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91-584: During the Zhou conquest of Shang , Jiang Ziya , a native of Ju County served as the chief minister to King Wu , the same position he had held in service to King Wu's father. Following the Zhou victory, the lands comprising much of the Shandong peninsula and some nearby surrounds were established as the state of Qi, with Jiang charged with ruling and defending them. After King Wu's death, Ziya remained loyal to

182-532: A conclave of nobles met at Shen and declared the Marquis's grandson King Ping . The capital was moved eastward to Wangcheng , marking the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period. The Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC) was characterized by an accelerating collapse of royal authority, although the king's ritual importance enabled more than five additional centuries of rule. The Spring and Autumn Annals ,

273-414: A group of his subjects to plead with your great domain, charging that we should not let our chariots and troops remain long in your territory. We can only advance; we cannot retreat. The command from you, my lord, shall have no cause to be dishonored. Duke Qing of Qi then replied that his army would do battle, with or without permission. The next day, the two armies engaged at An. During the battle, Xi Ke

364-504: A language largely similar in vocabulary and syntax to that of the Shang; a recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion. The Zhou emulated Shang cultural practices, possibly to legitimize their own rule, and became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may also have been connected to the Xirong , a broadly defined cultural group to

455-484: 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

546-515: A second time c.  1026 . Transmitted documents from the Western Zhou period are scant, but it is known that King Yi of Zhou ( r.   865–858 BCE) attacked Qi and boiled Duke Ai to death. During the time of King Xuan of Zhou ( r.   827–782), there was a local succession struggle. Throughout this period, many of the native Dongyi peoples were absorbed into the Zhou cultural sphere. The succession crisis following

637-478: 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. 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,

728-470: A tribute from the other states, and had the honour of paying the royal court a larger tribute than anyone else. His calls to arms were as binding as the king's own. Using this authority, during the first eleven years of his hegemony, Duke Huan intervened in a power struggle in Lu; protected Yan from encroaching Western Rong nomads; drove off Northern Di nomads after their invasions of Wey and Xing , providing

819-480: A turning point, as rulers did not even entertain the pretense of vassalage of the Zhou court, instead proclaiming themselves fully independent kingdoms. A series of states rose to prominence before each falling in turn, and in most of these conflicts Zhou was a minor player. The last Zhou king is traditionally taken to be Nan , who was killed when Qin captured Wangcheng in 256 BC. Duke Wen of Eastern Zhou declared himself to be "King Hui", but his splinter state

910-435: 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 decentralization encouraged more war. If a duke took power from his nobles, the state would have to be administered bureaucratically by appointed officials. Despite these similarities, there are a number of important differences from medieval Europe. One obvious difference

1001-456: Is inauspicious for us to put to death a man who does not balk at death if it will let his ruler escape. I will pardon him to encourage those who serve their lords. The Duke of Qi searched for Feng Choufu to no avail. He then returned to Linzi, the Qi capital. When he reached the city gate, he cried to the guards that the Qi army had been defeated. A woman nearby, who the guards were shoving away, asked

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1092-453: Is not the eldest and hence not heir to the lineage territory has the potential of becoming a progenitor and fostering a new trunk lineage (Ideally he would strike out to cultivate new lineage territory). [...] According to the Zou commentary, the son of heaven divided land among his feudal lords, his feudal lords divided the land among their dependent families and so forth down the pecking order to

1183-496: Is often considered to be the zenith for the craft of Chinese bronzeware . The latter Zhou period is also famous for the advent of three major Chinese philosophies: Confucianism , Taoism and Legalism . The Zhou dynasty also spans the period when the predominant form of written Chinese became seal script , which evolved from the earlier oracle bone and bronze scripts . By the dynasty's end, an immature form of clerical script had also emerged. According to Chinese mythology ,

1274-481: Is that the Zhou ruled from walled cities rather than castles. Another was China's distinct class system, which lacked an organized clergy but saw Shang-descent yeomen become masters of ritual and ceremony, as well as astronomy, state affairs and ancient canons, known as ru ( 儒 ). When a dukedom was centralized, these people would find employment as government officials or officers. These hereditary classes were similar to Western knights in status and breeding, but unlike

