective

as mentioned in a previous part, the wang instructor explains to li cu that a number of these fox masks were found in tombs all over shandong, and that grave robbers of the time associated foxes with grave robbing because they’d often burrow in grave robber tunnels and around graveyards. what this then means is that, assuming these fox mask-wearing grave robbers and iron mask are indeed connected, then the activity of grave robbing itself is also connected to iron mask, or rather iron mask is connected to tomb robbing. as for the reasoning behind why someone would consistently wear a mask to the point their identity becomes eclipsed by it, the easiest answer is to assume that concealing their identity was maybe the point, and in the case of iron mask, given we have no information on his real name or anything else about him really, if that was his goal, then he clearly succeeded. therefore this fox mask he wears potentially has the dual purpose of both hiding his identity, and establishing some form of kinship with others who wore similar masks

to sum up then, iron mask was a man whose true identity and name remains unknown, who held an influential position in the court of one of the more prominent and certainly most culturally significant states of the eastern zhou dynasty, was associated in some capacity with grave robbing via kinship with a group of people who wore the same type of mask as him, and he used his influence at court to sway the ruler he advised into taking actions that benefited him in some capacity. as it happens, we know of at least one organized group of people in dmbj’s universe who also held influential positions in various imperial courts, are associated with grave robbing, and used their influence in spheres of power to sway rulers and/or the course of history in directions that benefited them and/or their endgame

do you see where i’m going with this

again, there’s nothing anywhere that can directly confirm that either iron mask and/or the fox-masked grave robbers were members of the zhang family or even associated with them, but there’s also nothing to technically disprove it either so i’ll just. leave the parallels here for people’s consideration

but where things get even more interesting is when you stop to then consider who “king shang of lu” might be

outside of the very first stone slab we get in the seven star palace that describes king shang of lu as having been “born with the ghost seal in hand” and the command of the army of the dead, if we assume that version 1 of his story in the silkbook that wu xie finds is dubious at best, then we don’t really get all that much about king shang of lu’s life or identity. the wang family’s version describes him as being introduced to the court of the state of lu as a descendent of the zhou emperor and as a “strange man” or “奇人” (qiren), which can either mean a “strange” person or an “extraordinary” person, as in having extraordinary talents, which arguably, given what his tomb looks like, he was (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson).

beyond this however, there’s nothing in the wang family’s version to suggest that king shang of lu was anyone of note before iron mask quite literally pulled him out of thin air, as if he’d never existed until he suddenly appeared at court one day like a mysterious messenger from the beyond that the ruler of the state of lu, if not purports him to be, then may also believe him to be. the mystery persists with the tale of how king shang of lu supposedly gained his title by communing with the dead king mu of zhou to ask permission to open his tomb, since while we know that this perspective on what happened is in fact skewed by what the ruler of the state of lu who was tricked saw, and that in reality, king mu of zhou wasn’t dead, knowing this doesn’t answer how king shang of lu actually acquired the ghost seal or who he really is, if his identity is even significant. that he was “born with the ghost seal” in hand is likely a descriptor made to reflect him coming out of the coffin he’d been sealed as if “reborn” under his new title with the proof of his “covenant” with king mu of zhou. however, given the meaning of the name 殇 shang mentioned earlier (that is to say “to die young or at war”), and despite the explanation given of his title as a means to justify the subsequent robbing of king mu of zhou’s tomb, it nonetheless leaves you wondering why this name, and why specify that he was a direct descendant of king mu rather than simply “forming a covenant” with him? it could simply be that it was the most efficient ploy to manipulate the ruler of the state of lu into finding convenient moral outs, and there’s nothing more to read into it than the first step of the elaborate plan king mu of zhou had roped king shang of lu and iron mask into

but consider: we’ve established that while it seemed as if there were only two people working together, in fact there were three. but what if against all odds, there really were only two people in the end? after all, a third party is never really hinted at in the earlier versions of this story we get in book 1, unless you count the initial corpse in the fake silkbook version of the story that king shang supposedly removed from the jade burial armor when he found it, but that can’t have been king mu if king mu was in fact alive. what i’m saying is, what if we consider the crazy possibility that king mu of zhou and king shang of lu were in fact the same person

