古莘国推考

A Study on the Ancient State of Shen

中国古史上著名的莘方国,又称有辛氏,为夏王室后裔。其族名若国名起于以甲乙丙丁等十天干符号为名号的日名制度,本写作"辛","莘"为晚起的用字。古莘族大约还在夏初已受封建国于渭水流域,后来其主支渐次东迁,至夏商之际复建国于今豫东鲁西,成为从属于商王朝的大方国。古莘国的史事到商代渐可考,先秦史书《竹书纪年》中有商代前期莘人联合邳人、蓝夷等反叛的记录,《诗经》中也有商代晚期莘人与周人联姻的记载。东迁后的莘族逐渐夷化,至商周之际灭国,其国族被迁徙于今之莘县。夏商之际辅佐商汤灭夏的头号功臣伊尹,从甲骨文的有关资料来看,可能本出于商族,或为商族外戚。由于他曾服事于莘族,因此他不仅是商代政治家,同时也是古莘国的重要人物。

The well - known State of Shen in ancient China, sometimes referred to as You - xin - shi clan, is a descendant state of Xia royal families. The name of the state comes from Ri - ming System, a system for the Shang addressing their ancestors with numbers of the Celestial Stems. The Chinese charac-ter Shen evolves from the character Xin and appears rather late. The ancient clan of Shen owned feoff in Weihe River Basin around the beginning of the Xia Dynasty. Later, a main lineage gradually moved east-ward, settled on what is now the border between eastern Henan Province and western Shandong Province, and became a big fang - guo （fang - state, a particular geopolitical entity consisted of several settle- ments） under the control of the Shang Dynasty. Traces of the historical records of the ancient State of Shen can be found in the historical materials of the Shang Dynasty. The Bamboo Annals has the record a- bout the rebellion of the Shen in alliance with the Pi and the Lanyi against the early Shang State. And the marriage between the Shen and the Zhou in the late period of the Shang Dynasty is also manifested in the Book of Songs. The clan of Shen after the eastern movement came to be merged and civilized into Dongyi Culture and finally disappeared over the period when the Shang Dynasty was replaced by the Zhou Dynas- ty. Its people were then migrated to what is now Shen County in Shandong Province. One of the King Tang＇ s capable ministers, Yi nasty, could be a Shang or a Yin, who made great contribution to King Tang＇ s overthrow of the Xia Dy- maternal relative of a Shang according to the oracle bone inscriptions. Since Yi Yin once provided service to the Shen, he was not only a statesman in the Shang Dynasty, but also an important figure in the history of the ancient State of Shen.