1365-561: Is unstable... The people of Qi are by nature unyielding and their country prosperous, but the ruler and officials are arrogant and care nothing for the people. The state's policies are not uniform and not strictly enforced. Salaries and wages are unfair and unevenly distributed, causing disharmony and disunity. Qi's army is arrayed with their heaviest hitters at the front while the rest follow behind, so that even when their forces appear mighty, they are in reality fragile. To defeat them, we should divide our army into three columns and have two attack

1456-620: The Battle of An in 589. In 579, the four great powers of Qin , Jin, Chu, and Qi met to declare a truce and limit their military strength. Early in the period, Qi annexed a number of smaller states. Qi was one of the first states to patronize scholars. In 532   BCE, the Tian clan destroyed several rival families and came to dominate the state. In 485, the Tian clan killed the heir to the house of Jiang and fought several rival clans. Four years later,

1547-642: The Duke of Zhou 's regency during the Three Guards ' failed rebellion . The Shang prince Wu Geng had joined the revolt along with the Dongyi polities of Yan  [ zh ] , Xu , and Pugu , located within the boundaries of Qi. These were suppressed by 1039   BCE, but the Bamboo Annals suggest that the native people of Pugu continued to revolt for about another decade before being destroyed

1638-662: The Master of the Horse . The Jin army set out and rendezvoused with the Wey army, led by Viscount Huan of Sun, the Lu army, led by Jisun Xingfu, Viscount Wen of Ji  [ zh ] , and the Cao army, led by Prince Shou of Cao  [ zh ] . The commanders of each of these four armies were, in fact, the four emissaries who were humiliated by Duke Qing of Qi during their earlier visit. The allied forces entered Qi territory and encountered

1729-403: The Western Zhou period ( c.  1046  – 771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji , had military control over ancient China . Even as Zhou suzerainty became increasingly ceremonial over the following Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC), the political system created by the Zhou royal house survived in some form for several additional centuries. A date of 1046 BC for

1820-459: The Xirong and Rongdi (see Hua–Yi distinction ). Ju's son Liu , however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin , which his descendants ruled for generations. Tai later led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley (modern Qishan County ). The duke passed over his two elder sons Taibo and Zhongyong to favor

1911-538: The Yellow River and defeated King Zhou of Shang at the Battle of Muye , marking the beginning of the Zhou dynasty. The Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song , which was held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to as Two Kings, Three Reverences  [ zh ] . According to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken

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2002-497: The "Left Wall" asterism in the "Heavenly Market" enclosure . All dates are BCE 36°51′54″N 118°20′24″E  /  36.865°N 118.340°E  / 36.865; 118.340 Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( [ʈʂóʊ] ; Chinese : 周 ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from c.  1046 BC until 256 BC, the longest of all dynasties in Chinese history . During

2093-483: The "leader of fortifications," and granted her a settlement named Shiliu (石窌). Duke Qing of Qi sent Guo Zuo, Viscount Wu of Guo  [ zh ] as envoy to the Jin army. The Jin leaders demanded that Duke Qing of Qi send Xiao Tongshu Zi  [ zh ] , his mother and one of the women who laughed at Xi Ke during his prior visit, as hostage. Also, they demanded that all the field divisions in Qi be made to run in

2184-428: The "second sage" of Confucianism; Shang Yang and Han Fei , responsible for the development of ancient Chinese Legalism ; and Xunzi , who was arguably the center of ancient Chinese intellectual life during his time. The state theology of the Zhou dynasty used concepts from the Shang dynasty and mostly referred to the Shang god, Di , as Tian , a more distant and unknowable concept, yet one that anyone could utilize,

2275-564: The Confucian chronicle of the early years of this process, gave the period its name as the Spring and Autumn period . The partition of Jin during the mid-5th century BC is a commonly cited as initiating the subsequent Warring States period . In 403 BC, the Zhou court recognized Han , Zhao , and Wei as fully independent states. In 344, Duke Hui of Wei was the first to claim the title of "king" for himself. Others followed, marking

