Guifang

Guifang (Chinese: 鬼方; Wade–Giles: Kui-fang) was an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Chinese historical tradition identified the Guifang with the Rong, Xunyu, or Xiongnu peoples. This Chinese exonym combines gui (鬼 "ghost, spirit, devil") and fang (方 "side, border, country, region"), a suffix referring to "non-Shang or enemy countries that existed in and beyond the borders of the Shang polity." The sinologist Herrlee Glessner Creel translated Guifang as "Demon Territory".

Overview

Chinese annals contain a number of references to the Guifang, the earliest are the records in the Bamboo Annals which state that during the Shang Dynasty a people known as the Gǔiróng (Jung) (simplified Chinese: 鬼戎; traditional Chinese: 鬼族) had already been attacked by the Zhou leader Jili in 1119 BCE, the thirty-fifth year of the Shang King Wu Yi. Historians believe that the Guirong were identical to the Guifang. The name Guifang appeared during the reign of the King Kang of Zhou (r. 1005/03–978 BCE). They were probably a people located northeast of the initial Zhou domain. According to the Xiao Yu Ding (小盂鼎) bronze vessel inscriptions, cast in the twenty-fifth year of King Kang (979 BC), after two successful battles against the Guifang, captured enemies were brought to the Zhou temple and offered to the king. The prisoners numbered over 13,000 with four chiefs who were subsequently executed. Zhou also captured a large amount of booty. The Yijing or "Book of Changes" mentions a Shang King, probably Wu Ding (r. 1250-1192 BCE), fighting against the Guifang, "attacked the Demon region, but was three years in subduing it."