The Zhou Dynasty: (1046 – 246 BCE) Teacher Resource Guide East Asia National Resource Center By Kelly Hammond
The Western Zhou The Zhou Dynasty is usually divided into two parts: the Western Zhou (1046 BCE-771 BCE) and the Eastern Zhou (770 BCE-246 BCE). Although the Zhou was a very turbulent period, the dynasty lasted longer than any other in Chinese history. A man named King Wu founded the Western Zhou after he and his armies defeated the last Shang ruler and established the Zhou capital in the city of Haojing, which is near present day Xi'an in Shanxi Province. However, he died only three years later, leaving a young son as the new King. The Duke of Zhou—one of the most important figures in Chinese history—acted as regent for the young ruler and helped him consolidate his power by quelling rebellions, legitimizing the rule of the young heir through the development of the doctrine known as the Mandate of Heaven and by setting up a very decentralized state, which is often compared to European feudalism. Although the Western Zhou lasted for almost 300 years, after about the first seventy years it began to fall into decline, eventually leading to an incredibly tumultuous time of great division and civil war known as the Eastern Zhou.
Map of the Western Zhou, 1046 BCE – 771 BCE
The early Zhou system was “protofeudal”, meaning that many of the Zhou aristocracy were semi-nomadic: they held large parcels of land and had serfs work it, but they also moved around a lot. Agriculture in the Zhou Dynasty was more intensive and prevalent than in the Shang, which meant that nobles and the state were producing a surplus of food from their land. This allowed them to employ artisans and armies, and to store surplus food and distribute it in times of famine or bad harvest. Having this grain surplus was instrumental to developing the militarized society in the Zhou.
Duke of Zhou, Western Zhou
Being able to afford to have people who did not have to work the land meant that lords and dukes could employ artisans to make iron and bronze weapons for them as well as paying large mercenary armies to build heavily armed walled cities and fight for them. It also meant that the government could extract taxes in the form of grain from the Zhou nobles. Since the political system was very decentralized during this period there was a lot of fighting over land and titles, and as certain lords and dukes gained more land through battles, they also gained more power. These nobles could mount large armies and often fought each other in order to try to gain move power and as time went on, power was concentrated in the hands of a few very powerful nobles, making power much more centralized as the Zhou went on.
The Zhou adopted much of the Shang lifestyle. In order to utilize the knowledge of the Shang artisans, they often imported Shang families or communities to the new towns they built. The Zhou also adopted much of the Shang writing system, rituals, and administration techniques, but also made numerous important changes, which were reflected in their leadership style, their religious practices, and the ways they legitimized their rule—we will explore some of these changes and developments below.
Qing Dynasty in 1911 to legitimize the rule of Chinese Emperors.
Duke of Zhou’s Observatory in Yangcheng City
King Wu of Zhou, died 1043 BCE
The Duke of Zhou and the Mandate of Heaven The Duke of Zhou was a great statesman, strategist and thinker of the early Western Zhou Dynasty. He was also one of the ancient sages most admired by Confucius. He is renowned in Chinese history for acting as a capable and able regent for his young nephew, King Cheng, and for successfully consolidating power after the death of his uncle. One of the most important things that the Duke of Zhou did was elaborate the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven, which was used until the end of the
According to this doctrine, rulers who behaved inappropriately could be stripped of their right to rule because they were not serving their people, stating that heaven would remove the authority of unfit rulers, paving the way for a new dynasty to claim the Mandate. The doctrine was used by the Duke of Zhou to explain and justify the demise of the Xia and Shang dynasties, and at the same time, supported the legitimacy of the present and future Zhou rulers. In some ways, the Mandate of Heaven is like the Divine Right of Kings, in that it both sought to legitimize rule from divine approval; however, unlike the divine right of kings the authority to rule is predicated on the behavior of the ruler.