2366-400: The Duke about whether or not the Duke survived, not knowing the true identity of the Duke. After the Duke answered to the affirmative, she then asked about the leader of the spearmen, to which the Duke answered to the affirmative as well. The woman said, "“If the ruler and my father have escaped harm, what more can I ask?” and then ran away. The Duke later found out that the woman was the wife of

2457-515: The Duke of Qi insulted the emissaries of four visiting states (Jin, Wey , Lu , and Cao ) by assigning each of them a servant who shared their respective physical defects. By early 6th century BC, Jin and Chu had become the two most powerful states in China, with many other states constantly shifting between their spheres of influence. The last major battle between Jin and Chu before the Battle of An

2548-404: The Duke of Qi was willing to accept a peace deal that reestablishes good relationships between Qi and Jin, but was also willing to fight again should the deal fall through. At this point, the representatives of Lu and Wey urged the leaders of Jin to accept Qi's offer, citing that Qi had had poor relations with Lu and Wey and that they would bear the brunt of any further fighting. On 4 July, 589 BC,

2639-458: The Duke of Qi, in an attempt to confuse the pursuers, switched places with Feng Choufu (逢丑父), his chariot's spearman who stood to his right while Han Jue bent over to adjust the corpse of his attendant to his right. As the two chariots approached the Springs of Hua (華泉), the Qi chariot became caught in the midst of trees and stopped. Feng Choufu, whose arm was bitten by a snake, was unable to free

2730-462: The European equivalent, they were expected to be something of a scholar instead of a warrior. Being appointed, they could move from one state to another. Some would travel from state to state peddling schemes of administrative or 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

2821-506: The Jin ruler. If, as you lay your great command upon the princes, sir, you must make hostages of their mothers to secure a pledge, how can you answer to the Zhou king's charge? Moreover, this will amount to issuing commands that are unfilial. In regards to the demand of the land division, Guo Zuo appealed to loyalty to the Son of Heaven and to the examples of the sagacious rulers in prior history such as Yao and King Wen of Zhou . First, he tied

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2912-609: The Jixia Academy not to be a physical institution, but an informal collaboration of sponsored scholars engaged in intellectual work. One impressive surviving achievement of the Jixia school of thought is the Yanzi Chunqiu . The state of Qi was known for having well organized cities that were nearly rectangular in shape, with roads that were neatly knit into a grid-like pattern. The palace was strategically positioned facing

3003-433: The Qi army, led by Duke Qing of Qi, at Shen (莘). On 28 May, 589 BC, the allied forces reached Mt. Miji (靡笄山). When Duke Qing of Qi sent an envoy to request for battle, the Jin commanders responded: Lu and [Wey] are the brothers of Jin. They came to notify us: ‘That great domain had been day and night relieving its rancor in the territories of our humble settlements.’ Our unworthy ruler could not bear their distress and sent

3094-591: The Shang kings. Nobles of the Ji family proclaimed Duke Hui of Eastern Zhou as King Nan's successor after their capital, Chengzhou, fell to Qin forces in 256 BC. Ji Zhao, a son of King Nan, led a resistance against Qin for five years. The dukedom fell in 249 BC. The remaining Ji family ruled Yan and Wei until 209 BC. During Confucius's lifetime in the Spring and Autumn period, Zhou kings had little power, and much administrative responsibility and de-facto political strength

3185-400: The Shang's large scale production of ceremonial bronzes, they developed an extensive system of bronze metalworking that required a large force of tribute labor. Many of its members were Shang, who were sometimes forcibly transported to new Zhou to produce the bronze ritual objects which were then sold and distributed across the lands, symbolizing Zhou legitimacy. Western writers often describe

3276-465: The Shang. Zhou rulers introduced the Mandate of Heaven , which would prove to be among East Asia's most enduring political doctrines. According to the theory, Heaven imposed a mandate to replace the Shang on the Zhou, whose moral superiority justified seizing Shang wealth and territory in order to return good governance to the people. The Mandate of Heaven was presented as a religious compact between