we know that king mu of zhou faked his death centuries before, and while he might have simply sought out and convinced king shang and iron mask of his identity, objectively, the less outside parties involved in his plan, the better. to be fair, it’s entirely possible that king mu used himself as a living example that immortality existed in order to bait king shang and iron mask into helping him, only for them to betray him later and successively take the jade armor for themselves. but if you consider the possibility that king shang was nothing more than an alias king mu used to “return to life” so to speak, it wouldn’t be less fitting of an explanation, as who could possibly have stood to recognize the face of a man centuries dead? of course, nothing really exists to solidly confirm this idea, which is the case for pretty much all of this “meta” that’s entirely speculation at this point but consider

after all, king mu of zhou saw “the truth of the world” in the queen mother of the west’s kingdom. i’ll come back to her briefly later, but we also know that to our knowledge, before wang zanghai, the zhang family were the only other people to have access to that “truth”. it’s reasonable to assume that king mu of zhou, having seen the “truth of the world” and returned from the queen mother of the west’s kingdom changed from it in more ways than one, might have also gained knowledge of another party who knew this “truth”. it’s equally reasonable to assume that rather than go through a third party and thus introduce an unknown variable into his plan, and seeing as king mu of zhou had been “dead” long enough that no one would recognize him should he choose to assume a different identity, it would have simply been easier to approach the only other party who both shared in the same forbidden knowledge, as well as presumably shared similar goals to some extent. and if iron mask was a zhang, then coming back to the previous point, given his particular social status, iron mask would have been the prime candidate for king mu to turn to for assistance. it also stands to reason that if iron mask was a zhang, then by extension a member of the zhang family would have accepted a mutually beneficial arrangement. after all, king mu’s plan and goals aligned somewhat with the zhang family’s interests, and they had to have been aware of king mu’s covert manipulation during the spring and autumn period. using grave robbing as a means of perpetuating curated traditions and culture over centuries, manipulating the flow of history, and thus making it extremely easy to practice convenient historical revisionism perfectly aligned with the zhang family’s designs. arguably it’s also precisely what the zhang family had been doing and continued to do, as wu xie himself eventually speculates, wondering if the zhang family had used tomb robbing as a means of disseminating if not false, then modified histories in order to control china’s “fate” through the ages (Tibetan Sea Flower, Ch. 67, Biggest Secret)

in addition to that, considering we know the ghost seal is something tied to the main zhang family, particularly zhang qiling, and that it allows passage into the bronze gate beneath changbai mountain that houses the ultimate (which is what “the truth of this world” ostensibly is) past the ghost army that does exist (though whether they can be controlled is something we have no evidence of), it’s also not a stretch of the imagination to consider that the zhang family might have lent the ghost seal to king mu/king shang for appearance’s sake. and if all this did have to do with the zhang family and there really were only two people involved in the endgame of this story, it might also provide a tentative reason for xiaoge’s unease as he tries to parse through why there isn’t a third blood corpse in the seven star palace. it might have triggered a memory or some feeling in him that there was an explanation to all this that existed but that he wasn’t privy to in the moment, but perhaps he had been privy to it in the past, and perhaps he had come to find it many times before that he could no longer recall because it was a place tied to the zhang family in some capacity

that does however raise the question of why then had iron mask’s memoirs been circulating if he’d been a zhang, but then again, dissemination of information via tombs was a plan the zhang family had every reason to encourage and perpetuate if they hadn’t already been in the business of practicing it, so if iron mask was a zhang, he would have neither had any qualms about participating in it himself, nor of providing a revised version of the truth. after all, we have no indication that version 2 of the story as told by xiaoge is a truthful account either, especially since this version still doesn’t reveal a name for the iron-masked gentleman despite it coming from his supposed memoirs

