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112-494: 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 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

224-721: A descendant of the Dukes of Song. His descendants hold the honorary title Duke Yansheng . The title of Duke of Song and "Duke Who Continues and Honours the Yin " ( 殷紹嘉公 ) were bestowed upon Kong An  [ zh ] by the Eastern Han dynasty because he was part of the Shang dynasty's legacy. This branch of the Kong family is a separate branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village and later Duke Yansheng. Song

336-566: A few large and powerful principalities dominated China. Some southern states, such as Chu and Wu , claimed independence from the Zhou, who undertook wars against some of them (Wu and Yue ). Amid the interstate power struggles, internal conflict was also rife: six elite landholding families waged war on each other inside Jin, political enemies set about eliminating the Chen family in Qi, and the legitimacy of

448-572: 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 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

560-401: A neighbour of Wu and Jin's nemesis in the struggle for hegemony. King Shoumeng accepted the offer, and Wu would continue to harass Chu for years to come. After a period of increasingly exhausting warfare, Qi, Qin, Jin and Chu met at a disarmament conference in 579 and agreed to declare a truce to limit their military strength. This peace did not last very long and it soon became apparent that

672-484: 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

784-505: A succession struggle in 635, the king awarded Jin with strategically valuable territory near Chengzhou. Duke Wen then used his growing power to coordinate a military response with Qi, Qin, and Song against Chu, which had begun encroaching northward after the death of Duke Huán of Qi. With a decisive Chu loss at the Battle of Chengpu in 632, Duke Wen's loyalty to the Zhou king was rewarded at an interstate conference when King Xīang awarded him

896-477: 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,

1008-435: 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

1120-504: 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 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

1232-613: Is not possible to know if what is meant is the Etiquette and Ceremonial (known then as the Book of Rites ) or just the concept of ritual in general. On the other hand, the existence of the Book of Changes is well-attested in the Zuozhuan , as multiple characters use it for divination and accurately quote the received text. Sima Qian claims that it was Confucius who, towards the close of

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1344-453: 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

1456-527: Is said is told from the perspective of other states, such as Duke Ai of Lu trying to enlist Yue's help in a coup against the Three Huan. Sima Qian notes that Goujian reigned on until his death, and that afterwards his descendants—for whom no biographical information is given—continued to rule for six generations before the state was finally absorbed into Chu during the Warring States period . After

1568-480: 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

1680-553: The Zuozhuan and Analects frequently quote the Book of Poetry and Book of Documents . On the other hand, the Zuozhuan depicts some characters actually composing poems that would later be included in the received text of the Book of Poetry . In the Analects there are frequent references to "The Rites", but as Classical Chinese does not employ punctuation or any markup to distinguish book titles from regular nouns it

1792-531: The Five Hegemons . He was succeeded by his son King Fuchai of Wu , who nearly destroyed the Yue state, imprisoning King Goujian of Yue . Subsequently, Fuchai defeated Qi and extended Wu influence into central China. In 499, the philosopher Confucius was made acting prime minister of Lu. He is traditionally (if improbably) considered the author or editor of the Spring and Autumn annals , from which much of

1904-490: The Guanzhong region, held nominal power, but had real control over only a small royal demesne centered on Luoyi. During the early part of the Zhou dynasty period, royal relatives and generals had been given control over fiefdoms in an effort to maintain Zhou authority over vast territory. As the power of the Zhou kings waned, these fiefdoms became increasingly independent states . The most important states (known later as

2016-544: 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 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

2128-482: The bà role had become outdated; the four major states had each acquired their own spheres of control and the notion of protecting Zhou territory had become less cogent as the control over (and the resulting cultural assimilation of) non-Zhou peoples, as well as Chu's control of some Zhou areas, further blurred an already vague distinction between Zhou and non-Zhou. In addition, new aristocratic houses were founded with loyalties to powerful states, rather than directly to

2240-581: The imperial examination system. The Zhou heartland was the Wei River valley; this remained their primary base of power after conquering 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

