Shang Empire

Translated from the Lost Scrolls of the Exiled Historian

To those who find this record, know that I, Xu Jian, once a scholar of the court, now wander the edge of civilization, cast out for what I have learned. The Shang, the great lords of bronze, the bringers of war, the first of the Middle Kingdom—were not as history remembers them. The truth is buried beneath centuries of conquest, beneath layers of silk and ceremony. But it is there, waiting to be unearthed, like the bones beneath the fields of Anyang.

The Shang were not merely warriors. They were something more. Something darker.

The Shang knew the secrets of bronze like no other. Their cauldrons, their axes, their ritual vessels were not merely tools of war and tribute. They were conduits.

Even now, one may see them in the burial pits, unearthed by those who do not yet know what they have found. The great ding cauldrons, inscribed with glyphs that even our wisest scribes cannot fully translate. They tell of rulers communing with the High Ancestors, of offerings made not to the spirits of men, but to something older, something vast.

The taotie, the monstrous masks that adorn their artifacts—why did the Shang etch them so obsessively? They called them guardian spirits, but their forms are wrong. Their eyes are too large, their mouths gaping and filled with endless teeth. They do not look like beasts that roam the earth, nor dragons of the sky. They look like things glimpsed in the dark, things remembered in fever dreams.

And the bronze itself—many believe it was merely cast for strength, for utility. But the blacksmiths of Yin spoke in whispers. They worked their furnaces with eyes downcast, claiming the metal would hum when left in silence. Some claimed it could whisper. Others said it would scream.

Was this why the Shang offered blood to their altars? To silence the voices in the metal?

It is known that the Shang were devoted to their gods. The Di, the Supreme Deity, ruled over all, while the ancestors, fed by sacrifice, carried the people's pleas to him. But in the deepest tombs, hidden beyond the reach of the devout, I have seen carvings that speak of others—beings that were not ancestors, nor kings, nor spirits of heaven.

They had many names, none of them spoken aloud.

The Shrouded Ones, who moved in the skies without form. The Silent Watchers, who dwelled beneath the black waters. The Mouth Beneath the Earth, who demanded not only blood, but memory itself.

These names do not appear in the oracle bones that the priests read to divine the will of the spirits. But in the private tombs of the ruling families, where the air is thick with decay, the truth is scratched into the walls.

I have traced my fingers over these forbidden etchings, and I swear they shift when the light flickers.

And the taotie… they are not mere symbols. They are warnings. The Shang did not worship these beings. They feared them.

Historians claim that the Shang were brutal. That they captured slaves, sacrificed them in the hundreds, let their blood stain the earth to appease their ancestors. But if that were true, why do the texts I have found speak of rituals before empty altars?

What if the sacrifices were not for men at all?

In the oracle bones, there are questions written by trembling hands:

• Why does the sky move when there is no wind?

• Who is the man with no face that walks among the graves?

• Will the grain grow if the offering is not taken?

• Has the Mouth beneath the Earth awakened?

The slaves, the sacrifices—they were not merely tribute to the kings. They were bait. To keep something below from rising.

The Shang did not merely fall to the Zhou, as the official histories tell us. Their end came swifter than conquest should allow.

In the final days of Yin, the capital, something changed. The stars burned wrong, the rivers boiled at night, and the king—Di Xin, the last of the Shang—became obsessed with bloodletting. His feasts turned into slaughter, his concubines fled or were fed to the flames, and the bronze vessels, once used for simple ritual, overflowed with human remains.

His madness is known. But its cause is not.

What if he heard something beneath the earth?

What if the Shang's offerings were no longer enough?

The Zhou did not conquer an empire. They purged it. The burning of Yin was not to destroy the Shang's legacy—it was to bury something that should never be unearthed.

Now I write these words in exile, my name erased, my warnings unheeded. The tombs of the Shang remain, and the archaeologists dig ever deeper.

They do not know what they seek.

They do not know what they will wake.

The past should remain buried. But the past is not silent.

The taotie are watching.

And they are waiting.