in addition to that, we also get an interesting tidbit in hindsight from practically the very beginning of book 1, where wu sanxing takes note of the fox pattern on the warring states silkbook that started wu xie’s journey into the conspiracies and says that it depicts “the mask worn by the earliest people in the state of lu when they were offered up as sacrifices” and that it must mean that “someone with a very special identity” was buried in the tomb, possibly “more respected that the emperor” (Book 1, Ch.3, Temple of Seeds). it’s hard to say what to make of the notion that the fox-masked people were “sacrifices” considering the wang family’s story explicitly makes them out to be grave robbers, so either or both of them is a lie. however, it does at least confirme there is something special about these fox-masked people beyond what’s being said (especially given the green-eyed fox corpse, who following the zhang logic, might have been a lower ranked family member offered up as a sacrifice and who turned after death, but this is probably a stretch), and whoever is buried in that tomb is abnormally important. the only real issue you run into with this train of thought is considering how far back the zhang family tomb extends, why would any zhang of note not be buried in it, so that’s at least one gap in logic

all of this then leaves us with a final question: if we assume iron mask was a zhang, and that king shang of lu was in fact a false identity created by king mu of zhou for himself, then what exactly happened in the seven star palace, and who is who in what coffin?

we know that the seven star palace is a warring states period tomb constructed on top of a pre-existing western zhou dynasty tomb. there’s no indication of whether this pre-existing tomb was meant to be king mu’s (in which case it was at least partially a dupe as he was still alive), and raises the problem of king mu not having had the jade armor prior to the king shang of lu story as he was actively looking for it, so he can’t have found it in his own tomb. to me, this means there are two possibilities to consider:

possibility one: king mu had a tomb built for himself during his reign that was designed with his plan in mind, which might explain the presence of the snake cypress (which we again only ever see elsewhere in gutongjing in ancient ruins related to a candle dragon baby snake mine, so clearly it being in the seven star palace is of some significance). king mu and iron mask did find a jade burial armor, but in another tomb or elsewhere that isn’t what would become the seven star palace

possibility two: king mu and iron mask, with each other’s mutual knowledge and abilities, found a tomb containing a jade burial armor that happened to be a western zhou dynasty tomb. the story then roughly proceeds like in the first two versions, and king mu/shang removes the corpse from the jade armor and takes it for himself

in some ways i feel like the most logical and likely option is the first one, simply because the mechanisms inside the seven star palace are too precise and deliberate, namely the timer coffin that was tied to the box with the baby in it (which i won’t be getting into here because that’s for another meta). this then leaves us with the problem of determining exactly who is who in this tomb by the time wu xie walks into it. the wang family implies that king mu’s plan ultimately failed because he hadn’t considered that someone like wang zanghai would come about and have the ability to hijack king mu’s plan for his own purposes. you can interpret that either as referring to his grave robbing plan alone, or that it also refers to king mu himself successfully staying in the jade armor for as long as it would take for him to come out of it side effect free. the ambiguity of what the wang family meant by “plan” makes it difficult to decide whether, following that wording, it leaves room for king mu to have been dumped out of the jade burial armor or not, which doesn’t really make deciding who is who any easier. for the record, wu xie mentions later when he comes back to this story in ten years later that he believes the one buried in the coffin under the snake cypress was iron mask (and npss also states this in his timeline in the postscript of book 8). if we choose to believe this is correct, and that king shang of lu was in fact king mu of zhou, then it leaves two more possible outcomes to the story:

possibility one: the thing in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace is king mu of zhou, and he was also the blood zombie that xiaoge killed

possibility two: the thing in the coffin is king mu of zhou, but he didn’t turn into a blood zombie, rather into something different or more powerful, and therefore the blood zombie xiaoge killed was someone else

the only thing that makes me doubt in this theory that king mu of zhou could both have been the blood zombie xiaoge killed and whatever was in the coffin at the entrance to the seven star palace is that to start with, there was a coffin so elaborate there to begin with convenient enough to place someone in (unless there had actually initially been a sacrifice in it and that’s the body that got dumped in the ding cauldron on the side to get replaced), that if wu xie was correct in assuming xiaoge had been to the seven star palace before, he would have left a dangerous blood zombie that could roam around in it “alive”, and lastly, the fact that not only did xiaoge kowtow to it to ask for safe passage within the tomb, even after having killed the blood zombie, xiaoge insisted on respecting the time limit the thing in the coffin had set and pushed wu sanxing’s team to leave the seven star palace before dawn regardless. it’s worth noting that xiaoge has never kowtowed to a corpse outside of this occasion (to my knowledge at least), has only actually knelt in front of changbai mountain that houses the bronze gate really, and has only ever spoken to one other also incredibly old and likely powerful corpse that was very likely one of the first people to come out of the kunlun mountains, and that rests inside the meteorite in tamutuo (Restart Part I: The Sound of Providence, Ch. 222, Countdown to the Finale 4).

