Tai Jia () or Da Jia, personal name Zǐ Zhì, was the son of Prince Da Ding and a king of the ancient Chinese

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou d ...

Biography

In the ''

Records of the Grand Historian The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...

'' he was listed by

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

as the fourth Shang king, succeeding his uncles Wai Bing and Zhong Ren. He was enthroned in BCE 1535 with Yi Yin as his prime minister and Bo () as his capital. He was an autocratic ruler who treated his people badly and broke his laws. A few years into his reign saw internal disorder among the court. Prime Minister Yi Yin advised him to change his ways but the headstrong king ignored the advice of the elder statesman. Eventually Yi Yin had no other choice but to exile the king to the Tonggong(, literally translated to

Tung tree ''Vernicia fordii'' (usually known as the tung tree (, ''tóng'') and also as the tung-oil or tungoil tree (), the kalo nut tree, and the China wood-oil tree) is a species of flowering plant in the Euphorbiaceae, spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It i ...

palace, archaic name for the tomb of Tang of Shang), in present-day Southwest

Yanshi Yanshi District () is a district in the prefecture-level city of Luoyang in western Henan province, China. Yanshi lies on the Luo River and is the easternmost county-level division of Luoyang. History After the Zhou conquest of Shang in mid-11t ...

county,

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

province near the tomb of the first Shang king Tang, to repent. Sima Qian says that following the exile Yi Yin ruled the country as regent for three years until he felt that the king had sufficiently changed and invited him back to the capital to reclaim his throne. From that point on, the king took care of his people and managed the government well. So that in the 10th year of his reign Yi Yin resigned from his post and retired, honoring the king, after his death, as Zhong Zong (中宗). The ''

Bamboo Annals The ''Bamboo Annals'' ( zh, t=竹書紀年, p=Zhúshū Jìnián), also known as the ''Ji Tomb Annals'' ( zh, t=汲冢紀年, p=Jí Zhǒng Jìnián), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the Yellow E ...

'' however tell a very different story; claiming that after the exile Yi Yin seized the throne and ruled as king for seven years later until Tai Jia secretly returned to the palace and killed his former Prime Minister. Afterwards the king assigned Yi Yin's land and castle to his sons, Yi She () and Yi Fen (). Since archaeological evidence shows that Yi Yin was still worshipped by the Shang people several hundred years after his death, the former account is widely considered more reliable. According to both sources the king ruled for 12 years before death. He was given the posthumous name Tai Jia () and was succeeded by his son Wo Ding ().

Oracle script Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtl ...

inscriptions on bones unearthed at

Yinxu Yinxu (; ) is a Chinese archeological site corresponding to Yin, the final capital of the Shang dynasty (). Located in present-day Anyang, Henan, Yin served as the capital during the Late Shang period () which spanned the reigns of 12 Shang ki ...

alternatively record that he was the third Shang king, succeeding his father Da Ding (), given the posthumous name Da Jia (), and succeeded by his brother Bu Bing ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tai Jia Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Kings of the Shang dynasty