n c. 1046 BCE, the Battle of Muye erupted. The leader of the Zhou of the west, Ji Fa, took the opportunity presented when King Zhou of Shang rallied his forces in a southeastern expedition and when the Shang capital of Zhaoge was undefended to form an alliance with leaders in the west at Mengjin to perform a swift strike against the capital. Hearing of the impending attack, the Shang king was caught off guard and forced to head to Muye for battle, and ended up burning himself alive on the Deer Terrace Pavilion, thus ending the six-hundred-year reign of the Shang Dynasty and ushering in the era of the Zhou Dynasty.