Western Zhou

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The Western Zhou (Chinese: 西周; pinyin: Xīzhōu; c. 1046^[1] – 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 771 BC when Quanrong pastoralists sacked the Zhou capital at Haojing and killed King You of Zhou. The "Western" label for the period refers to the location of the Zhou royal capitals, which were clustered in the Wei River valley near present-day Xi'an.

The early Zhou state^[a] was ascendant for about 75 years; thereafter, it gradually lost power. The former lands of the Shang were divided into hereditary fiefs that became increasingly independent of the Zhou king over time. The Zhou court was driven out of the Wei River valley in 771 BC: this marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, wherein political power was wielded in actuality by the king's nominal vassals.

The Western Zhou are known from archaeological finds, including substantial inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels. In contrast to earlier periods, this direct evidence can be usefully compared with texts transmitted through the manuscript tradition. These include some Confucian classics, the oldest parts of which are thought to date from this period. Texts from the Warring States period and Han dynasty provide fuller accounts, though further removed from the original events.^[2]

Zhou ritual bronzes have been collected since the Song dynasty and are now scattered in collections around the world. Scientific excavations began in the core Wei River valley and the Luoyang areas in the 1930s and expanded to a broader area from the 1980s.^[3] Bronze vessels are a key marker of Western Zhou sites, including buildings, workshops, city walls and burials.^[4] Elite burials usually contain sets of vessels, which can be dated using known variations in styles, as well the paleography and content of inscriptions.^[5] Hundreds of hoards of bronzes have been found in Shaanxi, dating from the fall of the western capital in 771 BC. A hoard typically contains treasured vessels accumulated by a family over three centuries, carefully buried to hide them from the invaders.^[6]

The Zhou produced thousands of inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels and often considerably longer than those of the Late Shang.^[7] A vessel was typically cast for some member of the Zhou elite, recording a relevant event or an honour bestowed on the owner by the king. In the latter case, the inscription might include a narrative of the ceremony and report the speech of participants.^[8] These give a rich insight into Zhou governance and the upper levels of Zhou society.^[9]

Many inscriptions contain details that may be compared with later histories. More than a hundred of them commemorate a royal appointment to some government position.^[9] More than 50 of them describe military campaigns.^[10] Naturally the picture is incomplete, as very few inscriptions touch on military defeats or failures of government.^[11]

Inscriptions usually contain some dating information, but not the name of the current king. Scholars have devised a range of criteria to narrow down the reign of an inscription, including the style of the vessel, the form of the characters and details within the text.^[12]

The earliest received texts, including parts of the Book of Odes and the Book of Documents, are believed to date from the Western Zhou period.^[9]

The Book of Odes is a collection of songs, traditionally divided as 160 State Airs, 105 Court Songs (Major and Minor) and 40 Hymns (Zhou, Lu and Song), set to melodies that have since been lost.^[13] Most specialists agree that the Zhou Hymns date to the Western Zhou, followed by the Court Songs and the State Airs.^[14] The Airs are said to have been collected from throughout the Western Zhou domains, but have a consistency and elegance that suggests that they were polished by the literati of the Zhou court.^[15]

The Book of Documents is a collection of formal speeches presented as spanning two millennia from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Spring and Autumn period.^[16] Most scholars agree that the "Old Script" chapters are post-Han forgeries, but many of the remaining "Modern Script" chapters were written long after the periods they purport to represent.^[17] The five "announcement" (or "proclamation") chapters use the most archaic language, similar to that of bronze inscriptions, and are thought to have been recorded close to the events of the early Western Zhou reigns they describe.^[18] Four more chapters, "Catalpa Timbers", "Many Officers", "Take No Ease" and "Many Regions", are set in the same period, but their language suggests that they were written late in the Western Zhou period.^[19] The prefaces written for each chapter, tying the Documents together as a continuous account, are thought to have been written in the Western Han period.^[20]

Texts transmitted from the Warring States period relate traditions from the Western Zhou period.^[21] The "Discourses of Zhou" chapter of the Guoyu includes speeches claimed to be from the time of King Mu onward. The Zuo Zhuan is primarily concerned with the Spring and Autumn period, but contains many references to events in the preceding Western Zhou period.^[9]

The Bamboo Annals provides a wealth of attractive detail, often varying from other sources, but its transmission history presents many problems.^[21] The original text was a chronicle of the state of Wei buried in a royal tomb in the early 3rd century BC and recovered in the late 3rd century AD, but lost before the Song dynasty. Two versions exist today: an "ancient text" assembled from quotations in other works and a fuller "current text" that Qian Daxin pronounced a forgery but some scholars believe contains authentic material.^[22]

