According to Chinese tradition, Chinese civilization is 5,000 years old, though the ancient China of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties was far smaller than modern China and largely confined to the Yellow River basin. Over time, its peoples expanded further afield and incorporated other cultures. While there is no archeological evidence for the Xia, there is plenty of evidence for the Shang. The Zhou kings, who ruled from around 1000 BCE, were respected for their observance of rituals, and over time, they were reduced to the puppets of powerful warlords.
The Xia Dynasty
The traditional Chinese historiographical tradition, as related in Sima Qian’s Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian, begins with the Yellow Emperor, the first of the legendary Five Emperors. The last of these, Emperor Shun, decided to pass his throne to Yu the Great, who had prevented flooding in the Yellow River by building draining channels. Yu is therefore credited with founding the Xia Dynasty, as upon his death, he was succeeded by his son Qi, the first time that the kingship passed from father to son.
Both Chinese tradition and archeological evidence dating back to 5000 BCE indicate that there may have been hundreds and thousands of small communities who lived in settlements protected by rammed earth walls. In the Shiji, only the Xia is mentioned, together with genealogical tables of kings, its various capital cities, and accounts of major political developments, suggesting that the Xia was the most powerful state in the Yellow River basin.
According to Sima Qian, 17 kings over 14 generations ruled the Xia for around 470 years. In their quest to find archaeological evidence for the Xia, many modern Chinese scholars believe that the Xia can be identified with the Erlitou culture, named after an archaeological site to the east of Luoyang discovered by Xu Xusheng in 1959. However, there is no definite proof, as so far, no inscriptions have been uncovered that correspond to Sima Qian’s list of kings.
The Shang Dynasty
According to Sima Qian, the Xia was overthrown when its 17th ruler, the tyrannical King Jie, was defeated in battle by Cheng Tang, ruler of the state of Shang (which Sima Qian calls Yin, after its capital city), who founded the dynasty of the same name. Sima Qian gives the names of 29 kings of Shang over 23 generations. While the chronology of the Shang Dynasty is uncertain, most estimates place it between the 16th century BCE and the 11th century BCE.
The Shang was the first Chinese civilization to leave behind a written record in the form of oracle bones used by diviners to tell the future for the king and other members of the royal family. Over 200,000 oracle bone fragments have been recovered from a site near Anyang in northern Henan province. Dating from around 1250 BC to 1050 BCE, the kings named in the inscriptions match with the last nine kings mentioned by Sima Qian.
Over 500 Shang sites have been identified, covering a large territory spanning Liaoning in the northeast and Sichuan in the southwest. However, while these sites are associated with Shang culture, the territory under the direct control of the Shang king is likely to have been far smaller. A common theme in the oracle bones involves kings, princes, and non-royal military leaders wanting to know whether they would be victorious in battle against their enemies.
The Western Zhou
By the 1100s BCE, the Shang Dynasty was facing encroachments from several states to the west, the most formidable of which was the State of Zhou. The initiator of the Zhou conquest of Shang was Ji Chang, better known as King Wen (the Cultured King), who ruled between 1100 BCE and his death in 1050 BCE.
King Wen did not live to see the final conquest of Shang in around 1046 BCE, when his son King Wu (the Martial King) defeated the Shang army at Muye, a short distance to the southwest of the Shang capital, founding the Zhou Dynasty in the process. According to the traditional account, the Zhou victory owed much to Jiang Ziya, a talented military officer who served Kings Wen and Wu and led the initial charge.
King Wu died a few years later, in 1043 BCE, and was succeeded by his young son, King Cheng. One of King Wu’s younger brothers, the Duke of Zhou (personal name Ji Dan), declared the king too young to rule and assumed a regency. This presumptuous act provoked a rebellion against King Cheng, led by his other uncles. While several of his advisors counseled against going to war against his uncles, the young king claimed that he enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven as the results of his divination were favorable and could not defy the will of Heaven.
After defeating the rebels, the Duke of Zhou’s forces continued to march east and conquered much of eastern China, establishing a number of fiefdoms under royal princes and senior officials. Jiang Ziya, the mastermind of the Battle of Muye, would become the founder of the State of Qi in modern-day Shandong province.
