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Daji
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Daji (??; Pinyin: Dáji) was a favorite concubine of King Zhou, the last king of Shang Dynasty in China. Known for her beauty and cruelty that brought ruin to a dynasty, she is often portrayed as an evil fox spirit in literature, such as the famed Chinese novel Fengshen Yanyi.
rding to historical record, Daji was the beautiful daughter of a noble family named Su in the state of Yousu.
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Daji (??; Pinyin: Dáji) was a favorite concubine of King Zhou, the last king of Shang Dynasty in China. Known for her beauty and cruelty that brought ruin to a dynasty, she is often portrayed as an evil fox spirit in literature, such as the famed Chinese novel Fengshen Yanyi.
Biography
According to historical record, Daji was the beautiful daughter of a noble family named Su in the state of Yousu. In 1047 BC, Zhou, the king of Shang, conquered the state of Su and took Daji as his trophy. By then, the king was in his sixties and had been in his throne for forty years. He had been known as strong and heroic, an orator and well-versed in music. Under his reign, Shang had become a powerful and prosperous state. He certainly had his Achilles’ heel, namely, his infatuated love for women. Ever since Zhou had Daji as his concubine, things began to change for the worse.
Zhou liked Daji so much that he tried every means to ingratiate himself with her. Daji liked animals, so he built her a zoological Xanadu with a large collection of rare birds and animals. She liked dancing and singing, so he ordered artists to compose lewd music and choreograph bawdy dances. Forgetting about state affairs all together, King Zhou began to spend all his time with Daji. He would gather three thousand guests at one party to enjoy his “pond of wine” and “forest of meat,” which was cooked meat strips hanging from a wood of trees. King Zhou would allow the guests to play a cat and mouse game in the nude among the trees so that Daji could be amused. When a maid of honor, daughter of Lord Jiu, could not bear the sight of such debauchery and protested, King Zhou had her slain, her father ground up, and his flesh fed to the tyrant's vassals.
Eventually Daji became a brute herself. It was said that her greatest joy was to hear people cry in physical sufferings. Once, as she saw a farmer walking barefoot on the ice, she ordered his feet be cut off so that she could study it and figure out the cause of its resistance to cold temperature. In another occasion, she had a pregnant woman’s belly cut open so that she could satisfy her curiosity of finding out what happened therein. To verify the old saying that “a good man’s heart had seven openings,” she had the heart of Bi Gan, an honest minister, cut out and subjected it to her fertile scrutiny.
On top of all those atrocities, Daji was best known for her invention of a device of torture called Paolao: a bronze cylinder heated like a furnace with charcoal until the sides were extremely hot. A large bronze cylinder covered with oil was placed on top of a pile of burning charcoal. Prisoners were made to walk on top of the slowly heating cylinder. As the cylinder became hot, the prisoners are forced to shift their feet to avoid the burning. In turn, the oil made it difficult for the prisoners to maintain their stance. If they fell into the charcoal, they would burn to death. The prisoners are thus forced to dance in agony and fear, screaming in prolonged pain, while Zhou and Daji laughed at the tortured dances. Eventually, the prisoners would fall into the charcoal and burn to death Daji would take great delight in the painful cries of the condemned. By the order to execute Daji from Jiang Ziya himself, she was executed by the King Wu of Zhou personally after the fall of the Shang Dynasty.
In literature
Daji is featured within the famed Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods (or more commonly known as Fengshen Yanyi) as a major character. Daji is the first featured corrupter of the Shang Dynasty in this novel. When Daji had first been featured however, she was simply the average daughter of Su Hu. A major conflict arose because of King Zhou's lust for the beautiful Daji; Su Hu eventually allowed this desire to be fulfilled. During a strange wind at night however, the original Daji was killed and replaced by an evil nine tailed fox specter known as the Thousand-Year-Old Vixen. Within Investiture of the Gods, there is a specific poem that tells the trickery of Su Hu and the replacement of Daji's flesh and blood with a vixen that will fool the world to the very end. Thus following Daji's arrival at Zhaoge - the capital of the Shang Dynasty - Daji would be considered as the greatest concubine under King Zhou and would be the only true attention of the king.
Chaos soon spread throughout the Shang Dynasty because of the idiotic ways of the inept king - the favoring of lust and wealth and shunning of the officials. A chapter in the two later on in the novel, a renowned man by the name of Yunzhongzi would be the first man to act against Daji by giving a magical wooden sword to the king that would make Daji sick and ill -- and eventually die. Even after many loyal officials pleaded for change - as to avoid the kingdom's death - Daji would always manage to grab hold of King Zhou's colossal idiocy and use it as a shield to kill "the evil", including Mei Bo. Thus, following Daji's future in the novel, she would even rise to the rank of queen and continue her mission - the destruction of Shang Dynasty. But eventually defeated and exorcised by Jiang Ziya (Taigong Wang).
In popular culture
- The primary antagonist of Ryu Fujisaki's manga series Hoshin Engi (which is based on Fengshen Yanyi), Dakki, is based on Daji. She is a "yokai sennin" said to have once been a fox monster. In both of anime and manga Dakki declared that Taikoubou (Taigong Wang) is her rival (in terms of strategic thinking).
- Daji appears in Koei's video game Warriors Orochi as "Da Ji," Orochi's strategist and right-hand woman. Her personality is as deadly and cruel as she is beautiful, usually deceiving and then betraying her allies for personal pleasure. Her design incorporates pointed, fuzzy ears and vulpine feet, alluding to the legend that she is a fox demon. In Warriors Orochi 2 she shows (clearly) great rivalry with Taigong Wang, the one who can easily see through her strategies. It is also revealed that she was the one who had originally released Orochi the Serpent King from confinement, just to see what kind of chaos he would bring about.
See also
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