The ancients used many ways to transmit information, such as flying pigeons to deliver messages, using beacon fire, using fast horses, etc. Here is a story about beacon fire.
The occurrence of this story was to a large extent the trigger for the destruction of the Western Zhou Dynasty by the dog soldiers, and Bao Si became synonymous with beauty and disaster...
King Xuan of Zhou died Later, his son Ji Gongni came to the throne and became King You of Zhou. King Zhou You didn't care about any major national affairs. He only cared about eating, drinking and having fun, and sent people everywhere to find beautiful women. A minister named Baojue (pronounced bāoxiàng) persuaded King You, but King You not only refused to listen, but instead threw Baojue into prison.
Bao Jue was imprisoned for three years. The Bao family tried every possible means to rescue Bao Jue. They bought a pretty girl in the countryside, taught her to sing and dance, dressed her up, and presented her to King You to atone for Bao Jue's sins. This girl is considered a member of the Bao family, and her name is Bao Si (sì).
King You was so happy that he got Bao Si, so he released Bao Jue. He doted on Bao Si very much, but since Bao Si entered the palace, he was in a gloomy mood and never smiled once. King You tried his best to make her laugh, but she couldn't laugh.
King Zhou You offered a reward: whoever can make the princess smile will be rewarded with one thousand taels of gold.
There was a flatterer named Guo (sound guó) Shifu, who came up with a weird idea for King Zhou You. It turns out that in order to guard against the attack of the Quanrong, the Zhou Dynasty built more than 20 beacon towers in the Lishan area (southeast of Lintong, Shaanxi today, Liyin lì), one every few miles. If the Dog Rong attacks, the soldiers guarding the first pass will light up the beacon fire; the soldiers guarding the second pass will also light up the beacon fire when they see the fireworks. In this way, beacon fires are burning one after another. When the nearby princes see it, they will send troops to rescue them. Guo Shifu said to King You of Zhou: "Now that the world is at peace, the beacon tower has not been used for a long time. I would like to invite the king and his wife to go to Lishan Mountain to play for a few days. In the evening, we will light the beacon fire and let the nearby princes see it. Come on, be fooled. When the empress saw all the soldiers and horses, she would laugh."
King Zhou You clapped his hands and said, "Great, let's do it."< /p>
They went to Lishan Mountain and really lit the beacon on Lishan Mountain. The neighboring princes got the warning and thought that the dog soldiers were coming, so they quickly led their troops to rescue him. Unexpectedly, when we got there, there was not even a shadow of the dog soldiers. We only heard the sounds of music and singing on the mountain, and everyone was stunned.
King You sent someone to tell them, "Thank you for your hard work, everyone, there is nothing going on here. It's just the king and the princess setting off fireworks for fun. You
go back!"
The princes knew they had been fooled and went back in anger.
Bao Si didn't know what they were making. When he saw several groups of soldiers and horses descending from the foot of Lishan Mountain in a commotion, he asked King You what was going on. King You told her everything. Bao Si really smiled.
When King You saw Bao Si smiling, he rewarded Guo Shi's father with a thousand taels of gold.
King You doted on Bao Si, and later he simply deposed the queen and the prince, made Bao Si the queen, and made Bao Si's son Bofu the prince. It turned out that the queen's father was a prince of Shen State. After getting this news, he united with Quanrong to attack Haojing.
When King You heard the news of the Quanrong attack, he panicked and quickly ordered to light the beacon fire in Lishan Mountain. The beacon fire was burning, but because the princes were fooled last time, no one paid attention to them.
Dense smoke billowed out from the beacon tower during the day, and flames lit up the sky at night, but no reinforcements arrived.
When the Dog Soldiers arrived, Haojing had few soldiers and horses, so he barely resisted for a while, but was beaten to a pulp by the Dog Soldiers. The troops of Quanrong poured into the city like a tide and killed King Zhou You, Guo Shifu and Bao Sisheng's uncle Fu. The unsmiling Bao Si was also taken away.
At this time, the princes knew that Quanrong had really invaded Haojing, so they united and led a large team of troops to rescue them. When the leader of Quanrong saw the army of the princes arriving, he ordered his men to rob the treasures that the Zhou Dynasty had accumulated over the years, and set a fire before retreating.
The princes of the Central Plains defeated the Quanrong and established the original crown prince Ji Yijiu (sound jiù) as the emperor, who was King Ping of Zhou. The princes also returned to their respective fiefdoms.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the princes left, the Quan Rong attacked again, and most of the land in the west of the Zhou Dynasty was occupied by the Quan Rong.
King Ping was afraid that Haojing could not be saved, so he made up his mind to move the capital to Luoyi.
In 770 BC, King Ping of Zhou moved his capital to Luoyi. Because Haojing is in the west and Luoyi is in the east, the period when the Zhou Dynasty made Haojing its capital was historically called the Western Zhou Dynasty; after the capital was moved to Luoyi, it was called the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.