Western Zhou

The Western Zhou (c. 1046 – 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 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.

Archaeology
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. Bronze vessels are a key marker of Western Zhou sites, including buildings, workshops, city walls and burials. Elite burials usually contain sets of vessels, which can be dated using known variations in styles, as well the paleography and content of inscriptions. 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.

Inscriptions
The Zhou produced thousands of inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels and often considerably longer than those of the Late Shang. 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. These give a rich insight into Zhou governance and the upper levels of Zhou society.

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. More than 50 of them describe military campaigns. Naturally the picture is incomplete, as very few inscriptions touch on military defeats or failures of government.

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.

History
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. The Cambridge History of Ancient China used dates determined by Edward L. Shaughnessy from the "current text" Bamboo Annals and bronze inscriptions. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project produced a schedule of dates based on received texts, bronze inscriptions, radiocarbon dating and astronomical events.

Conquest of the Shang
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. 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. It is likely that several groups from across Shaanxi banded together to conquer the Shang.

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. 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. 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.

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. The lengthy inscription, summarizing the history of the Zhou and that of the Wei family, begins: 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. On King Wen's death, his oldest son became King Wu and expanded the 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. 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.

Civil war
Few records survive from this early period and accounts from the Western Zhou period cover little beyond a list of kings with uncertain dates. King Wu died two or three years after the conquest. Because his son King Cheng was young, his brother, the Duke of Zhou Ji Dan assisted the young and inexperienced king as regent. Wu's other brothers (Shu Du of Cai, Guan Shu, and Huo Shu), concerned about the Duke of Zhou's growing power, formed an alliance with Wu Geng and other regional rulers and Shang remnants in the rebellion of the Three Guards. The Duke of Zhou stamped out this rebellion and conquered more territory to bring other people under Zhou rule.

The Duke formulated the Mandate of Heaven doctrine to counter Shang claims to a divine right of rule and founded Luoyang as an eastern capital. With a feudal fengjian system, royal relatives and generals were given fiefs in the east, including Luoyang, Jin, Ying, Lu, Qi and Yan. While this was designed to maintain Zhou authority as it expanded its rule over a larger amount of territory, many of these became major states when the dynasty weakened. When the Duke of Zhou stepped down as regent, the remainder of Cheng's reign and that of his son Kang seem to have been peaceful and prosperous.

Further kings
The fourth king, Zhao led an army south against Chu and was killed, along with a large part of the Zhou army. The fifth king, Mu is remembered for his legendary visit to the Queen Mother of the West. Territory was lost to the Xu Rong in the southeast. The kingdom seems to have weakened during Mu's long reign, possibly because the familial relationship between Zhou Kings and regional rulers thinned over generations so that fiefs that were originally held by royal brothers were now held by third and fourth cousins; peripheral territories also developed local power and prestige on par with that of the Zhou royal family.

The reigns of the next four kings—Gong, Yih, Xiao, and Yi—are poorly documented. The ninth king is said to have boiled the Duke of Qi in a cauldron, implying that the vassals were no longer obedient. The tenth king, Li (877–841 BC) was forced into exile and power was held for fourteen years by the Gonghe Regency. Li's overthrow may have been accompanied by China's first recorded peasant rebellion. When Li died in exile, Gonghe retired and power passed to Li's son Xuan (827–782 BC). King Xuan worked to restore royal authority, though regional lords became less obedient later in his reign.

Fall of the Western 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 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 into the Wei River valley. Archaeologically, the Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the Siwa culture.

The twelfth and last king of the Western Zhou period was You (781–771 BC). When You replaced his wife with a concubine, the former queen's powerful father, the Marquess of Shen, joined forces with Quanrong barbarians. The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital of Haojing and killing the last Western Zhou king You. Thereafter the task of dealing with the northern tribes was left to their vassal, the state of Qin.

His killing resulted to beginning wars between local states which continued until the completion of Qin's wars of unification five centuries later. Some scholars have surmised that the sack of Haojing might have been connected to a Scythian raid from the Altai Mountains before their westward expansion. Most of the Zhou nobles withdrew from the Wei valley and the capital was reestablished downriver at the old eastern capital of Chengzhou near modern-day Luoyang. This was the start of the Eastern Zhou period, which is customarily divided into the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period.