(Ed. Note: This paper was an adaptation of Section X of my article “The Dates of Western Chou,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43.2[1983]:482–580. In the article, this section is titled “Numerological Postscript,” and occupies pp. 556–566.)

As now revised, this section (with related earlier sections of the article) represents my arguments that pre-Conquest dates in the present Bamboo Annals ([Chin-pen] Chu-shu chi-nien) that are relevant to the beginning of Chou are partly historical and partly numerological. I argue that most of the dates that have historical validity have been distorted in two independent revisions of the original chronicle that were later combined. The first, in the 8th century B.C., moved Chou family dates back 12 years, and indirectly generated the Conquest date 1050, The second, in the late 6th century B.C., moved Shang dates (after Wu Ting) back 6 years, so that in this revision the Conquest was redated from 1045 to 1051. Both dates appear, in different places, in the present Bamboo Annals. This analysis results from my research in October of 1982, dating the Brundage rhinoceros tsun inscription, and thereby proving that the Bamboo Annals' date 1111 for Ti Yi is exactly 6 years early.