FURTHER READING
1 E. J. W. Barber, The Mummies of Ürümchi (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
2 Roderick Campbell, Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State: The Shang and Their World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
3 Kwang-chih Chang, Shang Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
4 Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 4th ed., 1986).
5 Li Feng, Early China: A Social and Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
6 David Keightley, Sources of Shang China: The Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
7 Harry Shapiro, Peking Man (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974).
8 Gideon Shelach-Lavi, The Archaeology of Early China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
[2] CLASSICAL CHINA, 1027–256 BCE
“Feudalism”?
Changes in Social Structure
Political Instability in the Eastern Zhou
Transformations in the Economy
Hundred Schools of Thought
Daoism
Popular Religions
Confucianism
Mohism
Legalism
Book of Odes and Book of Documents
Secularization of Arts
“FEUDALISM”?
Although the Zhou lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, its longevity may be deceptive. There was a sharp break in the dynasty, for in 771 BCE it was compelled to move its capital. During the first phase, known as the Western Zhou, its administrative center was located in the Wei river valley, west of the modern city of Xian; in the succeeding phase, known as the Eastern Zhou, the capital was transferred to Chengzhou (near the present-day location of Luoyang), which the Western Zhou had used as a secondary capital. The remaining five centuries of Eastern Zhou rule witnessed a rapid deterioration in its ability to govern, leading to a chaotic struggle for power between areas reputedly under its jurisdiction during the so-called Warring States period (403–221 BCE).
Map 2.1 Warring States-era divisions.
The Zhou had from its inception set up a decentralized government, which some scholars identify as similar to the European system of feudalism. However, the concept of European feudalism is also murky. In its simplest form, it consisted of a legal and military system based on a relationship between a lord and a vassal. A lord who owned land turned over possession of a portion of that land (known as a fief) to a vassal in return, principally, for military services. Their mutual obligations and rights entailed a pledge of loyalty to the lord by the vassal and a pledge of protection of the vassal by the lord. Peasants who worked the land on manors for the lords and vassals or in Church estates were also part of this feudal society. Yet there were so many variations of “feudalism” in Europe that some scholars have stopped using the term in relation to China. Thus, the Western Zhou may be best described as a society in which the local nobility often supplanted the kings as true wielders of power. The rudimentary levels of transport, communications, and technology clearly reduced the opportunities for centralization. Even so, the Zhou political system, particularly the Eastern Zhou, tilted further toward localism than such limitations would have mandated.
Decentralization stemmed from the initial Zhou conquests, though it should be noted that disentangling myth from reality concerning its early years is difficult. Part of the problem is that texts allegedly written in the Zhou actually derive from later periods. Many Chinese accepted the earlier dates. The sources all concur that the Zhou peoples traced their ancestry to Hou Ji, whose second name translates as “millet.” This semidivine figure reputedly instructed his descendants in the basics of farming. Inhabiting as it did the areas west of the Shang kingdom in the Wei river valley, the Zhou often had bellicose relations with its neighbor for several generations before their final confrontation in the eleventh century BCE. Despite these conflicts, the Zhou was influenced by the Shang. Designs and techniques of early Zhou bronzes and ceramics resembled Shang prototypes, and their rituals were often similar.
Culmination of the strained relationship occurred during the reigns of the stereotyped, almost legendary father-and-son monarchs, Wen and Wu of Zhou. The sources endow Wen (his name signifying “accomplished” or “learned”) with the attributes of a sage-ruler. Intelligent and benevolent, Wen believed in negotiations and compromise in relations with others and in governing his own people. His remarkable character paved the way for his son Wu (his name meaning “martial’) to battle with and overwhelm the Shang. The sources praise Wu for his military successes, but Wen represented the ideal. Even at this early stage in Chinese culture, civil virtues were more highly prized than military skills. The sources, for example, extol the Zhou for their magnanimity toward their defeated enemies. Instead of adopting a military solution and extirpating the Shang royal family, the leaders of Zhou gave them land in order to permit them to continue their ancestral rituals.
Early Chinese attitudes can be discerned even more clearly in the descriptions of the Duke of Zhou, the leading cultural hero of the period. The Duke of Zhou, Wu’s brother, was first a regent and later a minister for King Cheng, his young nephew. In later accounts, he is credited with stabilizing the Zhou by enfeoffing collateral members of the royal family and other nobles who had been instrumental in the overwhelming victory over the Shang. Recognizing that the Zhou needed to reward these loyal retainers, the Duke of Zhou initiated the practice of granting them land and allowing them to govern their domains, relieving the Zhou court of a task it did not have the administrative or military capability to undertake. He is also revered for his patronage of scholars, a quintessential Chinese value in later times. He is most celebrated, however, for his promotion of the concept of the Mandate of Heaven. This view justified the Zhou usurpation of the throne because the mandate to rule offered by Heaven (Tian, who became the most important deity and superseded the Di and the wind, mountain, and other Shang deities) was not granted in perpetuity. Future rulers could lose the mandate, which would be revealed by their lack of concern for their subjects’ welfare. When rulers lost such support, their subjects had the right, if not the obligation, to depose them. The Duke of Zhou and other exponents sought to use the theory to exonerate themselves from accusations of sedition and to legitimize the new dynasty. According to the Duke of Zhou, the Shang kings had not performed the divinely ordained rituals, had scarcely concerned themselves with government, and had selected ministers with hardly any interest in public welfare. Thus, the Zhou was absolutely justified in overthrowing the discredited and disreputable Shang kings. In this view, the king’s role was essential. It is all the more ironic, then, that the Duke of Zhou took the initiative in developing a decentralized political system that eventually circumscribed the king’s authority and turned over much of the responsibility for the public welfare to the nobility. The question is: did the Zhou kings and the Duke of Zhou have any other choice in light of the technological limitations
