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78-613: Contemporary textual evidence for the Yiqu is sparse, beginning only with the foundation of the state of Yiqu in the late eighth century BCE. It lasted approximately four-and-a-half centuries, until its end in the early third century. However, the origins of the Yiqu people as descendants of other "non-Huaxia" Chinese peoples have been traced back to the time of the Shang dynasty on the basis of textual scholarship and archaeological evidence, although this remains controversial (see "Ethnic identity of

156-510: A Chenggu -style dagger-axe at Xiaohenan demonstrates that even at this early stage of Chinese history, there were some ties between the distant areas of north China. The Panlongcheng site in the middle Yangtze valley was an important regional centre of the Erligang culture. Accidental finds elsewhere in China have revealed advanced civilisations contemporaneous with but culturally unlike

234-725: A black bird and subsequently gave birth miraculously to Xie . Xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. The period before the Shang dynasty was established is known as the " Predynastic Shang " (or "Proto-Shang"). In the Annals of the Yin , Sima Qian writes that the dynasty was founded 13 generations after Xie, when Xie's descendant Tang overthrew

312-502: A date first established by Sima Qian . Attempts to establish earlier dates have been plagued by doubts about the origin and transmission of traditional texts and the difficulties in their interpretation. More recent attempts have compared the traditional histories with archaeological and astronomical data. At least 44 dates for the end of the dynasty have been proposed, ranging from 1130 to 1018 BC. The oldest extant direct records date from c.  1250 BC at Anyang, covering

390-466: A degree of trade between Yiqu and its neighbours. In the pre-Han era, nomadic agriculturalists and pastoralists were considered alien peoples, whose history can be only tentatively traced through written sources and archaeological finds. Written sources identify the Yiqu a part of the Rong as the "Yiqu Rong" ( Chinese : 義渠之戎 ; pinyin : yìqú zhī róng ). However, it cannot be said for certain that

468-431: A few hundred humans and horses as well to accompany the king into the afterlife, in some cases even numbering four hundred. Finally, tombs included ornaments such as jade, which the Shang may have believed to protect against decay or confer immortality. The Shang religion was highly bureaucratic and meticulously ordered. Oracle bones contained descriptions of the date, ritual, person, ancestor, and questions associated with

546-479: A force of about a thousand troops at his capital and would personally lead this force into battle. A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand troops for suppressing rebellions. The earliest records are the oracle bones inscribed during the reigns of the Shang kings from Wu Ding . Oracle bone inscriptions do not contain king lists, but they do record

624-666: A golden (or gilded) man used by the King of Xiutu to worship Heaven". The statues were later moved to the Yunyang 雲陽 Temple, near the royal summer Ganquan palace in the capital of Xianyang : 漢武帝將其部眾討凶奴,並獲得二金(人),(各)長丈餘,刊〔列〕之於甘泉宮,帝(以)為大神,常行拜褐時 Emperor Han Wudi directed his troops to fight the Xiongnu and obtained two golden statues that he displayed in the Ganquan Palace and regularly worshipped. This article related to

702-425: A heavy defeat soon after: Yiqu ceded twenty-five cities to Qin in 315 BC, during the reign of King Hui of Qin . However, approximately forty years intervened before the final destruction of Yiqu. In 311 BC, a few years after Qin took twenty-five cities from Yiqu, King Hui died. His son became King Wu of Qin , who attacked the Yiqu in the second year of his reign. However, he died just three years later, in 307 BC. It

780-462: A height of 8 m (26 ft), and formed a roughly rectangular wall 7 km (4 mi) around the ancient city. The rammed earth construction of these walls was an inherited tradition, since much older fortifications of this type have been found at Chinese Neolithic sites of the Longshan culture ( c.  3000  – c.  2000 BC }. In 2022, excavation of an elite tomb inside

858-473: A large labour force that could handle the mining, refining, and transportation of the necessary copper, tin, and lead ores. This in turn created a need for official managers that could oversee both labourers and skilled artisans and craftsmen. The Shang royal court and aristocrats required a vast number of different bronze vessels for various ceremonial purposes and events of religious divination. Ceremonial rules even decreed how many bronze containers of each type

