Once Yang Ren invoked Wu Ding, the matter became very serious.
Wu Ding had excelled in both civil governance and military conquest, but his record was not without stains.
Human offering sacrifices had expanded in scale during Pan Geng's reign and reached their peak after Wu Ding ascended the throne.
Of the Shang Dynasty's total of thirteen thousand human burial sacrifices and human offering sacrifices, seventy-five percent had occurred during the "Wu Ding Prosperity."
Wu Ding's military achievements had been illustrious: he had expanded his territory, driven out Gui Fang, and expelled Tu Fang. The vast majority of the prisoners he captured had been killed as human offering sacrifices.
Even among the Qiang Fang captives with useful skills, only a handful had been made slaves and put to work tending horses. Almost all the rest had been slaughtered as offerings to Heaven, in batches ranging from three to fifty to three or four hundred.
The sacrificial victims still bore arrow and blade wounds, the idea being to let Heaven see his magnificent achievements when the offerings were presented.
Yang Ren's point was that even the late king Wu Ding, a ruler of grand vision and exceptional ability, had sacrificed prisoners to Heaven. As his successor, His Majesty ought to follow the example of that worthy ancestor.
Follow his example, my ass.
Using people as sacrificial offerings alongside cattle, sheep, dogs, and pigs-what modern person could accept that?
If it were merely human burial sacrifice, there was still room for argument. Some loyal slaves did want to follow their masters into the grave, after all. If Zi Shou asked You Hun whether he was willing to be buried with him, You Hun would certainly say yes. At least the person they died for actually existed.
But human offering sacrifice? Offerings to