3367-454: The Tian chief killed a puppet ruler, most of his family, and a number of rival chiefs. He took control of most of the state and left the monarch with only the capital of Linzi and the area around Mount Tai . In 386, the house of Tian fully replaced the house of Jiang as rulers of Qi. The Warring States period ended with the Qin conquest of Qi, which was the last to fall, in 222. So ended Qi, and

3458-501: The Western Zhou. During the Western Zhou (1045–771 BC), King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Haojing . Although Wu's early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhou's increasing power, the "Three Guards", Zhou princes stationed on

3549-588: The Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the Siwa culture . When King You demoted and exiled his Jiang queen in favor of the commoner Bao Si , the disgraced queen's father the Marquis of Shen joined with Zeng and the Quanrong. The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital at Haojing and killing the last Western Zhou king You . With King You dead,

3640-469: The Zhou lineage began when Jiang Yuan , a consort of the legendary Emperor Ku , miraculously conceived a child, Qi "the Abandoned One", after stepping into the divine footprint of Shangdi . Qi was a culture hero credited with surviving abandonment by his mother three times, and with greatly improving agriculture, to the point where he was granted lordship over Tai , the surname Ji , and

3731-428: The Zhou people and their supreme god in heaven. The Zhou agreed that since worldly affairs were supposed to align with those of the heavens, the heavens conferred legitimate power on only one person, the Zhou ruler. In return, the ruler was duty-bound to uphold heaven's principles of harmony and honor. Any ruler who failed in this duty, who let instability creep into earthly affairs, or who let his people suffer, would lose

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3822-648: The Zhou period as feudal because the Zhou's fengjian system invites comparison with European political systems during the Middle Ages . There were many similarities between the decentralized systems. When the dynasty was established, the conquered land was divided into hereditary fiefs ( 諸侯 , zhūhóu ) that eventually became powerful in their own right. In matters of inheritance, the Zhou dynasty recognized only patrilineal primogeniture as legal. According to Hsi-Sheng Tao, "the Tsung-fa or descent line system has

3913-550: The Zhou period clearly intoned this caution. The Zhou kings contended that heaven favored their triumph because the last Shang kings had been evil men whose policies brought pain to the people through waste and corruption. After the Zhou came to power, the mandate became a political tool. One of the duties and privileges of the king was to create a royal calendar. This official document defined times for undertaking agricultural activities and celebrating rituals. But unexpected events such as solar eclipses or natural calamities threw

4004-490: The Zhou's establishment is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC. The latter Eastern Zhou period is itself roughly subdivided into two parts. During the Spring and Autumn period ( c.  771  – c.  481 BC ), power became increasingly decentralized as the authority of

4095-517: The baron of Li Rong ( 驪戎男 ), after being defeated by Jin , married his daughter Li Ji off. According to historian Li Feng , the term "Rong" during the Western Zhou period was likely used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural and ethnic "others". Cultural artifacts of the Western Rong coexisted with Western Zhou bronzes, indicating close bonds between the Rong and

4186-434: The chariot, as the heart of the army, must move together with the army's banners and drums, which he compared with eyes and ears. After encouraging Xi Ke to brace himself more, Xie Zhang, who claimed that only one man was needed to control a chariot, grasped all its reins together with his left hand and beat the war drum on the chariot with his right. The chariot's horses raced forward, and the allied troops followed. The Qi army

4277-524: The chariot, so the Jin chariot caught up with it. Han Jue captured who he thought was the Duke of Qi, but not before bowing to him twice and presenting to him a wine cup and a jade disk. Feng Choufu then ordered the real Duke of Qi to fetch water from the Springs of Hua, allowing him to escape. Han Jue presented Feng Choufu to Xi Ke as the Duke of Qi, but Xi Ke, who knew what the Duke of Qi looked like, recognized that Han Jue had captured one of his servants. Xi Ke then spared Feng Choufu's life , claiming: It

4368-411: The doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven while accommodating important Shang rituals at Wangcheng and Chengzhou . Over time, this decentralized system became strained as the familial relationships between the Zhou kings and the regional dynasties thinned over the generations. Peripheral territories developed local power and prestige on par with that of the Zhou. The conflicts with nomadic tribes from