2352-522: The state of Lu . King Zhou of Shang, Di Xin was the younger brother of Zi Qi —who was said in legends to have ruled Gija Joseon in the 11th century BCE—and Zi Yan ( 子衍 ), later rulers of Zhou's vassal state Song, father of Wu Geng . After King Wu of Zhou overthrew the last ruler of Shang , marking the transition to the Zhou dynasty , the victor was honor-bound by a stricture of feudal etiquette known as Er Wang San Ke  [ zh ] to allow

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2464-427: 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,

2576-557: The Chu forces advanced to just outside the royal capital of Chengzhou, upon which King Zhuang sent a messenger to inquire into the heft and bulk of the Nine Cauldrons – the symbols of royal ritual authority – implying he might soon arrange to have them moved to his own capital. In the end the Zhou capital was spared, and Chu shifted focus to harassing the nearby state of Zheng. The once-hegemon state of Jin intervened to rescue Zheng from

2688-500: The Chu invaders but were resolutely defeated, which marks the ascension of Chu as the dominant state of the time. Despite his de facto hegemony, King Zhuang's self-proclaimed title of "king" was never recognized by the Zhou states. In the Spring and Autumn Annals he is defiantly referred to as Zi ( 子 , ruler; unratified lord), even at a time when he dominated most of south China. Later historians however always include him as one of

2800-527: 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 , 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

2912-462: 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

3024-539: The Five Hegemons. In addition to interstate conflict, internal conflicts between state leaders and local aristocrats also occurred. Eventually the dukes of Lu, Jin, Zheng, Wey and Qi would all become figureheads to powerful aristocratic families. In the case of Jin, the shift happened in 588 when the army was split into six independent divisions, each dominated by a separate noble family: Zhi (智), Zhao (趙), Han (韓), Wei (魏), Fan (范), and Zhonghang (中行). The heads of

3136-538: The King of Zhou, not all sources list him as one of the Five Hegemons. When Duke Wen of Jin came to power in 636 after extensive peregrinations in exile, he capitalized on the reforms of his father, Duke Xian (r. 676–651), who had centralized the state, killed off relatives who might threaten his authority, conquered sixteen smaller states, and even absorbed some Rong and Di peoples to make Jin much more powerful than it had been previously. When he assisted King Xiang in

3248-514: 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 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

3360-591: 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

3472-399: 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

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3584-510: The Spring and Autumn period, edited the received versions of the Book of Poetry , Book of Documents , and Book of Rites ; wrote the "Ten Wings" commentary on the Book of Changes ; and wrote the entirety of the Spring and Autumn Annals . This was long the predominant opinion in China, but modern scholarship considers it unlikely that all five classics could be the product of one man. The transmitted versions of these works all derive from

3696-496: The Western Zhou had concerned itself with politics, the ancestral temples, and legitimacy, in the Eastern Zhou politics came to the fore. Titles which had previously reflected lineage seniority took on purely political meanings. At the top of the bunch were Gong ( 公 ) and Hou ( 侯 ), favoured lineages of old with generally larger territories and greater resources and prestige at their disposal. The majority of rulers were of

3808-596: 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 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

3920-549: The Wu capital. Fuchai rushed back but was besieged and died when the city fell in 473. Yue then concentrated on weaker neighbouring states, rather than the great powers to the north. With help from Wu's enemy Chu, Yue was able to be victorious after several decades of conflict. King Goujian destroyed and annexed Wu in 473, after which he was recognized as hegemon. The Zuozhuan , Guoyu , and Shiji provide almost no information about Goujian's subsequent reign or policies. What little

4032-452: 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 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

4144-527: 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 the Yellow River and defeated King Zhou of Shang at the Battle of Muye , marking the beginning of

4256-699: The Zhou capital was sacked by the Marquess of Shen and the Quanrong barbarians , the Zhou moved the capital east from the now desolated Zongzhou in Haojing near modern Xi'an to Wangcheng in the Yellow River Valley. The Zhou royalty was then closer to its main supporters, particularly Jin, and Zheng ; the Zhou royal family had much weaker authority and relied on lords from these vassal states for protection, especially during their flight to

4368-463: 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 a language largely similar in vocabulary and syntax to that of the Shang; a recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached

