The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history - though the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty only lasted during the Western Zhou period.
During the Zhou Dynasty, the use of iron was introduced to China,while this period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making. The dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved from the ancient stage as seen in early Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, to the beginnings of the modern stage, in the form of the archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period.
History
Foundation
According to legend, during the reign of the Emperor Yao (c 2358 - 2258 BC), Jiang Yuan stepped on the footprint of the high god Di and gave birth to Hou Ji, the Lord of Millet, who taught his people to grow crops. His son Buku is said to have lived during the later Xia Dynasty (c 2072-1600 BC). Buku's grandson was Gong Liu and after eight generations comes the semi-historical Gu Gong Danfu, also known as Tai Wang or Great King. At this time, the Zhou clan is said to have lived near the Rong and Di barbarians at a place called Bin, which may have been close to Linfen on the Fen River in Shanxi. Oracle bones mention a state called Zhou near the Fen river that fought the Shang around 1180 BC. Gu Gong Danfu led his people over the mountains to the middle Wei River valley where they built a town near Mount Qi. His son, Jili, fought many wars along the Wei and Fen rivers against the Rong as a vassal of the Shang Dynasty king Wen Ding (1116-1107 or 1112-1102 BC) until the king killed him. Jili's son Chang apparently ruled for a while but was arrested by King Di Xin of Shang and held for seven years. About 1060 BC he was ransomed and given the exclusive right to conduct wars to the west of Shang. About 1053 BC he took the title of King Wen of Zhou and captured a state called Qi or Li near Changzhi and another called Yu near Qinyang. This gave him control of southeast Shanxi, threatened the Shang capital to the east and made the Yellow River corridor to the south the strategic key. He moved the capital downstream to Fenghao near present Xi'an. He died during or after another campaign probably near Luoyang near the Yellow River and was followed by his son King Wu of Zhou. In a seeming demonstration of strength, King Wu led an army down the south bank of the Yellow River to the Mengjin ford where he met with 800 local lords and then turned back. Two years later, in 1046 BC, he led 45,000 men and 300 chariots down the same route, crossed the Yellow River and conquered the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye.
Western and Eastern Zhou
Initially the Ji family was able to control the country and the people in it firmly. In 771 BC, after King You had replaced his queen with a concubine Baosi, the capital was sacked by a joint force of the queen's father, who was the powerful Marquess of Shen, and a nomadic tribe, the Quanrong. The queen's son Ji Yijiu was proclaimed the new king by nobles from the states of Zheng, Lu, Qin, Xu and Shen. The capital was moved eastward in 770 BC from Haojing to Luoyang in present-day Henan Province. Because of this shift, historians divide the Zhou era into the Western Zhou (Chinese: 西周; pinyin: Xī Zhōu), lasting up until 771 BC, and the Eastern Zhou (simplified Chinese: 东周; traditional Chinese: 東周; pinyin: Dōng Zhōu) from 770 up to 256 BC. The beginning year of the Western Zhou has been disputed; 1122 BC, 1027 BC and other years within the hundred years from late 12th century BC to late 11th century BC have been proposed. Chinese historians take 841 BC as the first year of consecutive annual dating of the history of China, based on the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. The Eastern Zhou corresponds roughly to two subperiods. The first, from 722 to 481 BC, is called the Spring and Autumn Period, after a famous historical chronicle of the time; the second is known as the Warring States Period (403 to 221 BC), after another famous chronicle and initiated by the partitioning of Jin. The Warring States Period extended slightly past the 256 BC end date of Eastern Zhou; this discrepancy is due to the fact that the last Zhou king's reign ended in 256 BC, 35 years before the beginning of the Qin Dynasty that ended the Warring States period.
The Eastern Zhou period is also designated as the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought. This is a reference to the different schools of historical Chinese intellectual thought. The four main distinct schools were Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism and Legalism, along with a host of others. These schools of thought contributed to social, philosophical and political change which played a large part in the decline of the Zhou dynasty.
Decline
With the royal line broken, the power of the Zhou court gradually diminished, and the fragmentation of the kingdom accelerated. From King Ping's reign (pre-771-720 BC) onwards, the Zhou kings ruled in name only, with true power lying in the hands of powerful nobles. Towards the end of the Zhou Dynasty, the nobles did not even bother to acknowledge the Ji family symbolically, but rebelled and declared themselves to be kings. The dynasty was ended in 256 BC, before Qin Shi Huang's unification of China in 221 BC, when the last king of Zhou died and his sons did not proclaim the nominal titles of King of China.
Culture and society
Feudalism and the rise of Confucian bureaucracy
Western writers often describe the Zhou period as 'feudal' because the Zhou's early rule invites comparison with medieval rule in Europe. One obvious difference is that the Zhou ruled from walled cities rather than castles. The Chinese term for the Zhou system is Fēngjiàn (封建). When the dynasty was established the conquered land was divided into hereditary fiefs. The obvious defect of this is that the fiefs would tend to become independent. The fiefs or states themselves tended to become feudally subdivided. At times a vigorous duke would take power from his nobles and centralize the state. Centralization became more necessary as the states began to war among themselves and centralization encouraged more war. If a duke took power from his nobles the state would have to be administered by appointed officials, that is, bureaucratically.