The king of Zhou ruled from his capitals of Fengjing and Haojing, situated on opposite banks of the Feng River near modern-day Xi’an and collectively known as Fenghao. In order to consolidate his eastern conquests, the Duke of Zhou established a stronghold at Chengzhou on the site of modern-day Luoyang, which would effectively become an eastern capital of the kingdom.
The Duke of Zhou established many of the principles of government for posterity, and some of his political philosophy was recorded in the Shang shu (Venerated Documents). He was the first to formulate the idea that the Mandate of Heaven had been passed from the Shang Dynasty to the Zhou Dynasty, and he believed that a successful government depended on effective ministers rather than the king himself.
After restoring order to the state, the Duke of Zhou has been praised by posterity for laying down his power and remaining at Chengzhou rather than accompanying the king back to Fenghao. However, this may not have been a voluntary act, and King Cheng may have asserted his authority and sidelined his uncle.
The Spring and Autumn Period
Over time, the colonies established during the early Zhou became increasingly independent from the king in Fenghao. At the same time, the Zhou faced threats from groups of barbarians, including the Quan Rong to the northwest. In 771 BCE, the Quan Rong attacked Fenghao and killed King You of Zhou. His son was forced to abandon the capital and re-establish his capital at Chengzhou, where he was installed as King Ping. The move marked the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
The first half of the Eastern Zhou, approximately 770 to 481 BCE, is commonly referred to as the Spring and Autumn Period, named after The Spring and Autumn Annals, a historical record of the State of Lu spanning 722 to 481 BCE, attributed to the conservative philosopher Confucius, who served as a minister in the State of Lu during the 6th century BCE.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, the power of the King of Zhou continued to decline at the expense of its vassal states. While there were initially more than a hundred, the system consolidated over time until there were around a dozen major states left standing. While most of these states had been established by the Zhou and continued to treat the king in Luoyang as their feudal overlord, several states from the south and east, including the Chu, Wu, and Yue, originated from outside the Zhou political system and were subsequently incorporated into the existing feudal structure.
The Eastern Zhou had survived in large part due to assistance from the state of Zheng near Luoyang. By the 7th century BCE, Zheng was in decline, paving the way for the state of Qi to become the hegemonic power. Duke Huan of Qi and his advisor Guan Zhong reformed the state administration to enable Qi to mobilize its resources more effectively than other Zhou states.
In 671 BCE, after Qi armies intervened to support King Hui of Zhou in a power struggle, Duke Huan was awarded the title of ba, a term usually translated as hegemon or protector. Through military and diplomatic efforts, Duke Huan’s status was gradually recognized throughout the realm, and he frequently convened interstate meetings to confirm the feudal authority of the King of Zhou.
Duke Huan and the Zhou faced a major challenge from the state of Chu in the south, based around the Yangtze River valley, whose ruler had assumed the title of king in 706 BCE in defiance of the Zhou kingdom. Duke Huan’s defeat of Chu in 656 BCE further strengthened his power, but Qi hegemony proved ephemeral when civil war broke out after Duke Huan’s death in 643 BCE. Within a decade, Duke Wen of Jin to the north of the Zhou royal domain assumed leadership of the Zhou states. After defeating a resurgent Chu army at the Battle of Chengpu in 632 BCE, Duke Wen was given the title of ba, and Jin retained its hegemony for 80 years.
The power struggle between Jin and Chu continued throughout the 6th century BCE, but by the end of the century, the states of Wu and Yue emerged around the Yangtze River delta to challenge the status quo.
In 506 BCE, King Helü of Wu’s armies defeated Chu in five major battles and sacked its capital of Ying, but he had to return home after a rebellion by his brother. After restoring order, Helü turned his attention to Yue and died from wounds sustained in battle in 496 BCE. His son and successor, King Fuchai, captured Yue and enslaved its king, Goujian, before leading his armies north, forcing Qi and Jin into recognizing Wu as the hegemonic power in 482 BCE.