4480-422: The Zhou kings, though this process slowed down by the end of the seventh century, possibly because territory available for expansion had been largely exhausted. The Zhou kings had also lost much of their prestige so that, when Duke Dao of Jin (r. 572–558) was recognized as bà , it carried much less meaning than it had before. In 506, King Helü ascended the throne of Wu. With the help of Wu Zixu and Sun Tzu ,

4592-646: 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

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4704-548: 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

4816-428: 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 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

4928-399: The advice of his staff, he attacked the much larger state of Chu. The Song forces were defeated at the battle of Hong ( 泓 ) in 638, and the duke himself died in the following year from an injury sustained in the battle. After Xiang's death his successors adopted a more modest foreign policy, better suited to the country's small size. As Duke Xiang was never officially recognized as hegemon by

5040-543: The author of The Art of War , he launched major offensives against the state of Chu. They prevailed in five battles, one of which was the Battle of Boju , and conquered the capital Ying. However, Chu managed to ask the state of Qin for help, and after being defeated by Qin, the vanguard general of Wu troops, Fugai, a younger brother of Helü, led a rebellion. After beating Fugai, Helü was forced to leave Chu. Fugai later retired to Chu and settled there. King Helü died during an invasion of Yue in 496. Some sources list him as one of

5152-408: The capture of Zhai Zhong ( 祭仲 ), a leading warrior—empowered Song to manipulate the administration of Zheng . In 651, Duke Huan of Song ( 宋桓公 ) died, leaving the district to be ruled by Duke Xiang , who reigned from 651 to 637. He was considered a hegemon by some, but was unable to maintain that role. He eventually fell to the troops of Chu . In 355, Dai Ticheng ( 戴剔成 ), a distant relative of

5264-411: 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 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

5376-402: The defeated house of Shang to continue offering sacrifices to their ancestors. As a result, for a time Shang became a vassal state of Zhou, with the Shang heir Wu Geng allowed to continue ancestor worship at Yin . However, after King Wu's death, Wu Geng fomented a rebellion with an alliance of eastern states, and was killed by the Duke of Zhou . Another Shang royal family descendant, Weizi ,

5488-570: 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, 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

5600-419: The disparity in available resources. Alongside this development, there was precedent of Zhou kings "upgrading" noble ranks as a reward for service to the throne, giving the recipients a bit more diplomatic prestige without costing the royal house any land. During the decline of the royal house, although real power was wrested from their grasp, their divine legitimacy was not brought into question, and even with

5712-469: 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 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

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5824-422: The downfall of its former ally. The philosopher Mozi references this state in the chapter "Obvious Existence of Ghosts", in which he mentions a number of Spring and Autumn Annals , including those of the Zhou , Yan , and Qi . The Spring and Autumn Annals of Song has not survived. Unless otherwise indicated, the ruler is the son of his predecessor. Confucius is traditionally considered to have been

5936-514: The duke and two senior ministers each in charge of five; military functions were also united with civil ones. These and related reforms provided the state, already powerful from control of trade crossroads, with a greater ability to mobilize resources than the more loosely organized states. By 667, Qi had clearly shown its economic and military predominance, and Duke Huan assembled the leaders of Lu , Song , Chen , and Zheng , who elected him as their leader. Soon after, King Hui of Zhou conferred

6048-451: The eastern capital. In Chengzhou, Prince Yijiu was crowned by his supporters as King Ping . However, with the Zhou domain greatly reduced to Chengzhou and nearby areas, the court could no longer support the six army groups it had in the past; Zhou kings had to request help from powerful vassal states for protection from raids and for resolution of internal power struggles. The Zhou court would never regain its original authority; instead, it

6160-421: The elite culture, aiming at upward social mobility, typically through the vector of officialdom. One individual well attested in the process of fixing the ranks of rulers into a coherent scheme was Zichan of Zheng , who both submitted a memorial to the king of Chu informing him of the proposed new system in 538 BCE, and argued at a 529 BCE interstate conference that tributes should be graded based on rank, given

6272-477: The encounter the duke felt he was not treated with the respect and etiquette which would have been appropriate, given that Zheng was now the chief protector of the capital. In 715, Zheng also became involved in a border dispute with Lu regarding the Fields of Xu. The fields had been put in the care of Lu by the king for the exclusive purpose of producing royal sacrifices for the sacred Mount Tai . For Zheng to regard