why adamantly continue to uphold the demands of a creature that you’ve killed and that can presumably no longer harm you? unless leaving before dawn was an imperative that went beyond the sole demands of the thing inside the coffin at the entrance, it’s a little strange. however, the problem with saying that whatever was in the coffin at the entrance to the seven star palace and the blood zombie that xiaoge killed are two different entities makes things difficult, because it would mean there was some third party involved somehow, and it gives possibility two (the one where king mu/shang and iron mask find another tomb to steal the jade burial armor from and co-opt it) a little more ground. i haven’t been able to find any conclusive information on where the real-life king mu of zhou was buried, and it’s hard to say how much of an argument a real-life fact holds for something like this, but it’s interesting to note that the western zhou dynasty’s capital was fenghao, located in what’s now part of present day xi’an in the province of shaanxi, and the province of shaanxi is roughly 800 km (or 500 miles) from the province of shandong where the seven star palace is. it’s relatively far, especially for the time period, so does the distance justify the thought that it might not have been king mu of zhou’s tomb that was used as the basis for the seven star palace after all? did king mu/shang and iron mask really find a tomb that contained a jade burial armor and co-opt it? more food for thought

either way, whether or not the blood zombie xiaoge killed was king mu of zhou, if we choose to follow both wu xie and npss, then it doesn’t change the fact that it’s very likely that regardless, king mu of zhou ended up in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace, and iron mask in the jade burial armor in the coffin beneath the snake cypress. in that case, it brings into question the motivations iron mask might have had for doing this if, following the current theory, he really was a member of the zhang family. surprisingly, it’s not too difficult to think of some plausible ones

the zhang family have been searching for a way to curb their own terrible longevity curse for centuries, to the extent their blind determination to find meaning in their existence is what proved to be the fatal weakness that drove them right into wang zanghai’s and the wang family’s trap. if he really was a zhang, why then would iron mask have been any different, especially since given the time period, knowledge of anything connected to either the queen mother of the west, or what her kingdom housed (re: the meteorite), or both would have likely still been fresh enough for zhang family members anyway. the promise of the jade burial armor could have been a tempting offer for a man himself doomed from birth. it’s also possible that while king mu of zhou’s grave robbing plan naturally aligned with what the zhang family had likely already been doing, and so in that sense they facilitated it, they drew the line at him potentially accessing longevity, as king mu of zhou remained an outsider and therefore an unknown variable in the long run. better then for one of their own to guard something like a jade burial armor than someone who while aware of the “truth”, wasn’t necessarily an ally, which is what ended up happening much later with wang zanghai. king mu would thus have been a liability to dispose of. and king mu/shang might have sensed this and tried to have all the people working with him killed like the first two versions of the king shang of lu story seem to suggest, and so iron mask really did fake his own death to ensure king mu couldn’t succeed

i realize this idea raises a number of other problems, such as again why the zhangs would not either have kept some knowledge that one of their own was buried not only outside of the family tomb (which had things dating back to the spring and autumn period, suggesting burial in it had already been an established tradition then), but also in something like a jade burial armor. maybe they did, and it’s one of those secrets only zhang qiling is privy to. only xiaoge would truly be able to answer that (not that he will). it’s also possible following this logic that if iron mask did fake his own death, doing so placed him outside the scope of the family enough he was free to act of his own selfish free will and seized the opportunity, but again, this is all speculation. it also raises the question of why the wang family, if they’d known there was a zhang buried in jade burial armor, wouldn’t have tampered with it and removed him, but then again, they likely needed to keep the corpse there to bring their plan against the zhang family to fruition regardless of who it was

for the sake of debate, i might as well also share an alternative theory to this, that while i feel has a lot more problems and ultimately doesn’t fit with a number of other elements of dmbj lore brought up here where the theory this “meta” has been about so far does, is still maybe worth mentioning. it’s essentially the reverse, that the iron-masked gentleman was king mu of zhou’s fabricated identity, and king shang of lu was a zhang. again, i feel like this spin on the theory has a lot of logic problems going on, but if i had to make a case for it:

