Wugeng and the Three Supervisors: The Shang Remnant's Last Rising

The rising is briefly recorded; the punishment is recorded twice, and not in the same words. After the Zhou took Yin, the Shang heir 武庚祿父 was left over the remaining people with two of the conqueror's brothers beside him: 於是封叔鮮于管，封叔度於蔡：二人相紂子武庚祿父，治殷遺民 — Shu Xian was enfeoffed at Guan, Shu Du at Cai, and the two of them were set to attend the Shang heir and govern the Yin remnant. Then 武王 died and 成王 was young, and 周公旦 held the government; the two uncles 疑周公之為不利於成王，乃挾武庚以作亂 — suspecting the Duke of Zhou of acting against the young king, they took Wugeng and rose. What follows is not a battle but a disposal. One account stands in the Shiji's chapter on Guan and Cai, the other in the first sentences of a much later Shangshu chapter, 蔡仲之命. They differ in verbs and in numbers, and those differences are the subject.

The One Left in Yin

The Shiji begins with the family: 管叔鮮、蔡叔度者，周文王子而武王弟也。武王同母兄弟十人 — Guan Shu Xian and Cai Shu Du were sons of King Wen and younger brothers of King Wu, ten of them by the same mother, 太姒: 伯邑考, 武王發, 管叔鮮, 周公旦, 蔡叔度, 曹叔振鐸, 成叔武, 霍叔處, 康叔封, 冉季載. 唯發、旦賢, only Fa and Dan were worthy, so King Wen passed over the eldest and made 發 his heir. After the conquest came the settlement of relatives: 封叔鮮于管，封叔度於蔡; 封叔旦於魯而相周; 封叔振鐸於曹，封叔武於成，封叔處於霍; 康叔封、冉季載皆少，未得封 — the last two were too young for fiefs. And then the sentence that matters: 二人相紂子武庚祿父，治殷遺民, two men beside the Shang heir, governing the Shang remnant.

The word 三監, the three supervisors, is on neither page. Neither is 邶 or 鄘 or 衛: both texts were checked word by word and none of the three names occurs. What the Shiji gives is 二人, two men, named; it does not say which part of the old Shang land each watched. 霍叔 appears only in the list of brothers and in 封叔處於霍, enfeoffed at Huo; whether he counted as a supervisor, and over what, the page does not say. This article does not fill the gap, and does not borrow the division from any book outside these two pages.

They Took Wugeng and Rose

The rising takes one sentence: 武王既崩，成王少，周公旦專王室。管叔、蔡叔疑周公之為不利於成王，乃挾武庚以作亂 — King Wu dead, King Cheng young, the Duke of Zhou holding the government; the two uncles suspected him of acting against the young king and used Wugeng to raise the country. The later page compresses the same thing into twelve characters: 群叔流言，乃致辟管叔于商 — the uncles put words about, and Guan Shu was executed at Shang. 疑 against 流言; 殺 against 致辟. The Shiji then gives the outcome: 周公旦承成王命伐誅武庚，殺管叔 — the Duke acted on King Cheng's command, destroyed Wugeng and killed Guan Shu. In the Shiji the Duke is an executor with a mandate; in the later page he is 冢宰, 正百工, the chief minister setting the hundred offices right.

Released, or Imprisoned

Cai Shu is where the accounts part. The Shiji: 而放蔡叔，遷之，與車十乘，徒七十人從 — he was released, moved away, and given ten carriages with seventy followers. 蔡叔度既遷而死 — he died after the move. 放 is release or banishment rather than confinement; 遷之 is a removal; and a carriage train with seventy men is a household on the road, not a prisoner in a cell.

The Shangshu passage says otherwise: 囚蔡叔于郭鄰，以車七乘 — Cai Shu imprisoned at Guolin, with seven carriages. Four things differ, and are set side by side here rather than decided: 放 against 囚, released against imprisoned; 遷之 against 郭鄰, a move against a place; 十乘 against 七乘, ten carriages against seven; and 徒七十人, seventy followers, which only the Shiji has. Guolin is given as a name and nothing more; nothing on either page says where it was. The numbers stand as written, ten and seven, neither converted nor merged.

Huo Shu, Whose Sentence Only One Page Records

Only the later passage gives Huo Shu's fate: 降霍叔于庶人，三年不齒 — Huo Shu reduced to 庶人, a commoner, and for three years 不齒, not ranked. The page offers no explanation of the phrase, and this article leaves it standing. The Shiji page says nothing about a punishment for him: 霍叔 appears in the brothers list and in 封叔處於霍, and the chapter's closing line, 餘五叔皆就國，無為天子吏者 — the remaining five uncles all went to their states and none served as the king's officer — passes over them together without saying that any of them fell. Two treatments of one uncle, kept apart.

After the Disposal

The people are divided next: 而分殷餘民為二：其一封微子啟於宋，以續殷祀；其一封康叔為衛君，是為衛康叔 — the Yin remnant split in two: one half to Wei Zi Qi in Song to continue the Shang sacrifices, the other to Kang Shu as lord of Wei. 封季載於冉. Then two able men are given office: 周公舉康叔為周司寇，冉季為周司空 — Kang Shu made 司寇, the officer over punishments, and Ran Ji made 司空, the officer over works. The disposal is not only punishment: it splits a people in two and puts two of the survivors' rulers into the central government.

The next generation is handled too. 蔡叔度既遷而死。其子曰胡，胡乃改行，率德馴善 — Cai Shu died in exile, and his son Hu changed his conduct, leading with virtue and training to goodness; 周公聞之，而舉胡以為魯卿士，魯國治 — the Duke heard of it, made Hu an officer in Lu, and Lu was well governed; then 復封胡於蔡，以奉蔡叔之祀，是為蔡仲 — the fief of Cai was restored to him to keep his father's sacrifices, and he is Cai Zhong. The later page agrees on this much: 蔡仲克庸祗德，周公以為卿士 — Cai Zhong could use and honour virtue, and the Duke made him an officer. The two accounts conflict over Cai Shu, not over his son.

They are also different kinds of evidence. The Shiji page is a 世家, a hereditary house, and a shortened one: the brothers, the rising, the disposal, and then the long line of Cai lords down to the Warring States. The Shangshu page is a command: its first sentences summarise the punishment, and everything after is the king's charge to Hu. Its head carries the name 梅賾 and no 偽 mark, and the page's own classification is 50%; the usual account places it among the Old Text chapters of the Mei Ze recension, which makes it a later composition — a scholarly judgement, not a page label. Only those first sentences are used here, and they are read as a summary made long after the events.

What neither page gives: the word 三監, the division of the territory, where Guolin was, and what 三年不齒 meant in practice. What they give is a chain of acts — a rising, an execution, an exile counted in carriages, a demotion counted in years, a people divided in two, and a son restored to the fief. What they also show, without commenting on it, is that the same punishment could be told as a banishment with ten carriages in one book and as an imprisonment with seven in another, and that one uncle's fall could drop out of the record altogether. This site has written about the Kang Gao and about the Duo Shi, the two speeches addressed to the Shang remnant; this piece is only the rising and the disposal.

Related reading：The Announcement to Kang: Governing a Place Just Conquered · Records and Statutes: What the Shang Had, and What Survives · Nine Generations of Disorder: Succession as the Shiji Tells It