6384-461: 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, 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 ,

6496-518: The era, this partitioning left seven major states in the Zhou world: the three fragments of Jin, the three remaining great powers of Qin, Chu and Qi, and the weaker state of Yan ( 燕 ) near modern Beijing. The partition of Jin, along with the Usurpation of Qi by Tian , marks the beginning of the Warring States period . Ancient sources such as the Zuo Zhuan and the eponymous Chunqiu record

6608-509: 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 the north and the northwest, variously known as the Xianyun , Guifang , or various "Rong" tribes, such as the Xirong , Shanrong or Quanrong , intensified towards

6720-533: The fief of the grandfather of the disinherited crown prince Yijiu —destroyed the Western Zhou capital at Haojing , killing King You and establishing Yijiu as king at the eastern capital Luoyi . The event ushered in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, which is divided into the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. During the Spring and Autumn period, China's feudal fengjian system became largely irrelevant. The Zhou court, having lost its homeland in

6832-414: The fields as just any other piece of land was an insult to the court. By 707, relations had soured enough that the king launched a punitive expedition against Zheng. The duke counterattacked and raided Zhou territory, defeating the royal forces in the Battle of Xuge and injuring the king himself. Zheng was the first vassal to openly defy the king, kicking off the centuries of warfare without respect for

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6944-502: 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 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 . At his death in 643, five of Duke Huan's sons contended for

7056-545: The first half of the dynasty left in its wake hundreds of autonomous polities varying drastically in size and resources, nominally connected by bonds of cultural and ritual affiliation increasingly attenuated by the passage of time. Whole lineage groups moved around under socioeconomic stress, border groups not associated with the Zhou culture gained in power and sophistication, and the geopolitical situation demanded increased contact and communication. Under this new regime, an emergent systematization of noble ranks took root. Where

7168-475: 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,

7280-452: The great age of Jin power, the Jin rulers began to lose authority over their ministerial lineages. A full-scale civil war between 497 and 453 ended with the elimination of most noble lines; the remaining aristocratic families divided Jin into three successor states: Han , Wei , and Zhao . This is the last event recorded in the Zuozhuan . With the absorption of most of the smaller states in

7392-704: The hegemon was obligated to protect both the weaker Zhou states and the Zhou royalty from the intruding non-Zhou peoples: the Northern Di , the Southern Man , the Eastern Yi , and the Western Rong . This political framework retained the fēngjiàn power structure, though interstate and intrastate conflict often led to declining regard for clan customs , respect for the Ji family, and solidarity with other Zhou peoples. The king's prestige legitimized

7504-574: 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 ,

7616-537: The information for this period is drawn. After only two years he was forced to resign and spent many years wandering between different states before returning to Lu. After returning to Lu he did not resume a political career, preferring to teach. Tradition holds that it was in this time he edited or wrote the Five Classics , including the Spring and Autumn Annals . In 482, King Fuchai of Wu held an interstate conference to solidify his power base, but Yue captured

7728-486: The king reduced to something of a figurehead, his prestige remained supreme as Heaven's eldest son. Archaeologically excavated primary sources and received literature agree to a high degree of systematization and stability in noble titles during the Eastern Zhou, indicating an actual historical process. A 2007 survey of bronze inscriptions from 31 states found only eight polities whose rulers used varying titles of nobility to describe themselves. Song (state) Song

7840-492: The king's court in Luoyi . The gradual Partition of Jin , one of the most powerful states, is generally considered to mark the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the beginning of the Warring States period . This periodization dates back to late Western Han ( c.  48 BCE  – c.  9 CE ). In 771 BCE, a Quanrong invasion in coalition with the states of Zeng and Shen —the latter polity being

7952-434: The last third of the Spring and Autumn period. Their first documented interaction with the Spring and Autumn states was in 584, when a Wu force attacked the small border state of Tan ( 郯 ) causing some alarm in the various Chinese courts. Jin was quick to dispatch an ambassador to the court of the Wu king, Shoumeng . Jin promised to supply Wu with modern military technology and training in exchange for an alliance against Chu,

8064-501: 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

8176-435: 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

8288-561: 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 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