In the meantime, he had released King Goujian from captivity for good behavior and allowed him to return to Yue. Goujian was determined to take revenge on Wu, and in 476 BCE, he took advantage of Fuchai’s absence in the north to attack the Wu capital, present-day Suzhou. The Yue armies captured the city, and Fuchai hurried home to make peace. Three years later, Goujian led a campaign that ended with Fuchai’s death and the Yue conquest of Wu. Goujian’s defeat of his bitter rival enabled him to assume the title of ba at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period.
The Warring States Period
The end of the Spring and Autumn Period corresponded with the collapse of the State of Jin, from which the three states of Zhao, Wei, and Ha emerged. These three states were among the seven major powers of the Warring States period, including Yan in the northeast, around present-day Beijing, Qi in the east, Chu in the south, and Qin in the west. Although other minor states continued to survive for some time, they were gradually extinguished by their larger rivals.
The Warring States Period witnessed the centralization of political authority, a development catalyzed either by the victors of civil wars to consolidate their power or by rulers who had to face off external threats. The expansion of state capacity meant that wars could be fought on a larger scale, and commanders could keep their armies on the field for longer. The crossbow became the favored infantry weapon, while the State of Zhao in the north pioneered the use of cavalry.
Each of the seven warring states enjoyed various strategic advantages and disadvantages as they struggled for supremacy. As the most powerful successor state to the Jin, Wei initially enjoyed the upper hand, but its central position meant that it was threatened from all sides, and it struggled to hold on to any conquests. Wei’s decline came about following defeats to Qi at Guiling in 353 BCE and Maling in 341 BCE. The Qi victories were masterminded by military strategist Sun Bin, who claimed descent from the author of Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
The State of Qin in the west enjoyed the greatest strategic advantage. Located in what is now Shaanxi province, the Qin heartland was surrounded by mountains, and Qin rulers protected their domain by fortifying the Hangu and Wu passes, which led into the region. Over the course of the 4th century BCE, the Qin conquered the regions of Shu and Ba to the southwest, and in 312, Qin armies conquered the region of Hanzhong from Chu to connect these territories into a single unit. Qin remained a constant threat to Chu’s western flank, severely undermining Chu’s ability to expand elsewhere.
Qin’s success owed much to Shang Yang, who served as minister to Duke Xiao of Qin in the mid-4th century BCE. Shang Yang’s political philosophy, known as Legalism, is usually associated with an expansion of state power and the application of draconian punishments to maintain political order. However, Shang Yang’s policies were also characterized by a pragmatic desire to improve state efficiency by promoting men by ability rather than birth, strengthening the army, and promoting economic development.
As a result of Qin’s expansion in the 4th century BC, the foreign policy of the other warring states came to be defined in relation to their attitude towards the Qin. At various times, the warring states formed pro-Qin “horizontal alliances” along an east-west axis, or anti-Qin “vertical alliances,” along a north-south axis.
During the early 3rd century BCE, the State of Qi enjoyed a brief period of dominance after taking advantage of Qin internal turmoil and allying with Wei and Han to conquer Qin territories east of the Hangu Pass. In 294 BCE, Qi abandoned its allies, enabling Qin to reconquer the lost territories, and by 288, Qin and Qi made an agreement to partition China into western and eastern halves.
Within a few years, Qi resumed hostilities against Qin and was opposed by a “horizontal alliance” of Qin, Zhao, Han, Wei, and Yan. In 284, the Yan general Yue Yi inflicted a decisive defeat on the Qi army. Not long afterward, Yue Yi fell victim to court intrigue and was forced to flee to Zhao, where he helped King Huiwen of Zhao to expand his territories at the expense of Wei and Qi, while Zhao general Lian Po successfully resisted Qin invasion and inflicted heavy casualties on the invaders.
The decisive encounter between Qin and Zhao took place at Changping, where, after a three-year siege, Qin general Bai Qi crushed the Zhao forces in 260 BCE. Sima Qian claims that over 400,000 Zhao troops were killed during the battle. Although Zhao was not completely beaten, the Qin victory at Changping paved the way for the Qin conquest of China. In 249, King Zhuangxiang of Qin occupied Luoyang and extinguished the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. His son, King Ying Zheng of Qin, completed the unification of China between 230 and 221 BCE, culminating in the foundation of the Qin Dynasty.