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936-526: A noble of a certain rank could own. With the increased amount of bronze available, the army could also better equip itself with an assortment of bronze weaponry. Bronze was also used for the fittings of spoke-wheeled chariots , which appeared in China around 1200 BC. The Shang dynasty entered into prolonged conflicts with northern frontier tribes called the Guifang . Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society. Shang infantry were armed with

1014-470: A quintessential part of the late Shang ritual complex. Chinese historians were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, and readily identified the Erligang and Erlitou sites with the early Shang and Xia dynasty of traditional histories. The actual political situation in early China may have been more complicated, with the Xia and Shang being political entities that existed concurrently, just as

1092-614: A small army. According to these legends, he founded a state known as Gija Joseon in northwest Korea during the Gojoseon period of ancient Korean history. However, scholars debate the historical accuracy of these legends. Before the 20th century, the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) was the earliest that could be verified from its own records. However, during the Song dynasty (960–1279), antiquarians collected bronze ritual vessels attributed to

1170-723: A temporary imperial residence (离宫, lígōng ) outside the capital, which was Xianyang for the Qin and Chang'an for the Han. Its ruins are located in Chunhua County , Xianyang, Shaanxi, China. It is a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level . The Book of Han records that in 121 BCE when General Huo Qubing defeated the armies of the Xiongnu prince of Xiutu (休屠, in modern-day Gansu ), he "captured

1248-533: A variety of stone and bronze weaponry, including spears, pole-axes, pole-based dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets. Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilise the masses of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript labourers and soldiers for both campaigns of defence and conquest. Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary equipment, armour, and armaments. The Shang king maintained

1326-529: Is based on alleged correspondence between the unattested Old Qiang language and Amdo Tibetan , which is spoken in southern Gansu, and the assumption of a close relationship between these Tibetan speakers and the ancient Qiang and Rong, which cannot be firmly verified. Sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the Xiongnu who later established the first nomadic empire on the Eurasian steppe were part of

1404-495: Is now eastern Gansu, which dates to approximately the 14th century BCE, which some scholars believe is the remains of a Di branch of the Qiang . Indeed, the word "Yiqu" borrowed into ancient Chinese with the characters "義渠" ( Old Chinese (444 BCE): */ ŋaih-ga /) may be an Old Qiang toponym meaning "Four Waters", which corresponds to the four rivers which meet at the old Yiqu capital at present-day Miaojuping. However, evidence for this

1482-410: Is unknown what criteria the diviners used to determine the response, but it is believed to be the sound or pattern of the cracks on the bone. The Shang also seem to have believed in an afterlife, as evidenced by the elaborate burial tombs built for deceased rulers. Often "carriages, utensils, sacrificial vessels, [and] weapons" would be included in the tomb. A king's burial involved the burial of up to

1560-532: The Bamboo Annals , a text whose history is complex: while originally interred in 296 BC, the authenticity of the manuscripts that have survived is controversial. Throughout history, the Shang have also been referred to as "Yin" ( 殷 ). The Shiji and the Bamboo Annals each use this name for both the dynasty, as well as its final capital. Since Huangfu Mi 's Records of Emperors and Kings in

1638-554: The Zuo Zhuan . From the sources available to him, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a chronological account of the Shang as part of the Shiji ( c.  91 BC ) official history. Sima describes some Shang-era events in detail, while others are only mentioned as taking place during the reign of a particular king. A slightly different account of the Shang is given in

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1716-518: The Western Han , there were still references to "Yiqu" but these were in the general sense of "barbarian", not in specific reference to the people of the former state of Yiqu. Some members of the Yiqu people took Yiqu as their clan name. Others, descending from Yiqu nobility, took Gongsun ( Chinese : 公孫 ; pinyin : gōng sūn ; lit. 'noble grandson') as their clan names, and became generals. Aside from these fleeting references,

1794-538: The Western Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents , Bamboo Annals and Shiji . Modern scholarship dates the dynasty between the 16th and 11th centuries BC, with more agreement surrounding the end date than beginning date. The Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history firmly supported by archaeological evidence. Excavation at