8400-449: The middling but tiered grades Bo ( 伯 ) and Zi ( 子 ). The rulers of two polities maintained the title Nan ( 男 ). A 2012 survey found no difference in grade between Gong and Hou , or between Zi and Nan . Meanwhile, a new class of lower-tier aristocrats formed: the Shi ( 士 ), gentlemen too distantly related to the great houses to be born into a life of wielding power, but still part of

8512-497: The military leaders of the states, and helped mobilize collective defense of Zhou territory against " barbarians ". Over the next two centuries, the four most powerful states— Qin , Jin , Qi and Chu —struggled for power. These multi-city states often used the pretext of aid and protection to intervene and gain suzerainty over the smaller states. During this rapid expansion, interstate relations alternated between low-level warfare and complex diplomacy. Duke Yin of Lu ascended

8624-587: 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),

8736-596: 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

8848-594: 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,

8960-513: The old traditions which would characterize the period. The display of Zheng's martial strength was effective until succession problems after Zhuang's death in 701 weakened the state. In 692, there was a failed assassination attempt against King Zhuang , orchestrated by elements at court. The first hegemon was Duke Huan of Qi (r. 685–643). With the help of his prime minister, Guan Zhong , Duke Huan reformed Qi to centralize its power structure. The state consisted of 15 " townships " ( 縣 ) with

9072-457: 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

9184-509: The people. The Mandate of Heaven was presented as a religious compact between 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

9296-486: 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 , 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

9408-422: The periphery, had power and opportunity to expand outward. A total of 148 states are mentioned in the chronicles for this period, 128 of which were absorbed by the four largest states by the end of the period. Shortly after the royal court's move to Chengzhou, a hierarchical alliance system arose where the Zhou king would give the title of hegemon ( 霸 ) to the leader of the state with the most powerful military;

9520-495: 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 the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven while accommodating important Shang rituals at Wangcheng and Chengzhou . Over time, this decentralized system became strained as

9632-568: The rulers was often challenged in civil wars by various royal family members in Qin and Chu. Once all these powerful rulers had firmly established themselves within their respective dominions, the bloodshed focused more fully on interstate conflict in the Warring States period, which began in 403 BCE when the three remaining elite families in Jin—Zhao, Wei, and Han—partitioned the state. After

9744-412: 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

9856-646: The ruling royal line and once a minister of Duke Huan II , managed to usurp the throne. In 328, Dai Yan, a younger brother of Ticheng, took the throne and declared himself to be King Kang of Song, with Ticheng murdered or exiled. The king was ambitious and had succeeded in beating troops from Chu, Wei and Qi and annexing Teng . However, the kingdom was finally annexed by Qi in 286, with troops from Chu and Wei serving on behalf of Qi. Qin , which had been an ally of Song, refused to intervene for strategic and diplomatic reasons after being convinced by Su Dai from Wei. Su's predictions were proven correct and Qin benefited from

9968-438: 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 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

10080-457: The six families were conferred the titles of viscounts and made ministers, each heading one of the six departments of Zhou dynasty government. From this point on, historians refer to "The Six Ministers" as the true power brokers of Jin. The same happened to Lu in 562, when the Three Huan divided the army into three parts and established their own separate spheres of influence. The heads of

10192-510: 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

10304-428: 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

10416-456: The state was considered semi-barbarian and its rulers—beginning with King Wu in 704 BCE—proclaimed themselves kings in their own right. Chu intrusion into Zhou territory was checked several times by the other states, particularly in the major battles of Chengpu (632 BCE), Bi (595 BCE) and Yanling (575 BCE), which restored the states of Chen and Cai . Some version of the Five Classics existed in Spring and Autumn period, as characters in

10528-563: 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

10640-452: The three families were always among the department heads of Lu. Wu was a state in modern Jiangsu outside the Zhou cultural sphere, considered "barbarian", where the inhabitants sported short hair and tattoos and spoke an unintelligible language. Although its ruling house claimed to be a senior lineage in the Ji ancestral temple, Wu did not participate in the politics and wars of China until

10752-537: The throne , badly weakening the state so that it was no longer regarded as the hegemon. For nearly ten years, no ruler held the title. Duke Xiang of Song attempted to claim the hegemony in the wake of Qi's decline, perhaps driven by a desire to restore the Shang dynasty from which Song had descended. He hosted peace conferences in the same style as Qi had done, and conducted aggressive military campaigns against his rivals. Duke Xiang's ambitions met their end when, against