4459-521: The eastern plain, rose in rebellion against his regency. Even though they garnered the support of independent-minded nobles, Shang partisans, and several Dongyi tribes, the Duke of Zhou quelled the rebellion, and further expanded the Zhou Kingdom into the east. To maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system. Furthermore, he countered Zhou's crisis of legitimacy by expounding

4550-401: The east–west direction, which makes all roads and canals run in the same direction, facilitating potential future invasions by Jin, which was to the west of Qi. In regards to the demand of the hostage, Guo Zuo appealed to filial piety by saying, Xiao Tongshu Zi is none other than our unworthy ruler's mother. If we were to name someone as her counterpart, then it would in fact be the mother of

4641-510: The era of Imperial China began. Before Qin unified China, each state's customs, culture, dialects, and orthography had pronounced differences. According to the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu , composed in the fourth or fifth century BCE and included in the Classic of Documents , there were nine distinct cultural regions of China, which are described in detail. The work focuses on the travels of

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4732-460: The event that led to the battle as an insult that Xi Ke  [ zh ] , an emissary of Jin, suffered at the court of Qi in 592 BC, but the two accounts differ on the nature of the insult. According to the Zuo Zhuan , the Duke of Qi allowed women to watch the emissary's visit from behind a screen, the women then insulted the emissary with their laughter. The Guliang Zhuan claims that

4823-476: The following characteristics: patrilineal descent, patrilineal succession, patriarchate, sib-exogamy, and primogeniture" The system, also called "extensive stratified patrilineage", was defined by the anthropologist Kwang-chih Chang as "characterized by the fact that the eldest son of each generation formed the main of line descent and political authority, whereas the younger brothers were moved out to establish new lineages of lesser authority. The farther removed,

4914-576: The importance of the Di troops. King Xiang of Zhou also married a Di princess after receiving Di military support. During the Zhou dynasty, the origins of native Chinese philosophy developed, its initial stages of development 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 of this era were Mozi , founder of Mohism ; Mencius ,

5005-402: The landed aristocracy, establishing a system of counties ( 縣 ; xiàn ) ruled directly by ministers of the state court. Qi annexed 35 neighboring polities – including Tan – and brought others into submission. Guan Zhong's administrative reforms also included state monopolies on salt and iron, and in general were characteristic of the later political philosophy of Legalism . In 667   BCE,

5096-528: The left and right flanks of Qi's army. Once their battle formations are thrown into disarray, the central column should be in position to attack and victory will follow. While visiting Qi, Confucius was deeply impressed with perfection of performance of Shao music ( 韶 ) therein. During the Warring States period, Qi was famous for Linzi's Jixia Academy , where renowned scholars of the era from all over China would visit. Modern scholarship understands

5187-501: The lesser the political authority". Ebrey defines the descent-line system as follows: "A great line (ta-tsung) is the line of eldest sons continuing indefinitely from a founding ancestor. A lesser line is the line of younger sons going back no more than five generations. Great lines and lesser lines continually spin off new lesser lines, founded by younger sons". K.E. Brashier writes in his book "Ancestral Memory in Early China" about

5278-411: The lords of Qi, Lu , Song , Chen , and Zheng assembled in one of the first great interstate conferences, and Duke Huan was elected as their leader. Subsequently, King Hui of Zhou pronounced him Bà ( 霸 ; 'big brother'), the "hegemon-protector" sworn to protect the royal house of Zhou and uphold the authority of the Son of Heaven (the Zhou king). The first of five such hegemons, he earned

5369-436: The mandate. Under this system, it was the prerogative of spiritual authority to withdraw support from any wayward ruler and to find another, more worthy one. In this way, the Zhou sky god legitimized regime change. In using this creed, the Zhou rulers had to acknowledge that any group of rulers, even they themselves, could be ousted if they lost the mandate of heaven because of improper practices. The book of odes written during