King Wen of Zhou, father of King Wu of Zhou, Founder of Zhou
Early Western Zhou: Three Virtuous Women
The Eastern Zhou The Eastern Zhou was characterized by an accelerating collapse of royal authority, although the king’s ritual importance allowed the dynasty to continue for a few hundred years. In 770 BCE, the Zhou kings lost control of the territories they had delegated to their lords. These territories, along with nonChinese forces, rebelled and defeated the original Zhou capital. The Zhou then formed a new capital farther East. From this new capital, the Zhou forfeited their political and military control over their territories. Within the Eastern Zhou period, there are also two distinct periods known as the “Spring and Autumn Period” (770-476 BCE) which was followed by the “Warring States Period” (475 BCE—256 BCE). The “Spring and Autumn Period” is named after a book of the same name which described the history and the philosophical developments of the time and the “Warring States period” is aptly named: it was a time of great turmoil, civil war and uncertainty in ancient China. This can all be quite confusing, so it is really just important to remember that the Eastern Zhou was a time of great disorder and disunity in China. Although the Zhou maintained ad-hoc power, they were also forced recognize the independence of the states of Han, Zhao and Wei during the Warring States period. This was a result of the increasingly decentralized nature of the Zhou state, and the increasing power of
Map of the Eastern Zhou, 770 BCE – 221 BCE
several local lords and dukes. Essentially, everyone recognized the Zhou King as the legitimate ruler, but lords and dukes acted independently of him. King Nan, who is regarded as the last King of the Zhou Dynasty, was killed in 256 BCE when he was captured by the Qin state, officially ending the Zhou linage and dynasty. After this, there was a period of great disorder and it took until 221 BCE for the Qin state to be able to fully consolidate power and unify China under the new Qin Dynasty.
Artistic Representation of War
However disorderly, the East Zhou is remembered as the golden age of Chinese philosophy. The period is known as “The Hundred Schools of Thought” because statesmen and lords patronized philosophers and scholars as they looked for answers and justifications to legitimize their rule and explain the political and social disorder of the time. There are several important schools of
thought that emerged and solidified as philosophical traditions in Chinese history such as Confucianism, Legalism, Daoism, and Mohism—all of which have had an important impact on Chinese civilization. Although only the first three of these went on to receive imperial patronage in later dynasties, doctrines from many of the Hundred Schools of Thought continued to influence the other philosophies and Chinese society in many ways.
Rubbing Depicting Hunting and War
The Golden Age of Chinese Philosophy: One Hundred Schools of Thought Due to the instability of China, an intellectual movement swept through China that shaped China's state and culture. The most influential philosophy was Confucianism. Confucius represented the emerging class of administrators and advisors that were needed to aid rulers deal with inter-state diplomacy and with internal administration. Confucius called for a return to the Western Zhou style of governing and was a great admirer of the Duke of Zhou. He believed that rulers of the Western Zhou tried to develop a society based on the example of great personal virtue. From this principle, Confucius then took to the task of creating a virtuous ruling class virtue that would lead the people by example. In addition to Confucianism, another school of philosophy was Daoism. The principles of Daoism are explained in the "Classic of the Way and Its Virtue." This text is
thought to have been written by a man named Laozi. The Daoist philosophy was based on simplicity, symmetry and maintaining balance. Legalism was a third school of philosophy that developed during the Eastern Zhou. The philosophers who expounded this philosophy felt that, during their time of great disorder and chaos order should be maintained by the state. The legalist philosophers believed that every aspect of life should be ruled by a set of strict and impersonal laws which would be applicable to everyone in society. To have this system work, the legalists needed to have a powerful and wealthy state where the ruler had ultimate authority.
Confucius and the Four Occupations The four occupations is a social philosophy developed by Confucius that hierarchically divides society into four different classes structures. Descending hierarchical order of the four occupations:
Wooden Guardian Figure
1. 士 shi—scholars and morally cultivated men 2. 农 nong—peasants and agricultural workers 3. 工 gong—artisans and craftsmen 4. 商 shang—merchants
Human Figure, likely a scholar
It is important to note a few things about this ordering. Firstly, these broad categories were more an idealization than a practical reality. Secondly, we see that agricultural workers and peasants were held in very high regard under the Confucian ordering because it was understood that peasants were integral to working the land and providing the food and labor needed to maintain the shi class. Also, at the very bottom of the social ladder were the merchants, who were always scheming and were essentially seen by Confucius as social pariahs who did more to harming the order in society than to contributing to it. This was because unlike scholars, peasant and artisans, merchants did not produce anything but only profited from others’ creations. Also, even though merchants were often wealthy, in Confucius’ view they lacked moral cultivation, which differentiate them from the shi and from the simple peasants and artisans. This Confucian ordering is also not a static categorization. Unlike the caste system in India, people could move fluidly from one category to another, and as will see in the Tang and the Ming Dynasties, the actual meaning of these categories changes so much that they get very blurry and begin to overlap. In this way, an understanding of the Four Occupations in central to understanding a lot of the social and cultural mediation in Chinese society and these categories will continue to pop up throughout our examination of the different dynasties in China.