10864-424: The throne in 722. From this year on, the state of Lu kept an official chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals , which along with its commentaries is the standard source for the Spring and Autumn period. Corresponding chronicles are known to have existed in other states as well, but all but the Lu chronicle have been lost . In 717, Duke Zhuang of Zheng went to the capital for an audience with King Huan . During

10976-498: The title of bà (hegemon), giving Duke Huan royal authority in military ventures. An important basis for justifying Qi's dominance over the other states was presented in the slogan 'Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians' ( 尊王攘夷 ; zun wang rang yi ). The role of subsequent hegemons would also be framed in this way: as the primary defender and supporter of nominal Zhou authority and the existing order. Using this authority, during

11088-484: The title of bà . After the death of Duke Wen in 628, a growing tension manifested in interstate violence that turned smaller states, particularly those at the border between Jin and Chu, into sites of constant warfare; Qi and Qin also engaged in numerous interstate skirmishes with Jin or its allies to boost their own power. Duke Mu of Qin ascended the throne in 659 and forged an alliance with Jin by marrying his daughter to Duke Wen. In 624, he established hegemony over

11200-404: 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

11312-430: The twelve vassals) came together in regular conferences where they decided important matters, such as military expeditions against foreign groups or against offending nobles. During these conferences one vassal ruler was sometimes declared hegemon . As the era continued, larger and more powerful states annexed or claimed suzerainty over smaller ones. By the 6th century BCE, most small states had disappeared and just

11424-452: The various diplomatic activities, such as court visits paid by one ruler to another ( 朝 ; cháo ), meetings of officials or nobles of different states ( 會 ; 会 ; huì ), missions of friendly inquiries sent by the ruler of one state to another ( 聘 ; pìn ), emissaries sent from one state to another ( 使 ; shǐ ), and hunting parties attended by representatives of different states ( 狩 ; shou ). Because of Chu's non-Zhou origin,

11536-408: The versions edited by Liu Xin in the century following Sima Qian. While many philosophers such as Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu were active in the Spring and Autumn period, their ideas were probably not put into writing until the following Warring States period. While the aristocracy of the Western Zhou frequently interacted via the medium of the royal court, the collapse of central power at the end of

11648-529: The western Rong barbarians and became the most powerful lord of the time. However he did not chair any alliance with other states nor was he officially recognized as hegemon by the king. Therefore, not all sources accept him as one of the Five Hegemons. King Zhuang of Chu expanded the borders of Chu well north of the Yangtze River, threatening the Central States in modern Henan . At one point

11760-485: 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 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:

11872-703: Was a period in Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou ( c.  771  – 256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject to the Zhou exercised increasing political autonomy. The period's name derives from the Spring and Autumn Annals , a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 481 BCE, which tradition associates with Confucius (551–479 BCE). During this period, local polities negotiated their own alliances, waged wars against one another, up to defying

11984-406: Was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty with its capital at Shangqiu . The state was founded soon after King Wu of Zhou conquered the Shang dynasty to establish the Zhou dynasty in 1046 BC. It was conquered by the state of Qi in 286 BC, during the Warring States period . Confucius is traditionally considered to have been a descendant of a Song nobleman who moved to

12096-412: Was granted land at Shangqiu , the 'hill of Shang', where the capital of the new state of Song was built. A sign of its descent from the Shang is that the state of Song in its early period followed the succession principle of agnatic seniority , rather than agnatic primogeniture like the Zhou. In 701 BC, a political marriage between Lady Yong of Song ( 宋雍氏 ) and Duke Zhuang of Zheng —as well as

12208-498: 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

12320-489: Was relegated to being merely a figurehead of the regional states and ritual leader of the Ji clan ancestral temple. Though the king retained the Mandate of Heaven , the title held little actual power. With the decline of Zhou power, the Yellow River drainage basin was divided into hundreds of small, autonomous states, most of them consisting of a single city, though a handful of multi-city states, particularly those on

12432-538: 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

12544-540: 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 . Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period ( c.  770  – c.  481 BCE )

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