The Three Dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou are known as the Three Ages in Chinese history. The Zhou Dynasty was the longest, lasting for 900 years from 1121 to 221 BCE (according to Từ Hải). According to Eberhard (Chapter III), this should be adjusted to 1049-221 BCE, a difference of 70 years.
Chinese historians divide the Zhou Dynasty into two periods:
- Western Zhou (1121-770 BCE): The capital was located in Feng and Hao (present-day Shaanxi Province).
- Eastern Zhou (770-221 BCE): After being threatened by the Xiongnu and Quanrong nomads in the west, King Ping of Zhou moved the capital to Luoyang (present-day Henan Province).
The Eastern Zhou is further divided into two periods:
- Spring and Autumn Period (722-479 BCE)
- Warring States Period (478-221 BCE)
This division is based on the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle compiled by Confucius. It records the history of the State of Lu from the first year of Duke Yin of Lu (721 BCE) to the 14th year of Duke Ai of Lu (481 BCE), a total of 240 years. The year 479 is the year Confucius died.
The term “Spring and Autumn” originally referred to a year (with spring and autumn representing a year), and then it came to refer to chronicles that recorded events year by year. Therefore, besides Confucius’s Spring and Autumn Annals, there are many other chronicles such as those by Zuo Qiuming, Gongyang, and Guliang, which are also called Spring and Autumn Annals.
Many scholars believe that the years 721 and 481 (or 479) do not mark any major events in history, so they have redivided the periods as follows:
- Spring and Autumn Period (770-403 BCE): From King Ping of Zhou to the end of King Weilie of Zhou.
- Warring States Period (402-221 BCE): From King An of Zhou to the Qin conquest of Qi and the unification of China.
This division is more reasonable, filling the gap from 770 to 721 BCE, but it is still forced because throughout the Eastern Zhou, Chinese history was in constant change, without interruption, from a feudal system to a monarchical system; and the year 403 BCE also did not have any major event important enough to start a new era.
Below is a reproduction of Gernet’s chronological table (from the book cited) from prehistoric times to the end of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty, when China was unified. The table is very tentative.
As mentioned above, Eberhard gives the dates for the Xia Dynasty as 1800 to 1500 BCE and for the Shang Dynasty as 1450 to 1050 BCE; therefore, the Zhou Dynasty must have started from 1050.
Another point: Gernet gives the end of the Shang Dynasty as 1112 BCE and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty as 1111 BCE; but according to Từ Hải, it is 1122 and 1121 BCE respectively. It is possible that Gernet does not consider the Zhou Dynasty to have started immediately after King Wu of Zhou defeated King Zhou of Shang (1122 BCE), but rather from when King Wu captured the Shang capital and then moved all the Shang people to Luoyi in 1111 BCE. This detail is minor and insignificant.
Western Zhou Dynasty – Feudal System
The Zhou Dynasty was originally a vassal state of the Shang Dynasty, located in the West (Shaanxi Province). The Shang Dynasty called them “Western Di”. The word “Di” means “barbarian” because they were not as civilized as the Shang. Modern scholars such as Eberhard and Gernet believe that they were a Turkic tribe living with some Tibetans. They gradually came under the influence of the Shang Dynasty, losing their Turkic characteristics and becoming more assimilated with the Shang.
During the reign of King Zhou, they had a “wise and virtuous” king – according to Chinese historians – named King Wen. For some unknown reason, King Zhou imprisoned King Wen in Youli Prison. It is said that while in prison, he studied the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching and wrote the “Book of Changes” to explain the meaning of each hexagram.
After King Zhou released him, he appointed him as the Western Hegemon (the greatest vassal in the West) and sent him to quell the rebellion. King Wen won (thanks to his use of Jiang Ziya), and then moved to Feng (Shaanxi). At that time, many vassals had become dissatisfied with King Zhou and abandoned him to follow King Wen. However, according to legend, King Wen remained loyal to King Zhou and did not take advantage of the opportunity to overthrow him.
After King Wen’s death, his son King Wu succeeded him as the Western Hegemon and united the vassals to attack King Zhou. Bo Yi and Shu Qi, the sons of the King of Guzhu, advised against it, but King Wu did not listen. Therefore, Bo Yi and Shu Qi did not submit to the Zhou Dynasty and went into hiding in Mount Shouyang.
King Wu led 800 (!) vassals – each vassal at that time was probably just a tribe – to kill King Zhou, occupy the Yin Dynasty, and proclaim himself as King Wu of Zhou. He posthumously honored his father as King Wen.
