Zheng () was a prominent diviner during the Shang dynasty, appearing in over 800 oracle bone inscriptions. They are known to have served Wu Ding and Zu Geng during the Late Shang period.
Zheng was a member of the bin è³ group of diviners, marking Period 1 of oracular inscriptions. Chen Mengjia notes that Zheng is among the most prolific of diviners, which has served as a useful metric for dating oracular inscriptions. For example, was one occasion where Zheng wrote with members of the Zi diviner group, which shows that his Bin group was contemporaneous with them.
As a practitioner of the state faith of the Shang dynasty, Zheng would divinate on topics of importance to the ruler through a process known as scapulimancy, by burning a turtle plastron until cracks appeared, usually those of Mauremys sinensis. Topics include matters such as war, illness, pregnancy, marriage, toothache, harvest, receiving protection, and much more. The divination process itself involved consulting with Shang ancestors or deities for advice, input, and action on these topics. <blockquote> ç²åÂÂÃ¥ÂÂçÂÂè²Âç¿Âä¹Âæªç¨ç¾Âç¨ä¹ÂæÂ¥é§<br> On the jiawu day, Zheng divinated. Test: On tomorrow's yiwei day, should we use the Qiang people? On that day, there was a fog. </blockquote>
Shang dynasty divinations during Zheng's period typically follow four stages:
While oracular inscriptions prominently mention Zheng, it is unknown whether they would inscribe on turtle shells themselves, or if a scribe did so for them as the divination was performed. This can be seen through inconsistencies between writing styles on oracle bones with the same diviner. Additionally, the metaphysical orientation that went into the divination process is unclear. It is implied that oracle bone scribes would go to a place called a xue å¸, based on two oracle bone inscriptions, which use the word in a position consistent with nouns rather than the common verb sense "to study." However, this is uncertain due to limited evidence and syntactic ambiguity.