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Wang Hai
Legendary ancestor of the Shang people, said to have first yoked oxen, who was killed among the Youyi and received lavish sacrifices in the oracle bones
On a river quay, loaded camels rest before a warehouse of stacked bales, with a balance scale and abacus on a table and green ceramic jars in front; porters carry bundles toward a large sailing ship on the right, and blank banners hang at the warehouse.
Also known as Zi Hai
Wang Hai was an ancestor of the Shang people in the age before the dynasty, named Wang Hai in the oracle-bone inscriptions and Zhen in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), where he is the son of Ming and father of Shangjia Wei. The Shiben credits him, under the name Gai, with first harnessing oxen. The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing) says he entrusted himself to the Youyi people and the lord of the River, and that the Youyi killed him and took his oxen. The old text of the Bamboo Annals adds that he misbehaved while a guest of the Youyi and was killed by their ruler Mianchen, and that his son Shangjia Wei borrowed troops from the lord of the River and destroyed them. In 1917 Wang Guowei showed that the Wang Hai of the oracle bones was the Zhen of the Shiji, and some inscriptions record offerings of as many as three hundred cattle to him.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; a pre-dynastic Shang ancestor