1872-535: The 3rd century AD, "Yin" has been frequently used to refer specifically to the latter half of the Shang. It is also the name predominantly used for the dynasty in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, being rendered as In , Eun and Ân in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese respectively. The name seems to have originated during the subsequent Zhou dynasty ; it does not appear in oracle bone inscriptions—which refer to

1950-693: The Dali Rong in Luochuan." King Ping died in 720 BC, which means that the state of Yiqu was founded no earlier than that year. From this source it is clear that the Yiqu were considered one of the peoples called " Rong ", a kind of warlike foreigner. For the remainder of the Spring and Autumn period, contemporary sources are silent on Yiqu. During the Warring States period , the Yiqu came under threat as Qin began its expansion. The central region of Qin

2028-582: The Duke of Song , with its capital at Shangqiu . This practice was known as 'enfeoffment of three generations for two kings'. The dukes of Song would maintain rites honouring the Shang kings until Qi conquered Song in 286 BC. Confucius was possibly a descendant of the Shang Kings through the Dukes of Song. The Eastern Han dynasty bestowed the title of Duke of Song and 'Duke Who Continues and Honours

2106-533: The Grand Historian . According to the Records of the Grand Historian , the Shang moved their capital five times, with the final move to Yin in the reign of Pan Geng inaugurating the golden age of the dynasty. Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou . Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in

2184-491: The Shang King in exchange for military aid and augury services. However these alliances were unstable, as indicated by the frequent royal divinations about the sustainability of such relations. The existence of records regarding enemy kills, prisoners and booty taken point to the existence of a proto-bureaucracy of written documents. Shang religious rituals featured divination and sacrifice. The degree to which shamanism

2262-632: The Shang era, some of which bore inscriptions. In 1899, several scholars noticed that Chinese pharmacists were selling "dragon bones" marked with curious and archaic characters. These were finally traced back in 1928 to what is now called Yinxu , north of the Yellow River near Anyang , where the Academia Sinica undertook archaeological excavation until the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Archaeologists focused on

2340-592: The Shang joined the Rebellion of the Three Guards against the Duke of Zhou , but the rebellion collapsed after three years, leaving Zhou in control of Shang territory. After the collapse of the Shang dynasty, Zhou's rulers forcibly relocated "Yin diehards" and scattered them throughout Zhou territory. Some surviving members of the Shang royal family collectively changed their surname from the ancestral name Zi to

2418-414: The Shang kings were viewed as the best qualified members of society to offer sacrifices to their royal ancestors and to the high god Di, who in their beliefs was responsible for the rain, wind, and thunder. The King appointed officials to manage certain activities, usually in a specified region. These included agricultural official, pastors, dog officers, and guards. These officers led their own retinues in

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2496-806: The Western Qiang in the Book of the Later Han , "During the late reign of King Ping, Zhou was undergoing decline. The Rong harried the many Xia from Mount Long to the east. Up until the Yi and Luo Rivers, the Rong were everywhere. Thereupon, there were for the first time Di, Huan, Kai, and Ji Rong in the Wei River valley, there was the Yiqu Rong in [the lands] north of the Jing River , and there were

2574-527: The Yellow River valley in Henan as the most likely site of the states described in the traditional histories. After 1950, the remnants of the earlier walled settlement of Zhengzhou Shang City were discovered within the modern city of Zhengzhou . It has been determined that the earth walls at Zhengzhou, erected in the 15th century BC, would have been 20 m (66 ft) wide at the base, rising to

2652-459: The Yin' upon Kong An, because he was part of the legacy of the Shang. This branch of the Confucius family is a separate branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village and later Duke Yansheng. Another remnant of the Shang established the vassal state of Guzhu (present-day Tangshan ), which Duke Huan of Qi destroyed. Many Shang clans that migrated northeast after

