Mythological Hero: King Tang 湯
Shang Tang (Zi Lu) 商湯 (子履)
King Tang was the first ruling emperor of the Shang Dynasty. Tang organized a rebellion against, Jie, the last ruler of the Xia tribe who was considered to be a tyrant. Once he became monarch, he abolished persecution and the oppression of the people and governed with benevolence and compassion.
In addition to being political leaders, the Shang kings were also high priests and performed oracle bone rituals to determine what military actions they should take. In this same way, the large intestine type is like the holy warrior fighting for a military cause. Like Hexagram 34, and richu 日出, this is the idea of light being victorious over darkness.
During the Shang Dynasty, pictographs became ideograms, which now represented ideas and concepts. Just as the monk left the chant written in stone at the origin on the Chang Jiang river as a spoken symbolic connection to the immaterial world, so did the ideograms become written symbols which were material representations of the energy behind existence. A healthy large intestine can appropriately channel this energy.
The Shang culture perfected metal casting and created special bronze vessels that were buried with the corpses of the monarch. There are many surviving jade tablets made by the accomplished artisans of the Shang. The ideas of burying precious commodities (including live human beings) with the monarch can also be see in the constellation representatives for the large intestine. This plays on the ideas of reincarnation, a theme which the large intestine is heavily laden with.
The Shang employed the yoke to harness the power of animals, just as the large intestine has the ability to harness the power of the many bacteria that reside within it.
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