5460-467: The mountain ridges of central Shandong Province to the Yellow Sea in the present-day city of Qingdao . Its total length has been estimated at 600 km (370 miles). Most of the wall is still visible. Qi is represented by the star Chi Capricorni in the "Twelve States" asterism in the " Girl " lunar mansion in the " Black Turtle " symbol . Qi is also represented by the star 112 Herculis in

5551-415: The necessity of dividing land to its benefits to the work of great rulers of the past. Then, he pointed out that Jin's demands were, contradictory to those rulers' altruistic accomplishments, meant to serve themselves. Third, he argued that by enforcing such selfish demands, Jin would, instead of unifying the states , alienate all of them while Jin alone would suffer. Finally, Guo Zuo declared that even though

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5642-588: 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. Sunshu Ao , the Chancellor of Wei 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),

5733-509: The north and the northwest, variously known as the Xianyun , Guifang , or various "Rong" tribes, such as the Xirong , Shanrong or Quanrong , intensified towards the end of the Western Zhou period. These tribes are recorded as harassing Zhou territory, but at the time the Zhou were expanding northwards, encroaching on their traditional lands—especially the Wei River valley. Archaeologically,

5824-596: 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 King Zhao was famous for repeated campaigns in the Yangtze region, and died on campaign. Later kings' campaigns were less effective. King Li led 14 armies against barbarians in

5915-597: The officers who had their dependent kin and the commoners who "each had his apportioned relations and all had their graded precedence"" This type of unilineal descent-group later became the model of the Korean family through the influence of Neo-Confucianism , as Zhu Xi and others advocated its re-establishment in China. There were five peerage ranks below the royal ranks, in descending order with common English translations: gōng 公 "duke", hóu 侯 "marquis", bó 伯 "count", zǐ 子 "viscount", and nán 男 "baron". At times,

6006-458: The opposite view of the Shang's spirituality. The Zhou wanted to increase the number of enlightenment seekers, mystics, and those who would be interested in learning about such things as a way to further distance their people from the Shang-era paradigm and local traditions. Having emerged during the Western Zhou, the li ritual system encoded an understanding of manners as an expression of

6097-433: The others and Chinese society in sometimes unusual ways. The Mohists for instance found little interest in their praise of meritocracy but much acceptance for their mastery of defensive siege warfare; much later, however, their arguments against nepotism were used in favor of establishing the imperial examination system. The Zhou heartland was the Wei River valley; this remained their primary base of power after conquering

6188-510: The others were Confucianism as interpreted by Mencius and others, Legalism , Taoism , Mohism , the utopian communalist Agriculturalism , two strains of the School of Diplomacy , the School of Names , Sun Tzu 's School of the Military , and the School of Naturalists . While only the first three of these would receive imperial patronage in later dynasties, doctrines from each influenced

6279-400: The people with provisions and protective garrison units; and led an alliance of eight states to conquer Cai and thereby block the northward expansion of Chu . After Duke Huan's death, a war of succession between rival claimants greatly weakened Qi and ending its reign of hegemony. In 632   BCE, Qi helped Jin defeat Chu at the Battle of Chengpu , only to be defeated by Jin itself at

6370-410: The royal house diminished. The Warring States period ( c.  481  – 221 BC) that followed saw large-scale warfare and consolidation among what had formerly been Zhou client states, until the Zhou were formally extinguished by the state of Qin in 256 BC. The Qin ultimately founded the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC after conquering all of China . The Zhou period

6461-413: The ruling house's mandate into question. Since rulers claimed that their authority came from heaven, the Zhou made great efforts to gain accurate knowledge of the stars and to perfect the astronomical system on which they based their calendar. Zhou legitimacy also arose indirectly from Shang material culture through the use of bronze ritual vessels, statues , ornaments, and weapons. As the Zhou emulated

6552-559: The social hierarchy, ethics, and regulation concerning material life; the corresponding social practices became idealized within Confucian ideology. The system was canonized in the Book of Rites , Rites of Zhou , and Etiquette and Ceremonial compiled during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), thus becoming the heart of the Chinese imperial ideology. While the system