2730-652: The Yiqu King's murder to the Queen Dowager may be a way to disguise the fact that it was actually King Zhao who had him killed. Indeed, King Zhao could personally take power after the removal of his mother's military support, and banished the Queen Dowager and her supporters from the state. After Qin destroyed Yiqu, it established commanderies and set up counties in the Yiqu territories, and the Yiqu Rong became subjects of Qin. Qin then built "long walls" to protect against other peoples in these new territories. During

2808-513: The Yiqu apart from the nomadic "non-Huaxia" peoples of East Asia such as the Xiongnu , who were either truly nomadic herders or migrated around in a transhumance fashion. Moreover, the fact that pottery objects and bricks (possibly used to build a palace) were discovered at the remains of the Yiqu capital further suggests a developed urban culture. The similarities of the type of bricks here and those excavated from remains of cities in other states of Zhou (such as Wei , Qi and Chu ) may suggest

2886-520: The Yiqu disappear from the historical records during the Han dynasty. The capital of Yiqu has been identified as lying in Miaojuping ( Chinese : 庙咀坪 ; pinyin : miáo jǔ píng ) in Ning County , Qingyang , Gansu , on the confluence of four rivers. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of city walls and artefacts dating from the Zhou to Han dynasties. Textual evidence suggests it

2964-423: The Yiqu leader is called "king" ( Chinese : 王 ; pinyin : wáng ) suggests a degree of political sophistication above a tribal chief . What is more likely is that they were an agricultural people, or at least had a mixed agricultural/ pastoral economy. The fact that they were settled in established city-states indicates that they must have had significant agriculture to support themselves. This sets

3042-578: The Yiqu people, before the Qin general Meng Tian drove them north out of the Ordos region in 215 BC. Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty ( Chinese : 商朝 ; pinyin : Shāng cháo ), also known as the Yin dynasty ( 殷代 ; Yīn dài ), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by

3120-508: The Yiqu were a "Rong" people, or that there was a common "Rong" identity. Scholarly consensus has it that "Rong" was used ambiguously in Chinese sources as a blanket term for the various alien peoples around the Zhou territories, with no particular ethnic connotation. If the Yiqu Rong are to be tentatively identified with any other "Rong" people, it would be the " Quan Rong " (also named " Xunyu " or " Xianyun "). This people attacked Zhou during

3198-475: The Yiqu" ). Around 720 BC, the Yiqu Rong migrated eastwards. Indeed, this is the first mention of Yiqu in textual sources. At this time, the Zhou kings have been weakened by war and natural disasters. In 770 BC, Ping, King of Zhou moved the capital east to Chengzhou in present-day Luoyang , Henan , and the weakened royal authority spelled the dawn of the Spring and Autumn period . According to The Treatise on

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3276-399: The afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse. A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighbouring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. The Shang king, in his oracular divinations, repeatedly showed concern about

3354-489: The barbarians living outside of the civilised regions, which made up the centre of Shang territory. In particular, the group living in the Yan Mountains were regularly mentioned as hostile to the Shang. Apart from their role as the head military commanders, Shang kings also asserted their social supremacy by acting as the high priests of society and leading the divination ceremonies. As the oracle bone texts reveal,

3432-610: The city walls yielded over 200 artefacts, including a gold face covering measuring 18.3 by 14.5 cm (7.2 by 5.7 in). In 1959, the site of the Erlitou culture was found in Yanshi, south of the Yellow River near Luoyang . Radiocarbon dating suggests that the Erlitou culture flourished c.  2100 BC to 1800 BC. They built large palaces, suggesting the existence of an organised state. In 1983, Yanshi Shang City

3510-425: The conduct of their duties, and some grew more independent and emerged as rulers of their own. There was a basic system of bureaucracy in place, with references to positions such as the "Many Dog officers", "Many horse officers", the "Many Artisans", the "Many Archers" or court titles like "Junior Servitor for Cultivation" or "Junior Servitor for labourers". Members of the royal family would be assigned personal estates;

3588-641: The decisive Battle of Muye . According to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody. The classic Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods retells the story of the war between Shang and Zhou as a conflict with rival factions of gods supporting different sides in the war. After the Shang were defeated, King Wu allowed Di Xin's son Wu Geng to rule the Shang as a vassal kingdom. However, Zhou Wu sent three of his brothers and an army to ensure that Wu Geng would not rebel. After Zhou Wu's death,

