Volume V:The Rise and Fall of Xia

How Should “Despising the Five Phases and Abandoning the Three Standards” Be Read?

ConceptHISTXT

The Five Phases and Three Standards turn the Youhu offence into disruption of cosmic and calendrical order, not mere disobedience.

Story Context

After Qi receives the throne, succession, alliances and military authority still require confirmation. The Battle of Gan writes the legitimacy of the new kingship into a war speech and moves the Xia narrative from family inheritance toward state command.

Textual and Material Clues

Commentaries connect the Three Standards with calendars and cosmic order; this vocabulary may reflect later thought rather than a verbatim Xia speech.

How to Read the Evidence

For “How Should “Despising the Five Phases and Abandoning the Three Standards” Be Read?,” separate royal genealogy, moral judgment, remembered conflict and archaeological sequence. A later text can preserve an old name without proving that every attached deed is equally early.

Why It Matters

“How Should “Despising the Five Phases and Abandoning the Three Standards” Be Read?” matters because it shows that Qi’s rule is not a natural continuation but must be explained through allegiance, war speech, armies and ancestral order.

Further Reading

  • Shangshu: Speech at Gan
  • Shiji: Annals of Xia
  • Xia traditions cited in Zuozhuan

Continue the Chronicle

What Kind of War Speech Is the Speech at Gan? · Can Qi’s “Six Armies” Reveal an Actual Military System?