Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE) was the longest-lasting of China’s dynasties. It followed the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BCE) and it finished when the army of the state of Qin captured the city of Chengzhou in 256 BCE. The long history of the Zhou Dynasty is normally divided in two different periods: Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE) and Eastern Zhou (770-256 BCE), so called following the move of the Zhou capital eastwards where it was safer from invasion.



The most influential minds in the Chinese intellectual tradition flourished under the Zhou, particularly towards the last period of the Zhou Dynasty, considered a time of intellectual and artistic awakening. Many of the ideas developed by figures like Laozi, Confucius, Mencius and Mozi, who all lived during the Eastern Zhou period, would shape the character of Chinese civilization up to the present day.

The Origins of the Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou people were not invaders; they were Chinese-speaking people descendant from the Longshan Neolithic culture. During the course of several centuries, the Zhou moved away from barbarian pressures, migrating towards the westernmost agricultural basin of North China, the lower Wei River valley, present-day Shaanxi province. Here they began to develop Shang-style agriculture, and they also built a city in an area named Plain of Zhou, which gave its name to the state and the dynasty. The Shang ruling class considered the Zhou “semibarbarious country cousins”. For many years the Zhou and the Shang coexisted alternating peace and war.
The first important historical figure of the Zhou is King Wen (1152-1056 BCE), who is described as a living standard of benevolence and wisdom. He became king of Zhou in 1099 BCE during the last days of the Shang Dynasty. King Wen is credited with conceiving the ambitious plan of undermining the authority of the Shang by making alliances with neighbouring chiefs that gave the Zhou the military power to make conquest possible. Wen’s growing power disturbed the Shang court to the point that they imprisoned him in the city of Youli. However, Wen’s supporters ransomed him by giving the Shang a large number of gifts. The second son of King Wen was King Wu, who built a new capital and named it Haojing. In 1046 BCE, Wu led an army of 50,000 troops against a Shang army of 700,000 in a battle known as the Battle of Muye. The Shang people were so unhappy under the rule of the Shang king that the Shang soldiers offered little resistance and many of them joined King Wu's side. The Shang king retreated to his palace and committed suicide: He locked himself up in the building and set it on fire.

This was the time when some of the most important Chinese schools of thought such as Daoism, Confucianism and Legalism were born.

The Zhou justified the change of dynasty and their own authority by claiming that the dispossessed Shang had forfeited the "Mandate of Heaven" by their misrule. It was customary in ancient China to identify the supreme authority of rulers with a higher power. All subsequent dynasty changes in China would be justified with arguments along these same lines.
King Wu did not exterminate the Shang entirely: He left the Shang heir as nominal ruler of the city of Youli, but he assigned some of his own brothers to keep Youli under tight control. Wu returned to Haojing where he died still relatively young and his son, King Cheng, became the new Zhou ruler while he was still a child.
The Zhou were not able to fully control the eastern plain that the Shang had controlled, and King Wu did not elaborate a plan in order to accomplish such a goal. It was King Wu's brother, known as the Duke of Zhou, who performed the necessary steps for laying the basis upon which the Zhou Dynasty would consolidate its power throughout North China. The Duke of Zhou was the chief and overseer of the newly conquered eastern plain and he was appointed as regent over the young King Cheng, who was his own nephew. The counterpart of the Duke of Zhou was his own brother, the Duke of Shao, chief overseer of the Zhou homeland in Shaanxi. As soon as the Duke of Zhou assumed his role as regent over King Cheng, his brothers in the city of Youli joined the Shang heir in a rebellion to take over power and restore the old Shang order: It seems that there was a widespread fear that the Duke of Zhou would usurp the throne form his young nephew. The Duke of Zhou reacted quickly by organizing his military strength and crushing the rebellion. He then conducted a number of expeditions eastward to bring the entire Yellow River plain under Zhou control. During this process he destroyed many small states and created new administrative units in their place. He also built a new capital in modern Luoyang, in the central Yellow River plains (modern Henan province) to serve as an auxiliary Zhou capital to administer the eastern territories. After accomplishing all of this in a timeframe of seven years, the powers that the Duke of Zhou had were extraordinary. This was not an obstacle for him to willingly give up his powers after he persistently lectured his nephew on the duties of a responsible ruler: King Cheng finally assumed his role and he ruled effectively until 1021 BCE.

Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE)

The Zhou Dynasty was never a wholly unified realm. The Zhou court extended its power over the eastern plain by granting authority to members of the royal family and in some cases to favoured adherents, who established walled forts supported by garrison troops among the original habitants of the east. In some cases, local chiefs were accepted as Zhou supporters. Hence, there came into existence a network of city-states on the plain, from which military and political control spread over the surrounding farming villages. Any local leader who challenged the Zhou order was quickly punished by the army and the regional delegates were closely watched.