Dagger Axe
How We Know about the Zhou Because we spent a lot of time discussing archaeology and bronze in the Shang module, this section will focus on another important archeological find from both the Shang and the Zhou Dynasties: cowrie shells. It is important to note, however, that bronze and iron implements continued to play a large ritual and practical role throughout the Zhou; it might be more interesting to focus on another aspect of material culture and archaeology from the Zhou dynasty to get yet another perspective on how historians and archeologists piece together the daily lives of people living in the Zhou Dynasty. The cowrie shell has been used as money in many parts of the world, including China, Africa and Arabia. This attests to the long distances that people traveled during these times, as shells from Arabia have been found in parts of China. In China, inscriptions which talk of 'gifts of cowries', 'cowries in the treasury', 'seizure of cowries', 'use of cowries' and 'rewards of cowries' are found on bones and on bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
The Iron Age—the ox-drawn plough
An Ancient Horse & Chariot Pit- Luoyang
Archaeologists have found that the distribution of cowrie finds coincides with the gradual acquisition of territories by the Zhou dynasty and noble lords. This means that as the Zhou Dynasty expanded territorially, cowrie shells spread throughout their realm. In this way, we can think of these cowrie shells as the beginnings of the standardization of currency since all people living under the Zhou would have been using cowrie shells as a currency to facilitate transactions and we can presume that their value was relatively standardized throughout the realm. The natural supply of cowrie shells from the coastal regions could not meet the growing demand inland. People began to make imitation cowries out of bone, horn, shell, stone, clay, lead, bronze, gold and silver. However, not all the cowries and imitation cowries were used as money. Cowrie shells were also used as decoration, for example on clothes. Cowries and imitation cowries have been found in tombs as money for the dead.
Before the Zhou, only bronze implements were used in China. The Iron Age saw the development of the iron-tipped oxdrawn ploughs, which, along improved irrigation techniques, greatly increased the agricultural yields in China. The increase in food production led to a population boom, and the larger agricultural yields meant that fewer people needed to work the land, leaving others to join the armies, become artisans, merchants and traders. With the explosion of the merchant and trader class, the improvement of communication was inevitable.
Jade Pendant, Western Zhou
The improvement came in the form of expanding the horseback communication system. This increase in the economic situation allowed the rulers to control more and more territories and this was also facilitated by the grain surpluses they got from their lands. It could be argued that these causal events were all put in motion with the introduction of iron and the iron-tipped ox-drawn plough into China.
Rhino Bronze Wine Vessel, Utensil and Ritual Purposes
So, here we can begin to see the importance of the shift from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the Zhou Dynasty and the very real impact that it had on society and the way that society worked.
The Rites of Zhou presents the moral principles that are the basic rules for administering state affairs and ensuring security in an orderly and philosophic manner. Importantly, the Six Ministries of government in ancient China (Personnel, Households, Rites, Military, Justice and Public Works) and the division of their functions are based on modes stated in The Rites of Zhou. The work played an essential historic role in stabilizing and developing ancient Chinese society, as well as in the formation of a governmental institutional system that is unique to China. Pendant with Bird and Dragon
The Rites of Zhou The Rites of Zhou is a collection of writings and documents compiled during the Zhou Dynasty from various states of the Warring States Period with the addition of Confucian political thoughts. The work covers state-ruling policies through the official system and aims to provide a blueprint for ruling a unified country. The Rites of Zhou provides a guide to officials at various levels on how to correctly perform their ritual and practical duties as a ruler. The Rites of Zhou also includes an incredible amount of historical data, including religious rituals, economic policies, philosophy and moral ethics of the Zhou period. The work also highlights many of the different philosophical trends of the era, which shows us that none of these philosophies developed independently of one another, but were rather a product of interaction between numerous different schools of thought and are all reliant on each other for certain ideas and intellectual trends.
Painted Lacquer Coffin with Phoenix & Dragon
Wine Flask with Geometric Decoration
Zhou Religion The religious practice of the Zhou Dynasty reflected their hierarchical way of life. The Zhou kings believed that they were given a mandate from heaven to rule over their people—a principle that endured throughout the history of imperial China. The kings prayed and sacrificed to Shangdi, the Lord on High, and to their ancestors. The lords of the territories prayed to the local nature gods and to the gods of agriculture in addition to their ancestors. If any sacrifices or prayers were missed, great ill was predicted to fall on the territory or kingdom of the neglectful leader.