殇 shang and 张 zhang are vaguely homonyms and both pronounced in the first tone, which while it’s likely a coincidence, lends this theory a tiny bit of substance given the zhang family is also associated with death both by nature and design

if king shang was a zhang, it could explain why he would have had access to the ghost seal, in which case it would have been iron mask who sought the zhang family out and then ultimately duped them

if iron mask was king mu, then his ability to spin a tall tale about himself to the ruler of the state of lu would have been much easier

if king shang was a zhang, then slaughtering any outsiders aware of the plan would have made sense to ensure knowledge would stay within the family

it would also mean that king shang the zhang was tossed out of the jade burial armor and presumably into the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace while iron mask/king mu took his place, and was maybe duped by iron mask/king mu who faked his own death because the zhang family’s hubris has always been massive and he didn’t suspect he could be bested

this would fit with the interpretation that by saying only wang zanghai prevented king mu’s plan from succeeding, the wang family meant both his grave robbing plan and his ability to successfully attain longevity without side effects

this would have presumably also given iron mask/king mu the time to accomplish his “series of things” such as writing his “memoirs” onto a silkbook, constructing his own coffin duo together with the box that contained the unborn baby

that would mean that whatever was in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace was a zhang, which might explain why xiaoge would feel the need to kowtow to it when this is something he doesn’t usually do

again, as nice as this idea seems, it has a bunch of flaws to it, namely for example how that would then connect the fox-masked people and iron mask (unless you want to consider those were simply his own followers brought about by implementing his own plan), how king mu even in disguise could have had held a position at court without any suspicion and likely no familial backing as he’d faked his own death, and many more. so ultimately i feel like t’s not as solid of a theory, but it’s an interesting contrasting thought

as for who the queen mother of the west really was, that’s also up for debate and lot more difficult to determine. though li cu suggests even she might be a fabrication meant to embellish the story of king mu of zhou for the sake of luring people into believing immortality existed, we know enough by sand sea to be certain she did in fact exist. while it’s unclear whether she truly was the queen mother of the west of legend, i like to think she was simply because we have no other accounts of anyone with that name, and because of how deeply entrenched she was in things relating to “the truth of the world” that she was more or less implied to have been privy to. the theory i’m personally going with is that she discovered the meteorite in the qaidam basin and constructed a kingdom around it (which would have taken far longer than a lifetime to accomplish to the degree that she did), knowing full well what the meteorite represented and what it could do. and if she did know, then considering her knowledge of “the truth of this world”, and her supposed longevity, it’s not entirely impossible to consider, especially given the title of the book itself, that the queen mother of the west might be related to the ancestors of the zhang family mentioned in queen mother’s ghost banquet, and that she simply belonged to a different branch of those people who took a different direction than the zhang family did, and sought to remedy the curse in a different way. and what better way than to return to its source? after all, knowing the zhang family’s origins, it’s not impossible to suggest that not all of the people who emerged from beneath the kunlun mountains and among other things built the bronze gate all ended up congregating to form what would become the zhang family. we know, for example, that baima, xiaoge’s mother, also had special blood akin to the one running in the zhang family, enough that she passed it on to xiaoge, ironically granting him purer special blood than any other main family zhang by that point. so it’s not that far-fetched to think there may have been offshoots of the zhang family’s ancestors who chose to lead a different life and eventually drifted apart from their brethren enough that they lost knowledge of each other, or served a different purpose for whatever is controlling the zhang family like marionnettes on a string

so this has been a massive “meta” i still can’t believe i actually sat down and wrote this

hopefully it makes some kind of sense and isn’t just incoherent babbling i’m going to be honest that’s still what it is lbr and i’m not sure it’s contributed much to anything besides being one more rabbit hole crack theory, but uhhh if you’ve stuck out this long thank you for reading! and feel free to comment or add anything onto this i’m always happy to talk about dmbj lore please talk to me about dmbj lore

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #idk if i'm more pikachu face at the fact i wrote this #or actually finished it #BUT IT IS DONE #thank fck #i want to say this is my humble contribution #but really what is it contributing to #besides me gnawing on my walls about dmbj lore #i'm literally that that one gif of the guy and his conspiracy theory red thread board #this is my life now

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