At Youli, King Zhou was visiting Ji Chang with his ministers.
They called it showing concern for the Marquis of the West, but in truth, they had come to give Ji Chang firewood to sleep on and bitter gall to taste.
Humiliating Ji Chang was the best way to make Xiqi curse him as a muddleheaded tyrant.
A failure to endure small slights would ruin grand plans. Even an ambitious man had to conceal his ambitions and bide his time.
Ji Chang endured it. He lived quite peacefully in Youli, carrying on the fine traditional virtues of the Zhou people.
Whenever heaven and earth turned upside down in the Central Plains, the ancestors of the Zhou people were farming.
In Emperor Shun's time, when great floods swept the world, the Zhou people farmed in the state of Bin.
During the Xia Dynasty, the Zhou ancestors farmed in Bin.
During the chaotic wars marking the transition from Xia to Shang, the Zhou people farmed in Bin.
During the Shang Dynasty's turmoil across nine reigns, the Zhou people farmed in Bin.
In the late Shang period, during Wu Yi's reign, Bin suffered constant harassment from the Quanrong, so they migrated to Xiqi, settled down, and continued farming.
Only in Ji Chang's generation did they develop an advanced form of farming-growing vegetables.
Growing vegetables demanded far better soil than growing grain, as well as greater technical skill. To win the people's hearts and carry out his plan to Overthrow Shang, he established the Spirit Garden.
In other words, it was a public vegetable garden. The Spirit Garden combined an agricultural research station with a communal garden, and the chief beneficiaries were the common people. Thus, the people of Xiqi voluntarily built the Spirit Garden and Spirit Marsh, greatly enriching their diets and becoming