The lowest rank of the Zhou ruling class was called Shi (士). When a dukedom was centralized these people would find employment as government officials or officers. In contrast to Western chivalry, the Shi was expected to be something of a scholar. Being appointed, they could move from one state to another. Some would travel from state to state peddling schemes of administrative of military reform. Those who could not find employment would often end up teaching young men who aspired to official status. The most famous of these was Confucius who taught a system of mutual duty between superiors and inferiors. In contrast, the Legalists had no time for Confucian virtue and advocated a system of strict laws and harsh punishments. The wars of the Warring States were finally ended by the most legalist state of all, Qin. When the Qin dynasty fell and was replaced by the Han dynasty, many Chinese were relieved to return to the more humane virtues of Confucius.
Zhou military
The early Western Zhou supported a strong army, split into two major units: "the Six Armies of the west" and "the Eight Armies of Chengzhou". The armies campaigned in the northern Loess Plateau, modern Ningxia and the Yellow River floodplain. The military prowess of Zhou peaked during the 19th year of King Zhao's reign, when the six armies were wiped out along with King Zhao on a campaign around the Han River. Early Zhou kings were true commanders-in-chief. They were in constant wars with barbarians on behalf of the fiefs called guo, meaning statelet or principality. Charles Hucker noted that Zhou had 14 standing royal armies, with six stationed in Haojing, near present-day Xi'an, and eight armies stationed in the east. King Zhao was famous for repeated campaigns in the Yangtze areas and died in his last action. Later kings' campaigns were less effective. King Li led 14 armies against barbarians in the south but failed to achieve any victory. King Xuan fought the Quanrong nomads in vain. King You was killed by the Quanrong, and the capital Haojing was sacked. Although chariots had been introduced to China during the Shang Dynasty, the Zhou period saw the use of massed chariots in battle, a technology imported from Central Asia.
Mandate of Heaven
In the Chinese historical tradition, the Zhou defeated the Shang and oriented the Shang system of ancestor worship towards a universalized worship, away from the worship of Di and to that of Tian or "heaven". They legitimized their rule by invoking the "Mandate of Heaven", the notion that the ruler (the "Son of Heaven") governed by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had lost the Mandate. Such things that proved the ruling family had lost the Mandate were natural disasters and rebellions. The doctrine explained and justified the demise of the Xia and Shang dynasties and at the same time supported the legitimacy of present and future rulers. Before conquering Shang, Zhou was a state in Shaanxi. Gernet describes the Zhou state as a "city" which was in contact with the barbarian peoples of the western regions and more warlike than the Shang. The Zhou dynasty was founded by the Ji family and operated from four capitals throughout its history. Sharing the language and culture of the Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization, established a large imperial territory wherein states as far as Shandong acknowledged Zhou rulership and took part in elite culture. The spread of Zhou bronzes, though, was concurrent with the continued use of Shang-style pottery in the distant regions, and these states were the last to recede during the late Western war. The mandate of heaven was based on rules. The emperor was granted the right to rule by heaven.
Philosophy
During the Zhou Dynasty, the origins of native Chinese philosophy developed, its initial stages beginning in the 6th century BC. The greatest Chinese philosophers, those who made the greatest impact on later generations of Chinese, were Confucius, founder of Confucianism, and Laozi, founder of Taoism. Other philosophers, theorists, and schools of thought in this era were Mozi, founder of Mohism; Mencius, a famous Confucian who expanded upon Confucius' legacy; Shang Yang and Han Feizi, responsible for the development of ancient Chinese Legalism (the core philosophy of the Qin Dynasty); and Xunzi, who was arguably the center of ancient Chinese intellectual life during his time, even more so than iconic intellectual figures such as Mencius.
Agriculture
Agriculture in the Zhou Dynasty was very intensive and, in many cases, directed by the government. All farming lands were owned by nobles, who then gave their land to their serfs, a situation similar to European feudalism. For example, a piece of land was divided into nine squares in the well-field system, with the grain from the middle square taken by the government and that of surrounding squares kept by individual farmers. This way, the government was able to store surplus food and distribute it in times of famine or bad harvest. Some important manufacturing sectors during this period included bronze smelting, which was integral to making weapons and farming tools. Again, these industries were dominated by the nobility who directed the production of such materials.
China's first projects of hydraulic engineering were initiated during the Zhou Dynasty, ultimately as a means to aid agricultural irrigation. The chancellor of Wei, Sunshu Ao, who served King Zhuang of Chu, dammed a river to create an enormous irrigation reservoir in modern-day northern Anhui province. For this, Sunshu is credited as China's first hydraulic engineer. The later Wei statesman Ximen Bao, who served Marquis Wen of Wei (445-396 BC), is the first hydraulic engineer of China to have created a large irrigation canal system. As the main focus of his grandiose project, his canal work eventually diverted the waters of the entire Zhang River (漳河) to a spot further up the Yellow River.
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Dynasty
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