3666-454: The divination. Tombs displayed highly ordered arrangements of bones, with groups of skeletons laid out facing the same direction. Chinese bronze casting and pottery advanced during the Shang, with bronze typically being used for ritually significant, rather than primarily utilitarian, items. As early as c.  1500 BC , the early Shang dynasty engaged in large-scale production of bronzeware vessels and weapons. This production required

3744-529: The dynasty's collapse were integrated into Yan culture during the Western Zhou period. These clans maintained an elite status and continued practising the sacrificial and burial traditions of the Shang. Both Korean and Chinese legends, including reports in the Book of Documents and Bamboo Annals , state that a disgruntled Shang prince named Jizi , who had refused to cede power to the Zhou, left China with

3822-531: The earliest layers of the Wucheng culture predating Anyang have yielded pottery fragments containing short sequences of symbols, suggesting that they may be a form of writing quite different in form from oracle bone characters, but the sample is too small for decipherment. The earliest securely dated event in Chinese history is the start of the Gonghe Regency in 841 BC, early in the Zhou dynasty,

3900-599: The early Zhou , who established the successor state of the Shang, are known to have existed at the same time as the Shang. It has also been suggested the Xia legend originated as a Shang myth of an earlier people who were their opposites. The Erligang culture centred on the Zhengzhou site is found across a wide area of China, even as far northeast as the area of modern Beijing, where at least one burial in this region during this period contained both Erligang-style bronze utensils and local-style gold jewellery. The discovery of

3978-697: The east. As mentioned above, the Yiqu first appear as one of the many "Rong" which moved into the Central Plain around 720, settling in territory nominally controlled by the Zhou king. After this development, references to Xianyun, Xunyu, and Qian Rong in the Jing River basin are supplanted by "Yiqu" or "Yiqu Rong". Furthermore, the Xianyun may be linked to the Siwa culture in the Tao River basin in what

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4056-546: The impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao . The Records of the Grand Historian recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia , Tai Wu , Pan Geng , Wu Ding , Wu Yi and the depraved final king Di Xin , but the rest of the Shang rulers are merely mentioned by name. In the last century, Wang Guowei demonstrated that the succession to the Shang throne matched the list of kings in Sima Qian's Records of

4134-523: The initial scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of the early stages of Chinese history. Several of the Chinese classics discuss the history of the Shang, including the Book of Documents , the Mencius and

4212-451: The invention of many musical instruments and celestial observations of Mars and various comets by Shang astronomers. Their civilisation was based on agriculture and augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. In addition to war, the Shang practised human sacrifice . The majority of human sacrifice victims mentioned in Shang writings were war captives taken from the Qiang people, who lived to

4290-417: The king provided them with pre-determined public works such as walling cities in their regions, distributed materials and issued commands to them. In turn, their estates belonged ultimately to the king's land, and they paid tribute to the king as well as reporting to him about conquered lands. More distant rulers were known by titles translated as marquess or count, who sometimes provided tribute and support to

4368-508: The last Shang capital Yinxu , near modern-day Anyang , uncovered eleven major royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade , stone, bone, and ceramic artifacts have been found. The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing , mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones —usually turtle shells or ox scapulae . More than 20,000 were discovered in

4446-563: The main palatial complex, there were underground pits used for storage, servants' quarters, and housing quarters. Many Shang royal tombs had been tunnelled into and ravaged by grave robbers in ancient times, but in the spring of 1976, the discovery of Tomb 5 at Yinxu revealed a tomb that was not only undisturbed, but one of the most richly furnished Shang tombs that archaeologists had yet come across. With over 200 bronze ritual vessels and 109 inscriptions of Fu Hao 's name, Zheng Zhenxiang and other archaeologists realised they had stumbled across

