A Chinese novel of the Ming Dynasty
During the later Ming Dynasty, in the 1500s AD, a man named Xu Zhonglin wrote a novel called Fengshen Yanyi. The main character is Ji Fa, who overthrew the last emperor of the Shang Dynasty and made himself the first emperor of the Zhou dynasty, about 1100 BC.
The Zhou Dynasty
Chinese literature
All our China articles
Battles of gods and people
Chinese government
The Shang Dynasty
More about the Iliad
Chinese gods and demons
Is this kind of like the plot of the Iliad, where Menelaus takes the whole Greek army to war over one woman, Helen? At least, both stories blame the war on bad behavior by women.
Who was Helen of Troy?
What happens in the end?
In the end, many of the heroes from both sides become gods themselves and go to heaven, which explains the name of the book: Fengshen Yanyi means “How the Heroes Became Gods.”
Guanti – a man who turned into a god
Boddhisatvas and Buddhism
Fengshen Yanyi, “How the Heroes Became Gods,” was one of many novels written in China about this time, during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Some other examples are the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Monkey: Journey to the West.
