Chinese History - 771-256 BC - Eastern Zhou Dynasty
Gradually the provinces looked less and less toward the king, and more toward their own dukes. As loyalties crumbled, an alliance of dukes and barbarians sacked the Chou capital in 771 BC. The royal family fled to the eastern city of Loyang to begin a new period of its dynasty called Eastern Chou. For the next two hundred years dukes were able to forget internal tensions and focus on the external barbarian threat.
From the beginning of Ping Wang's reign (770 BC), the Chou dynasty had practically fallen, and all the emperors of the Eastern Chou line were without real power. It was the age of feudalism. Each feudal estate was an independent nation, each prince of each nation fought for its supremacy, and the power of the princes was greater than that of the emperor. The power of the prince in each state had generally fallen into the hands of a few noble families, and the government had become a form of oligarchy. Sometimes the private officials of these families took public affairs into their own hands. The confusion and disorder brought about by the ruling class extended over the whole empire, while the common people, who were not sufficiently educated to help themselves, were entirely neglected.
It was philosophers of this period who first enunciated the doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" (tianming), the notion that the ruler (the "son of heaven") governed by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had lost the mandate. The doctrine explained and justified the demise of the two earlier dynasties and at the same time supported the legitimacy of present and future rulers. Prince Chuang of Ch'u, [BC 613-591] with success became audacious, and sent to the Emperor an insolent message asking the size and weight of the Nine Tripods, on which the security of the Empire was said to depend. The reply of the Emperor, Ting Wang, was not without its dignity: "When virtue is brilliant, the tripods are heavy; when the reverse, they are light; Heaven blesses intelligent virtue; on that its favor rests. Though the virtue of Chou is decayed, the decree of Heaven is not yet changed. The weight of the Tripods may not be enquired about."
The period between the transfer of the Zhou court to Luoyang in 770 BC and the unification of China under the First Emperor in 221 BC is divided into the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). In 479 BC, the outlying state of Ch'u, near the Yangtze River defeated a smaller state and triggered a bloody struggle that would stretch for two hundred years, a period called, appropriately, the Warring States. During this time power shifted to a number of regional states, which competed with each other for dominance until one, the Qin, prevailed.
The Zhou court ruled (at least in principle) through most of this period, but constantly needed the help of surrounding states to bolster its position. The first of these states was Zheng, which had family connections with the Zhou. The Qi state (in the east) succeeded Zheng, assuming the position of Ba, or guardian of the Zhou feudal system. A key figure was Huan Gong, who for forty years maintained order through a series of military maneuvers and conferences between state leaders. After his death in 643 BC, the Jin state (to the north), which had been a vassal state during the Western Zhou, assumed leadership.
Meanwhile, two new states were emerging. Qin had taken control of the area vacated by the Zhou in the west but remained a minor contender at first. In the south, along the Yangzi River, the state of Chu was growing rapidly and beginning to venture northward. Around 475 BC, four powerful states (Qi, Jin, Qin, and Chu) stood on the periphery of the Zhou heartland, and were poised to assume leadership. Jin was subsequently divided and, for a while, the contest seemed to be between the successor states to the Jin and the Chu state to the south. But from about 350-250 BC, Qin launched a campaign of conquest that would pit all the states either in alliance with or against it.
By this time, the old Zhou system of lineage ties connecting cities and their regions was being replaced by a new power structure of centralized states and rulers. Powerful ministers, advisers, and reformers emerged, such as Shang Yang, whose administrative systems and harsh laws would be adopted by the First Emperor. The scale of warfare also increased, with huge infantry ranks drawn from the peasantry now dominating the field of battle.
During the period of the Eastern Chou dynasty, although the power of the imperial government declined, the intellectual growth of the people increased. The greater importance acquired by the different independent states with the diminishing power of the emperor gave rise to much peaceful diplomatic intercourse as well as to many hostile military expeditions, and these forms of contact had an educative influence upon a considerable class of the people. Further, as the political power was shifting from class to class and from person to person within each state, some noble families had been ruined, and some common people had risen. Thus the profession of learning was also shifted and more widely diffused. Moreover, in such a struggle, every one had absolute freedom of movement and of speech. It was a condition very favorable to the development of the minds of the people.
Out of this turbulent period rose the "hundred schools" of philosophy, a creative flowering that laid the foundations for all major schools of Chinese thought except Buddhism. Travelling aristocrat-scholars known as shi offered advice on everything from political theory to military tactics to immortality. The most famous of these shi was Kong Fu Zi (c. 551-479 BC), known in the West as Confucius, a humble teacher and sage and, arguably, the most potent force in Chinese civilization. He compiled and edited the literary works collectively known as the Five Classics. This work would influence China's educational system and government for the next two thousand years. He was concerned particularly with how society should be governed and with the qualities of an ideal ruler. He stressed the necessity of maintaining proper relationships and the important role of education in developing a virtuous and harmonious society.
The Dao De Jingo also dates from this time. The Dao was a formless essence underlying all things, out of which arose the complementary forces of yin and yang. The Confucian and Daoist thought that emerged at this time would be instrumental in shaping Chinese politics, religion, and art for centuries to come.
In the last days of the Chou dynasty there was a general weakening of the central Government in its relation to the many contending States, among which the State of Ch'in, with its foreign elements of race and culture, was the most conspicuous. The puppet Emperors of the period have little or no interest and may be dismissed with scant notice. The eight centuries of Chou, however, were more than the sum total of their many wars, for during this period the age of iron arrived. From furnaces used to make pottery, the Chou struck upon the knowledge for casting iron in large quantities, making it plentiful and cheap. It was used for making cooking utensils, agricultural implements, and instruments of war. China's most famous lost city, the "Great City Song" (pronounced "Soon"), features prominently in China's ancient literature. This city was the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
Nan-wang (314-256 BC) was the last Son of Heaven under the Chou dynasty. Like all his predecessors, he wore the modest title king (wang); but several of the more powerful states being nominally his vassals, had in the course of generations assumed the rank of kingdoms. The Ch6u empire now consisted of eleven states, all the heads of which, with the exception of two, had in the course of time enforced from the shadow emperor their recognition as kings; and as such, every one of them was much more powerful than the king of Ch6u himself. A title is not, of course, an absolutely exact index of the power wielded; for the rulers of Ts'in had been among the strongest long before they assumed the title wang in 325 BC. It seems characteristic that for centuries Ch'u, which owing to its great extension toward the south, and the non-Chinese, character of its population, would naturally feel less inclined to be loyal in its relations to the imperial court, claimed the royal crown as early as 704 BC. Ts'i followed next in 378 BC; Wei, in 370 BC; Yen and Han, in 332 BC; Chau, in 329 BC; and Sung, following Ts'in, in 318 BC. After the death of Nan-wang there was actually no Son of Heaven in China.
As the Contending States in the last years of the Chou battled one another, one western state, the Ch'in, had become a well-ordered state with a large, well-trained army. By 230 BC the other Warring States had worn themselves down to a remaining six. Then the Ch'in armies moved eastward. Within the decade each of the six was conquered.
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