4524-409: The mid fourth century. Qin followed this with an attack four years later when Yiqu was in turmoil. Yiqu then submitted to Qin and became its vassal in 327 BC. Qin set up a county in its territory. However, the Yiqu were never subservient to Qin, and the two sides continued to do battle. Qin attacked soon later, taking the city of Yuzhi. Although Yiqu beat Qin at Libo two years later in 318 BC, it suffered

4602-468: The name of their fallen dynasty, Yin. The family retained an aristocratic standing and often provided needed administrative services to the succeeding Zhou dynasty. King Wu of Zhou ennobled Lin Jian ( 林堅 ), the son of Prince Bigan , as the Duke of Bo'ling. The Shiji states that King Cheng of Zhou , with the support of his regent and uncle, the Duke of Zhou , enfeoffed Weiziqi ( 微子啟 ), a brother of Di Xin, as

4680-474: The northwest of the Shang. Using skeletal isotope analysis, a group of Shang sacrifice victims at the Zhengzhou site was also found to most likely have been war captives. Skulls of sacrificial victims have been found to be similar to modern Chinese ones (based on comparisons with remains from Hainan and Taiwan ). Cowry shells were also excavated at Anyang, suggesting trade with coast-dwellers, but there

4758-500: The oracle bones by posthumous names . The last character of each name is one of the 10 celestial stems , which also denoted the day of the 10-day Shang week on which sacrifices would be offered to that ancestor within the ritual schedule. There were more kings than stems, so the names have distinguishing prefixes such as da ('greater', 大 ), zhong ('middle', 中 ), xiao ('lesser', 小 ), bu ('outer', 卜 ), and zu ('ancestor', 祖 ), as well as other, more obscure ones. The kings, in

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4836-402: The order of succession derived from the oracle bones, are here grouped by generation. Later reigns were assigned to oracle bone diviner groups by Dong Zuobin . Ganquan Palace The Ganquan Palace or Sweet Spring Palace ( Chinese : 甘泉宫 ; pinyin : Gānquán Gōng ) was a Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE) imperial palace with later additions by Emperor Wu of Han in 138 BCE. It was

4914-458: The reign of Gugong Danfu (mid 12th century BCE), forcing the Zhou out of the city-state of Bin in the Jing River basin, which is where Yiqu established a state in the late eighth century. In addition, at the end of Western Zhou (781 BC–771 BC) the Quan Rong launched a series of attacks and invaded the Zhou capital, which weakened royal power and contributed to the moving of the Zhou capital to

4992-421: The reigns of the last nine Shang kings. The Shang had a fully developed system of writing, preserved on bronze inscriptions and a small number of other writings on pottery, jade and other stones, horn, etc., but most prolifically on oracle bones. The complexity and sophistication of this writing system indicates an earlier period of development, but direct evidence of such is still lacking. Other advances included

5070-433: The sacrifices to previous kings and the ancestors of the current king, which follow a standard schedule that scholars have reconstructed. From this evidence, scholars have assembled the implied king list and genealogy, finding that it is in substantial agreement with the later accounts, especially for later kings. According to this implied king list, Wu Ding was the twenty-first Shang king. The Shang kings were referred to in

5148-513: The settlement at Anyang, such as the walled city of Sanxingdui in Sichuan . Western scholars are hesitant to designate such settlements as belonging to the Shang. Also unlike the Shang, there is no known evidence that the Sanxingdui culture had a system of writing. The late Shang state at Anyang is thus generally considered the first verifiable civilisation in Chinese history. In contrast,

5226-445: The state as "Shang" ( 商 ), and to its capital as "Great Settlement of Shang" ( 大邑商 ; Dàyì Shāng ) —nor does it appear in any bronze inscriptions securely dated to the Western Zhou ( c.  1046  – 771 BC). The founding myth of the Shang is described by Sima Qian in the Annals of the Yin . In the text, a woman named Jiandi , who was the second wife of Emperor Ku , swallowed an egg dropped by

5304-405: The support of a powerful minister and three generals inside the court, and the support of the Yiqu King outside it. The Queen's need for a backup force against her son may be why the Yiqu were spared for a while. In the end, Qin plotted to trap and kill the Yiqu King, and sent troops to launch a surprise attack to destroy Yiqu. The Treatise on the Western Qiang says, "When King Zhao of Qin came to

