Shang Rong knew everything about human burial sacrifice and had even personally overseen it several times.
When a vassal died, hundreds of people might be killed to accompany him in burial, or dozens at the very least.
When a noble died, over a hundred people might be killed to accompany him in burial, or just a handful.
For the royal clan, the numbers were only greater. Fortunately, since Wu Yi's reign, the royal clan had reduced its human burial sacrifices each year. Otherwise, the accumulated toll would have been terrifying.
Even so, once the sacrifices of all the Eight Hundred Vassals were added together, along with those of the lesser nobles, the annual number of burial victims was impossible to estimate!
In fact, most people believed human offering sacrifices could be reduced, since those victims were not for their own use. Human burial sacrifices, however, could only be increased, never reduced, because those were the people who would serve them down in the Nine Hells.
Shang Rong could not help breaking into a cold sweat.
He had never given it much thought before, but now that he considered it carefully...
How many people were lost to human burial sacrifice every year?
Shang Rong soon grasped the benefits of banning human burial sacrifice.
King Zhou was purging the Feudal Lords whose power had grown too great to control, putting pressure on them little by little. Sooner or later, those Feudal Lords would rebel.
That would spark a war.
And one of the keys to victory in war was naturally military strength.
Where did soldiers come from?
The population.
Chaoge lay in the Central Plains, where the fertile land could support an enormous population. Yet the number of registered inhabitants was nowhere near that limit.
The territories directly administered by Great Shang,