6643-485: The south, but failed to achieve any victory. King Xuan fought the Quanrong nomads in vain. King You was killed by the Quanrong when Haojing was sacked. Although chariots had been introduced to China during the Shang dynasty from Central Asia, the Zhou period saw the first major use of chariots in battle. Recent archaeological finds demonstrate similarities between horse burials of the Shang and Zhou dynasties with

6734-591: The south. To the left (eastwardly direction) of the palace resided the ancestral temple , to its right (westward) the temple of the gods, both one hundred paces away. This ensured that balance was achieved. In front of the palace was the court also one hundred paces away and to the back of the palace was the city. This type of layout influenced greatly the way cities were designed in subsequent generations. Smaller estates known as chengyi ( 城邑 ) were abundant throughout Qi. They typically stretched 450 meters from south to north and 395 meters from east to west. The perimeter

6825-566: The steppe populations in the west, such as the Saka and Wusun . Other possible cultural influences resulting from contact with these Iranic people of Central Asia in this period may include fighting styles, head-and-hooves burials, art motifs and myths. The Zhou army also included "barbarian" troops such as the Di people . King Hui of Zhou married a princess of the Red Di as a sign of appreciation for

6916-511: The title Houji "Lord of Millet ", by the Emperor Shun . He even received sacrifice as a harvest god . The term Houji was probably a hereditary title attached to a lineage. Buzhu —Qi's son, or rather that of the Houji —is said to have abandoned his position as Agrarian Master ( 農師 ; Nóngshī ) in old age and either he or his son Ju abandoned their tradition, living in the manner of

7007-547: The titular sage, Yu the Great , throughout each of the regions. Other texts also discussed these cultural variations. One of these texts was The Book of Master Wu , written in response to a query by Marquis Wu of Wei on how to cope with the other states. Wu Qi , the author of the work, declared that the government and nature of the people were reflective of the terrain of the environment in which they inhabited. Of Qi, he said: Although Qi's troops are numerous, their organization

7098-404: The tsung-fa system of patrilineal primogeniture: "The greater lineage, if it has survived, is the direct succession from father to eldest son and is not defined via the collateral shifts of the lesser lineages. In discussions that demarcate between trunk and collateral lines, the former is called a zong and the latter a zu, whereas the whole lineage is dubbed the shi. [...] On one hand, every son who

7189-400: The violent death of King You of Zhou led to a dramatic and unrecoverable loss of political and military authority in the Zhou royal court. Under this new geopolitical situation, Qi rose to prominence under Duke Huan of Qi ( r.   685–643   BCE ). He and his minister Guan Zhong strengthened the state by consolidating power in the hands of the central government at the expense of

7280-488: The west of the Shang, which the Shang regarded as tributaries. For example, the philosopher Mencius (372–289 BC) acknowledged that King Wen of Zhou had ancestry from among the Xirong, as King Wen's descendants, the Zhou kings, claimed descent from Hou Ji , a legendary culture hero possibly related to the Xirong through his mother Jiang Yuan . Additionally, the late 4th-century BC Zuo Zhuan comments that

7371-614: The younger Jili , a warrior in his own right. As a vassal of the Shang kings Wu Yi and Wen Ding , Jili went to conquer several Xirong tribes before being treacherously killed by Shang forces. Taibo and Zhongyong had supposedly already fled to the Yangtze delta, where they established the state of Wu among the tribes there. Jili's son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng (present-day Xi'an ). Around 1046 BC, Wen's son Wu and his ally Jiang Ziya led an army of 45,000 men and 300 chariots across

7462-606: Was defeated by Qi at Xinzhu (新築). Viscount Huan of Sun then went to Jin to seek aid, as did Zang Xuanshu  [ zh ] . Both looked to Minister Xi Ke, Viscount Xian of Xi, as he had considerable military influence. [[ Duke Jing of Jin (Ju)|Duke Jing of Jin]] granted Xi Ke an army, the center force of which was commanded by Xi Ke himself. The upper army and the lower army were commanded by Shi Xie, Viscount Wen of Fan  [ zh ] and Luan Shu, Viscount Wu of Luan  [ zh ] , respectively. Additionally, Han Jue, Viscount Xian of Han  [ zh ] , became

