商王武丁伐巴方一事，乃為研究商史或巴蜀文化之學者多所徵引討論；然而，迄今學者對甲骨文中巴字的釋讀，及對商代巴方地望的所在等項問題，似尚未形成共識。作者依據甲骨卜辭，首先構擬了武丁伐巴一役之始末，從決策、部署、作戰、為期約共二個月，並考證「巴」乃「把」之本字。而巴方或巴人在商代及更早期活動之地望，學界前有漢水上游陝南地區、江漢平原、川東鄂西清江流域等說。作者謹就武丁伐巴一役所涉及之人與地，考證了商代巴方地望可能在今日鄂西清江匯入長江一帶。
Shang King Wu-ting's campaign against the State of Ba 巴 has long been a frequently discussed and quoted event among scholars of ancient Chinese and Ba Shu 巴蜀 culture studies. So far, however, the reading of the word Ba and the geographic location of the State during the Shang Dynasty are still controversial among these scholars. In this essay, the author reconstructed from the inscriptions on the fragments of Shang oracle bones and tortoise shells the details of King Wu-ting's campaign including the King's decision making process, deployment of military resources to the final engagement with the enemy. And from the peoples and places involved in the campaign, the author elucidated the geographic location of ancient Ba State as near the northeastern side of present Hubei Province, where important Ba culture remains had been unearthed by modern archaeologists. The author also compared the forms of Shang inscriptions ba 巴 and zhu 祝, and concluded that the origin meaning of the word ba was the pictograph of a kneeling man's hand or palm, and that the pictograph ba the archaic form of the word ba3 把. When it was used as the name of the State during the Shang Dynasty, it was a sound loan word.
