The Duke of Zhou, Part 2
January 28, 2010
King Wu died later and his young son was put on the throne. Others in the imperial family spoke out against the Duke of Zhou, even though the Duke was to act as regent. (It was this relationship that inspired the poem in The Living I Ching for Hexagram 27.) In order to avoid any appearance that he might usurp the king, and perhaps also to keep closer to his enemies, the Duke moved to a separate capital in the east. There was an insurgent faction, led by two of the Duke’s brothers, and he waged war against them.
However, the young King Cheng was still unsure of the Duke of Zhou, and he listened to the intrigues against the Duke.
One autumn, there were unseasonable thunderstorms and lightning. The grain was flattened. Trees were uprooted by windstorms. The king went to the temple to divine.
He found the Metal Bound Coffer and the records of the Duke’s divination from two years before. There he saw how the Duke had offered himself in sacrifice to keep King Wu alive.
The king asked the diviners about it, and they confirmed the divination, but said that the Duke had ordered them not to speak of it.
King Cheng then said with tears in his eyes:
“There is no need to divine. In the past, the Duke of Zhou worked diligently for the royal household, but I, a young man, did not understand it. Now heaven displays the Duke of Zhou’s merits through its rage. I, an ignorant child, must go to meet him myself. The propriety of our country should be thus.”
According to the Book of History: “King Cheng went out of the city as the rain was falling. The wind’s direction turned, and the grain rose up again. Taigong (the general), and the Duke of Zhou ordered the crops that had been crushed by the falling trees to be replanted, and after that year, there was a great harvest.”
This is a well-known story. The king did not need to confirm anything through divination. He saw his error and did not need to resort to any other method of consideration. The story also underscores the humility that the I Ching advocates: that the Duke of Zhou was willing to sublimate himself to his nephew for two years, and that his nephew was humble enough to see his own mistake.