5382-606: The throne, the Yiqu King had an audience with him in Qin. Consequently, the Yiqu King had relations with his mother, the Queen Dowager Xuan, who bore him two sons. In the 43rd year of the reign of King Nan of Zhou [272 BC/271 BC], the Queen Dowager Xuan trapped and killed the Yiqu King in the Ganquan Palace . [Qin] raised troops and exterminated the Yiqu kingdom, and established Longxi , Beidi , and Shang commanderies [in their former lands]." The attribution of

5460-469: The tomb of Fu Hao, Wu Ding's most famous consort also renowned as a military general, and mentioned in 170 to 180 oracle bone inscriptions. Along with bronze vessels, stoneware and pottery vessels, bronze weapons, jade figures and hair combs, and bone hairpins were found. The archaeological team argue that the large assortment of weapons and ritual vessels in her tomb correlate with the oracle bone accounts of her military and ritual activities. The capital

5538-411: Was a central aspect of Shang religion is a subject of debate. There were six main recipients of sacrifice: The Shang believed that their ancestors held power over them and performed divination rituals to secure their approval for planned actions. Divination involved cracking a turtle carapace or ox scapula to answer a question, and to then record the response to that question on the bone itself. It

5616-496: Was abandoned before the Northern Wei period, when it was destroyed. It is not known exactly how many cities the Yiqu built in their lands; from the number of cities cited which were taken by Qin according to historical texts, they may have numbered over twenty. Not much is known about the culture of the Yiqu, other than they practised levirate marriages (including stepmothers ) and cremated their deceased. The fact that

5694-557: Was apparently occupied for less than a century and destroyed shortly before the construction of the Yinxu complex. Between 1989 and 2000, an important Shang settlement was excavated near Xiaoshuangqiao , about 20 km (12 mi) northwest of Zhengzhou. Covering an intermediary period between the Zhengzhou site and the late capitals on the Huan River , it features most prominently sacrificial pits with articulated skeletons of cattle,

5772-508: Was discovered 6 km (3.7 mi) north-east of the Erlitou site in Yanshi's Shixianggou Township. This was a large walled city dating from 1600 BC. It had an area of nearly 200 ha (490 acres) and featured pottery characteristic of the Erligang culture . The remains of a walled city of about 470 ha (1,200 acres) were discovered in 1999 across the Huan River from the well explored Yinxu site. The city, now known as Huanbei ,

5850-399: Was not until the late reign of King Zhao of Qin that the Yiqu were destroyed. Historians have analysed this as part of a power struggle in the Qin court, with the Queen Dowager on one side, and the King on the other. When King Zhao came to power, he was but a boy, so his mother, Queen Dowager Xuan , served as regent. However, though the King grew older, the Queen Dowager kept control. She had

5928-498: Was the Wei River valley, which was not far south from the Yiqu settlements in the Jing River valley. From approximately 460 BC, Qin and other states attacked the other Rong peoples who lived in the Central Plain , until the Yiqu were the only Rong people left. Until that time, the Yiqu and other Rong had occasionally pillaged Qin cities, but no large-scale hostilities had broken out. The Yiqu first attacked and defeated Qin in

6006-422: Was the centre of court life. Over time, court rituals to appease spirits developed, and in addition to his secular duties, the king would serve as the head of the ancestor worship cult. Often, the king would even perform oracle bone divinations himself, especially near the end of the dynasty. Evidence from excavations of the royal tombs indicates that royalty were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in

6084-774: Was very limited sea trade since China was isolated from other large civilisations during the Shang period. Trade relations and diplomatic ties with other formidable powers via the Silk Road and Chinese voyages to the Indian Ocean did not exist until the reign of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 221 AD). At the excavated royal palace in Yinxu, large stone pillar bases were found along with rammed earth foundations and platforms, which according to Fairbank, were "as hard as cement". These foundations in turn originally supported 53 buildings of wooden post-and-beam construction. In close proximity to

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