The religion of the Zhou people was quite different from the Shang religion. While the Shang kings saw the universe filled with real ghosts and spirits of good and evil, the Zhou religion was much more abstract and transcendental. Furthermore, human sacrifices during the burials of high nobles or the kings diminished greatly during the Zhou. Finally, oracles taken with oxen scapulae or tortoise plastrons were inherited from the Shang Dynasty, but divination by counting out milfoil stalks and corn stalks soon became the prevalent divination method.
Square Four-Legged Vessel
While the ancestral rituals became more and more a matter of a bureaucratic state, poetry and writing became more individual and allowed to express own opinions about the ruling social stratum. Writing then changed from a religious centered inscription-based practice to a more individual poetic and lyrical outlet.
Websites for Further Reading National Palace Museum of Taiwan—online collection of Zhou sources
Introduction to Daoism from a professor at the university of Florida.
http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/collection/selectio ns_01.htm?catno=19
http://www.religiousworlds.com/dao/index.ht ml
The National Gallery of Art—module on Teaching the Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology
Explanation of some of the literary sources from the Zhang and Zhou Dynasty
http://www.nga.gov/education/chinatp_pt3.ht m An online collection from the Kinbell Art Museum in Forth Worth, Texas. https://www.kimbellart.org/Collections/Searc hCollections.aspx?P=1&Focus=0&txtSearchTex t=zhou%20dynasty Los Angeles County Museum of Art—Zhou Dynasty Art and Artifacts http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/m web.exe?request=record;id=500005;type=802 Freer and Sackler Galleries—Zhou Dynasty artifacts http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/searchresul ts.cfm?&keywords=zhou+dynasty Highlights from the British Museum Collection of Zhou artifacts http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highli ghts/highlights_search_results.aspx?searchTe xt=zhou&withinResults=within&advPlace=836 4&currentPage=1
http://www.san.beck.org/EC13-Chou.html#2 Monuments from the Zhou Dynasty— archaeology and art from early China http://www.art-andarchaeology.com/china/china.html#bronzeage Zhou Dynasty—Chinese art history sources http://www.art-andarchaeology.com/timelines/china/zhou.html Minneapolis Institute of Arts—the art of Asia online resources. http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/ China Knowledge guide—a universal guide for China studies. http://www.chinaknowledge.org/History/Zho u/zhou.html
Books for Further Reading Armstrong, David E. Alcohol and altered states in ancestor veneration rituals of Zhou China and Iron Age Palestine: A new approach to ancestor rituals. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998. Brindley, Erica Fox. Music, cosmology, and the politics of harmony in early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012. Chen Jianming. Along the Yangzi River: regional culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan. New York: China Institute Gallery, 2011. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge illustrated history of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated history of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Chinese society in the age of Confucius (1000-250 BC): the archaeological evidence. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2006. Fong, Wen. C. ed., The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from People’s Republic of China. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Knopf, 1980. Fowler, Jeaneane D. Chinese religions: beliefs and practices. Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2008.
King Wu of Zhou [movie]. Guangzhou Beauty Culture Communication Co. Ltd., 2007. Li Zhiyan, ed. Chinese ceramics from the Paleolithic period through the Qing Dynasty. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Li, Feng. Landscape and power in early China: the crisis and fall of the Western Zhou. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Li, Xueqin. Eastern Zhou and Qin civilizations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Loewe, Michael and Edward Shaughnessy, eds. Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. McNeal, Robin. Conquer and govern: e early Chinese military texts from the Yi Zhou shu. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012. Russell, Jesse. Zhou Dynasty. Books on Demand, 2012 (online source only). Shaughnessy, Edward L. Sources of Western Zhou history: inscribed bronze vessels. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Tanner, Harold Miles. China: a history. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009.
Ting, Renee. Chinese History Stories Volume 1: Stories from the Zhou Dynasty. New York: Shen’s books, 2009. Wheeler, David. The Shang, Zhou, Qin & Han Dynasties. New York: Dog’s Tail Books, 2011. Wu Hung. Early Chinese Art and Architecture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. Xu, Zhouyun. Western Chou civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.