Tradition

Western Zhou

Overview

The Western Zhou (Chinese: 西周; pinyin: Xīzhōu; c. 1046 – 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began in 1046 BC when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty and ended in 771 BC when Quanrong mercenaries hired by the rebel Marquis of Shen sacked the Zhou capital Fenghao (which consisted of the twin cities Fengjing and Haojing) and killed King You of Zhou. The "Western" label for the period is a retronym referring to the relative location of the ruined Fenghao in the Wei River valley (near present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi province), which is about 340 km (210 miles) west of the subsequent new capital Luoyi (also known as Chengzhou, present-day Luoyang, Henan province) at the Lower Luo River valley, which had previously served as Zhou's secondary capital.

After exploiting the opportunity of the Shang dynasty's main forces being away on an expedition against the Dongyi, the earlier Zhou state under Ji Fa allied with other ancient Chinese states and rebelled against King Zhòu of Shang, defeating King Zhòu's hastily conscripted army of slaves and penal troops (who defected immediately) at the Battle of Muye. The Zhou state then became ascendant as the new universal suzerain of the Huaxia federacy for about 70 years until the disastrous Zhou–Chu War in 977 BC; thereafter, the Zhou court gradually declined in power and lost authority over its vassal states, which culminated in an aristocrat insurgency in 841 BC that forced King Li into exile and subsequently began a 14-year period of regency by nobles. The Zhou dynasty had a brief resurgence under King Li's son King Xuan, who scored a series of successful campaigns against the Four Barbarians, but suffered crushing defeats against the Xirong, particularly in 789 BC against the western Shen state (not to be confused with similarly named Shen state, which was a cadet state established in 821 BC at present-day Nanyang, Henan, also known as the "Southern Shen") where King Xuan's priced "southern division" was annihilated. To pacify the Shen state, King Xuan's son King You married the daughter of Marquis of Shen and named their son Yijiu as the crown prince. However, King You later favored a different consort Bao Si and attempted to replace Yijiu with Bao Si's son Bofu as the heir apparent. That enraged the Marquis of Shen, who rebelled in collaboration with another state Zeng and the Quanrong barbarians and defeated King You's royal forces at the Battle of Mount Li in 771 BC, killing King You in the process. The rebels then sieged and sacked the Zhou capital Fenghao, killing Bofu and Situ Duke Huan of Zheng and abducting Bao Si, thus ending the Western Zhou dynasty.

With the old capital ruined and the crown lands overrun by Quanrong invaders, the Zhou court under Yijiu (who became King Ping but was nothing more than a puppet ruler under his maternal grandfather) was forced to evacuate the Wei River valley and relocate east to Luoyi. This marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, wherein central authority had been irreversibly eroded and Zhou politics became dominated by the ambitions of the now-autonomous vassals.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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So some were appointed to draw stones from the stone-quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he ordered to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those which are called the Libyan mountains; and they worked by a hundred thousand men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
States what Western Zhou is.
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But your people have the look of hunger, and in the fields there are those who have died of famine. This is leading on beasts to devour men. Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for doing so. When he who is called the parent of the people conducts his government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men, where is that parental relation to the people? Chung-ne said, 'Was he not without…
Confucius, The Wisdom of Confucius with Critical and Biographical Sketches
States what Western Zhou is.
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China is much less a political entity than a civilization--the only one that has survived from ancient times. Since the days of Confucius, the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires have perished; but China has persisted through a continuous evolution. There have been foreign influences--first Buddhism, and now Western science. But Buddhism did not turn the Chinese into Indians, and Western…
Bertrand Russell, The Problem of China
Close in meaning to Western Zhou; the term itself is not named.
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Ancient history.

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