The standard account is found in the "Basic Annals of Zhou", chapter 4 of the Historical Records compiled by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian.^[21]

Most scholars divide the Western Zhou into early, middle and late periods, which also correspond roughly to stylistic changes in bronze vessels.^[25][26] The Han historian Sima Qian felt unable to extend his chronological table beyond 841 BC, the first year of the Gonghe Regency, and there is still no accepted chronology of Chinese history before that point.^[27][28] The Cambridge History of Ancient China used dates determined by Edward L. Shaughnessy from the "current text" Bamboo Annals and bronze inscriptions.^[29] In 2000, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project produced a schedule of dates based on received texts, bronze inscriptions, radiocarbon dating and astronomical events.^[30] However, several bronze inscriptions discovered since then are inconsistent with the project's dates.^[31]

The origins of the Zhou are obscure. The archaeology of pre-conquest Wei valley is varied and complex, but no material culture comparable to the dynastic Zhou has been found.^[37] Archaeologists searching for the predynastic Zhou have focused on the Qishan area, which is mentioned in early texts and was a key ritual centre of the Western Zhou. Two different pottery types are found in this area, and archaeologists differ on whether one or the other group of people, or a mixture of the two, produced the Zhou.^[38] It is likely that several groups from across Shaanxi banded together to conquer the Shang.^[39]

The conquest is reflected in the material record by the sudden appearance throughout the Wei River basin of burials in the Shang style and sophisticated bronze vessels of all the types produced by the Shang, from which the Zhou had evidently acquired skilled craftsmen, scribes and abundant resources.^[40][41] They also expanded the Late Shang practice of inscribing bronze vessels to create lengthy texts recording the accomplishments of their owners and honours bestowed on them by the king. The inscriptions also show that the Zhou had adopted Shang ancestor ritual. This adoption of Shang features suggests an effort to legitimate Zhou rule.^[41][42] However, the Zhou did not adopt human sacrifice, which was so extensive in the Late Shang, or even mention it in any of their texts.^[43]

The Shi Qiang pan, part of a family cache found in western Shaanxi, was cast in the reign of King Gong by the latest in a family of scribes descended from a scribe brought to Shaanxi after the conquest.^[44] The lengthy inscription, summarizing the history of the Zhou and that of the Wei (微) family, begins:^[45]

Accordant with antiquity was King Wen! (He) first brought harmony to government. The Lord on High sent down fine virtue and great security. Extending to the high and low, he joined the ten thousand states.

Capturing and controlling was King Wu! (He) proceeded and campaigned through the four quarters, piercing Yin [= Shang] and governing its people. Eternally unfearful of the Di (Distant Ones), oh, he attacked the Yi minions.

Longer accounts are found in later sources. Both the Historical Records and the Bamboo Annals describe campaigns by King Wen in southern Shanxi.^[46] King Wen moved the Zhou capital from Qiyi to Feng, and his son, King Wu, made a further move to Hao across the Feng River.^[47] King Wu expanded his father's campaigns to the Shang, defeating them in the decisive Battle of Muye, which is also described in the "Great brightness" song of the Classic of Poetry.^[48] According to the Yi Zhou Shu, the Zhou army spent two months in the area mopping up resistance before returning to the Wei valley. King Wen left two or three of his brothers (depending on the source) to oversee the former Shang domains, nominally ruled by Wu Geng, the son of the last Shang king.^[49]

King Wu died two or three years after the conquest, triggering a crisis of the young state. According to the traditional histories, one of King Wu's brothers, the Duke of Zhou declared himself regent for King Wu's son, the future King Cheng.^[52] Later Confucian scholars, who glorified the Duke of Zhou, described the young king as a babe in his mother's arms, but other evidence indicates that he was a young man at the time.^[53][54] Some authors suggest that the Duke appointed himself king, and in the "Announcement to Kang" chapter of the Book of Documents he seems to speak as a king.^[55][56]

Wu Geng and the brothers of King Wu tasked with supervising him rebelled against the new regime. The Duke of Zhou and his half-brother, the Duke of Shao, organized another eastern campaign. After three years they had regained the lost areas and expanded their domain over an area stretching into Shandong.^[52]

The victorious triumvirate of the Duke of Zhou, Duke of Shao and King Cheng then consolidated their control over this expanded territory. They built an eastern capital at Chengzhou (modern day Luoyang) and began founding colonies or states at strategic points in their domain.^[57] The most important were placed under members of the ruling Jī (姬) family. These colonies are listed in the Zuozhuan, and some have been confirmed by archaeological finds.^[58] The inscription on the Mai zun narrates the ceremony in which King Cheng appointed a son of the Duke of Zhou to rule Xing.^[59]