7553-405: Was defeated, and Jin forces pursued the Qi army around Hua Hill three times. Han Jue of the Jin forces was pursuing the Duke of Qi on his chariot when Bing Xia (邴夏), the Duke of Qi's chariot driver, urged the Duke of Qi to shoot Han Jue, who appeared to him as a nobleman. The Duke of Qi, refusing to shoot him on the grounds of ritual propriety, shot the two men to the sides of Han Jue instead. Then,

7644-539: Was fought during the Spring and Autumn period of Ancient China in 589 BC at Hua Hill in the area of the present-day city of Jinan , Shandong between the states of Qi and Jin . It ended in a victory for the state of Jin and eventually resulted in an alliance between the two states. Two of the three surviving commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals , the Zuo Zhuan and the Guliang Zhuan , describe

7735-521: Was fully disassembled by 249. Qin's wars of unification concluded in 221 BC with Qin Shi Huang 's annexation of Qi . The Eastern Zhou is also remembered as the golden age of Chinese philosophy: the Hundred Schools of Thought which flourished as rival lords patronized itinerant scholars is led by the example of Qi's Jixia Academy . The Nine Schools of Thought which came to dominate

7826-499: Was initially a respected body of concrete regulations, the fragmentation of the Western Zhou period led the ritual to drift towards moralization and formalization in regard to: The rulers of the Zhou dynasty were titled wang ( 王 ), which was also the term used by the Shang rulers, normally translated into English as 'king'. In addition to these rulers, King Wu's immediate ancestors— Danfu , Jili , and Wen —are also referred to as "Kings of Zhou", despite having been nominal vassals of

7917-513: Was the Battle of Bi in 597 BC, in which Chu was victorious. By 589 BC, Qi was aligned to Chu, while Wey was aligned to Jin. Lu, which had been Chu-aligned, realigned itself to Jin in 591 BC. In spring 589 BC, Duke Qing of Qi invaded Lu , its neighbor to the south. Duke Mu of Wey then sent an army led by Viscount Huan of Sun  [ zh ] , Viscount Cheng of Shi  [ zh ] , Viscount Cheng of Ning  [ zh ] , and Xiang Qin (向禽) to invade Qi in support of Lu. This army

8008-539: Was 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 to a spot further up the Yellow River . 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

8099-686: Was usually surrounded by a wall with the living headquarters situated within and a nearly perfect square-shaped courtyard occupying the center. The Great Wall of Qi ( 齊長城 ) is the oldest existing Great Wall in China . Construction of the wall started in 441 BCE to defend against attacks from the states of Jin and Yue . Construction ended during the Warring States period , with the wall enhancing Qi's defense against enemies states like Ju , Lu , and Chu . The wall stretches from Guangli village of today's Changqing District, Jinan , running across

8190-650: Was wielded by rulers of smaller domains and local community leaders. In traditional Chinese astrology, Zhou is represented by two stars, Eta Capricorni ( 週一 ; Zhōu yī ; 'first star of Zhou') and 21 Capricorni ( 週二 ; Zhōu'èr ; 'second star of Zhou'), in "Twelve States" asterism. Zhou is also represented by the star Beta Serpentis in asterism "Right Wall", Heavenly Market enclosure . Battle of An Xi Ke  [ zh ] Viscount Huan of Sun  [ zh ] Viscount Wen of Ji  [ zh ] The Battle of An ( Chinese : 鞍 之 战 ; pinyin : Ān zhī Zhàn )

8281-554: Was wounded by an arrow. He complained about his wound and intended to retreat, but Xie Zhang  [ zh ] , his chariot driver, urged him to bear the wound, citing his own multiple arrow wounds. Zhengqiu Huan (鄭丘緩), the spearman of Xi Ke's chariot, then implied Xi Ke's importance in the allied army by telling Xi Ke about how he had to push the chariot through difficult terrain, while Xi Ke noticed nothing. He then acknowledged Xi Ke's wound, but Xie Zhang, interpreting this as agreement with Xi Ke, questioned his intent and rebutted that

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