Thus, a less civilized and warlike tribe in the West (the Zhou Dynasty) destroyed a more civilized and weaker tribe (the Shang Dynasty) in the East. This happened many times in Chinese history. The Chinese people, who are agricultural and peace-loving, have always been invaded by the nomadic peoples in the west and forced to flee to the east. This was the case with the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty later.
At the end of the Warring States Period, the Qin State in the West, which was less developed than the Zhou, Yan, and Qi States in the East, destroyed these states and unified China. In the Han and Tang Dynasties, China was often threatened by the Western and Northwestern barbarians, and at the end of the Song Dynasty, the Han Chinese territory was completely occupied by the Mongols in the Northwest. This is a special feature of Chinese history.
King Wu did not reign for long (7 years) and did not have time to restore order in the country before he died. His son, King Cheng, was young when he ascended the throne. King Wu’s younger brother, Dan, also known as Duke Zhou, acted as regent and took care of the state affairs. He suppressed the rebels (such as King Wu’s younger brothers who wanted to seize the throne from his nephew, and those who followed King Zhou’s son to oppose the Zhou Dynasty), and forced some people in the capital to move to Luoyi because he was afraid that they were still loyal to the Shang Dynasty.
However, Duke Zhou’s greatest achievement was to establish new systems: the feudal system, the patriarchal system, and the reform of religion. He stopped worshipping the god of fertility, which made the civilization of the Zhou Dynasty shine and become a special Chinese civilization. For this reason, later historians ranked him among the “three saints of the Zhou Dynasty”, after King Wen and King Wu.
Feudal System
Definition
Feudalism is a system in which a king grants a vassal (either a member of the royal family or a meritorious subject) a piece of land to establish a state. The vassal becomes a tributary of the king.
Origin
As mentioned earlier, this system already existed in the late Shang Dynasty, but it was not until the Zhou Dynasty that it was formalized and gradually modified by Duke of Zhou. This was also due to the circumstances of the time.
The Zhou Dynasty was a small country with a small population. It relied on the help of many tribes to overthrow the Shang Dynasty and acquired a large amount of land that it could not govern effectively. At that time, many places had only trails, making it impossible to use chariots. Moreover, chariots were just emerging and were very few in number. Cavalry did not appear until the Warring States Period.
Therefore, the only way to govern distant areas was to establish sub-divisions and entrust the command to a confidant of the king or someone who had helped the Zhou Dynasty overthrow the Shang Dynasty. Any tribe that had previously served the Shang Dynasty was now enfeoffed if it submitted.
Structure
The Zhou King only held central power in Shaanxi (near Xi’an today), and the rest of the land was divided among:
- Relatives, such as enfeoffing Bo Jin, the son of Duke of Zhou, in Lu (Lu Gong);
- Some talented of the Shang Dynasty, such as enfeoffing Weizi (who had advised King Zhou but was not listened to) in Song;
- Meritorious subjects, such as enfeoffing Jiang Ziya in Qi and two other great officials, one in Yan and one in Chu.
- And over a thousand tribal leaders.
Land and Titles
In principle, the king’s (wang) land, or the emperor, was a thousand square miles and had ten thousand chariots (wan sheng) [2]; below the king were five titles: gong, hou, bo, zi, and nan. The fiefdoms of the two ranks of gong and hou were one hundred square miles and had one thousand chariots (tian sheng); the rank of bo was seventy square miles and had one hundred chariots; the two ranks of zi and nan were fifty square miles and fifty chariots. All these small states were collectively called vassals; each vassal then annexed one or more small states, called tributaries, which were vassals of vassals. All these states served denfenses for the Zhou Dynasty and built one or more fortresses on their land. Each large or small fortress was a town surrounded by an earthen wall, with two “十” crossing lines from east to west and from north to south. Around the fortress were the houses of the people, who were called “黎民” (black-haired people, or the ordinary); the nobles who lived in the fortress were called “百姓” (hundred surnames) [3]; the term 百姓 later came to mean common people.
In Practice
In principle, this was the case, but at that time, land surveying was not yet known, so the hundreds of miles and seventy miles were only estimates. The天子could keep as much land as he wanted, and no one could stop the powerful gong and hou from expanding their territories. Moreover, except for natural borders such as rivers and mountains, it was impossible to demarcate borders in forests and fields. Only a mound of earth (called封) was used to mark the border. Therefore, the extent of a vassal’s authority was its border.