Kings Cheng and Kang mounted numerous military campaigns to expand their domains. The Xiao Yu ding relates a victory over the Guifang, presumably in the Ordos region, late in the reign of King Kang.^[59] This phase of expansion came to an end in a disastrous southern campaign in the Han River region, in which King Zhao lost his armies and his own life.^[60]

During the reign of King Mu, the Zhou state shifted to the defensive, particularly in the east. The Bamboo Annals records a campaign against the Xu Rong, who had to be driven back from the eastern capital. The inscription on the Dong gui celebrates a defeat inflicted by the Zhou on the Dongyi near Ying, a colony set up by one of King Cheng's brothers to guard the southern approaches to the capital.^[61][62]

With the passing of generations, the family relationships between the king and the rulers of the colonies had also become more distant.^[63] Instead, the Zhou state developed a bureaucracy and formalized relations between the elites.^[64] There were reforms of the military, official titles and the distribution of land.^[65] A drastic shift in the style and types of bronze ritual vessels, formerly based on Late Shang models, also suggests a change in ritual practice at this time.^[64][66]

Very little historical information is available for the reigns of the next four kings, Gong, Yih, Xiao and Yi.^[67] Western Zhou kings were customarily succeeded by their oldest sons. However, Sima Qian states, without explanation, that King Yih was succeeded by his uncle, who became King Xiao, and that on Xiao's death "the many lords restored" King Yih's son, King Yi. Bronze inscriptions of the time use two different royal calendars, and the Bamboo Annals mentions King Yih moving out of the capital.^[68][69] Some authors suggest that King Yih was forced out by his uncle, and the two were rivals for a time, but whatever happened is now obscure. The succession was already presented as a linear sequence of kings in the Lai pan, cast in the reign of King Yi's grandson.^[70][c]

Both Sima Qian and the Bamboo Annals state that King Yi boiled the Duke of Qi (in eastern Shandong) in a cauldron. A bronze inscription confirms a Zhou attack on Qi at this time. This incident, in a state originally founded by one of King Wu's generals, indicates the waning authority of the Zhou king.^[71][72] Soon afterwards, the Zhou were attacked by Chu, who reached as far as the Luo River before being driven off in a counterattack described in the Yu ding and Yu gui.^[73]

King Li embarked on defensive campaigns in the east and northwest. The received texts all present him in a negative light, and record that he was driven out of the capital into exile in the Fen River valley. Sources disagree on whether this was a revolt of the peasantry or the nobility, but agree that the king's infant son was barely saved from a mob.^[75] The Bamboo Annals, confirmed by bronze inscriptions, relate that control of the state passed to Lord He, instituting the Gonghe Regency. Sima Qian's belief that it was a co-regency was based on a misinterpretation of the name.^[76]

When King Li died in exile, his son became King Xuan. Both received texts and bronze inscriptions suggest that King Xuan acted quickly to secure the state. In his 5th year, he ordered a campaign against the Xianyun in the west, and then appointed the successful general to command the eastern territories.^[77] According to the Bamboo Annals, in the following year he ordered a campaign against the Huaiyi. Bronze inscriptions record victories in this campaign and others against the Xianyun.^[78] He reinforced the south by relocating settlements from the Wei valley to the Nanyang basin and sought to inprove relations with distant Zhou states in the northeast and east.^[79] At the same time, the king also had to contend with succession struggles in some of the old Zhou states.^[78]

According to received texts, King You's reign began with ominous portents.^[80] The texts, as well as some of the Minor Court Songs, hint at factional struggles within the Zhou court.^[81] In his 11th year, the Quanrong attacked from the west, killing the king and causing the Zhou elite to flee from the Wei valley to the eastern capital, bringing the Western Zhou era to a close. Although Zhou royal power had been declining for over a century, this dramatic event presents a convenient milestone. The Zhou would continue to occupy the eastern capital for another five centuries, their sway over the states they had established became increasingly nominal.^[82]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2024)

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2024)

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2024)

• Chinn, Ann-ping (2007), The Authentic Confucius, Scribner, ISBN 978-0-7432-4618-7.
• Hucker, Charles O. (1978), China to 1850: A short history, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-0958-0.
• Li, Feng (2003), "'Feudalism' and Western Zhou China: a criticism", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 63 (1): 115–144, doi:10.2307/25066693, JSTOR 25066693.