The name Zhou appears often in the ora- cle bone inscriptions of the Shang kingdom, sometimes as a friendly tribu- tary neighbour and at other times as a hostile one. This pattern is confirmed by records found at the Zhou archaeological site. Marriages were occasionally made between the two ruling houses. The Zhou also borrowed arts such as bronze casting from their more cultivated neighbour. The Zhou royal house, however, had already conceived the idea of replacing Shang as the master of China—a con- quest that took three generations. Although the conquest was actually car- ried out by his sons, Wenwang should be credited with molding the Zhou kingdom into the most formidable power west of the Shang. Wenwang extended the Zhou sphere of influence to the north of the Shang kingdom and also made incur- sions to the south, thus paving the way for the final conquest by Wuwang.
In Chinese historical tradition Wenwang was depicted as intelligent and benevolent, a man of virtue who won popularity among his contemporaries and expanded the realm of the Zhou. His son Wuwang, though not as colourful as his father, was always regarded as the conqueror. In fact, Wu, his posthumous name, means “Martial.” However, the lit- erary records indicate that the Zhou actually controlled two-thirds of all China at the time of Wenwang, who continued to recognize the cultural and political a tenuous control over the country
through a network of feudal states. This system broke down during the Dong (Eastern) Zhou (770–256 BC), however, as those states and new ones that arose vied for power. The Dong Zhou is commonly subdivided into the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn) period (770–476 BC) and the Zhanguo (Warring States) period (475– 221 BC), the latter extending some three decades beyond the death of the last Zhou ruler until the rise of the Qin in 221.
The origin of the Zhou royal house is lost in the mists of time. Although the tra- ditional historical system of the Chinese contains a Zhou genealogy, no dates can be assigned to the ancestors. The first ancestor was Houji, literally translated as “Lord of Millet.” He appears to have been a cultural hero and agricultural deity rather than a tribal chief. The earliest plausible Zhou ancestor was Danfu, the grandfather of Wenwang. Prior to and during the time of Danfu, the Zhou people seem to have migrated to avoid pressure from powerful neighbours, possibly nomadic people to the north. Under the leadership of Danfu, they settled in the valley of the Wei River in the present province of Shaanxi. The fertility of the loess soil there apparently made a great impression on these people, who had already been engaged in farming when they entered their new homeland. A walled city was built, and a new nation was formed. Archaeological remains, includ- ing ruins of courtyards surrounded by walls and halls on platforms, confirm liter- ary evidence of a Zhou state.
(as tabulated by Dong Zuobin, although it is traditionally dated at 1122; other dates have also been suggested, includ- ing 1046, which has been adopted for this article). Wuwang died shortly after the conquest, leaving a huge territory to be consolidated. This was accomplished by one of his brothers, Zhougong, who served as regent during the reign of Wu’s son, Chengwang.
The defeated Shang could not be ruled out as a potential force, even though their ruler, Zhou, had immolated himself. Many groups of hostile “barbar- ians” were still outside the sphere of Zhou power. The Zhou leaders had to yield to reality by establishing a rather weak control over the conquered terri- tory. The son of Zhou was allowed to organize a subservient state under the close watch of two other brothers of Wuwang, who were garrisoned in the immediate vicinity. Other leaders of the Zhou and their allies were assigned lands surrounding the old Shang domain. But no sooner had Zhougong assumed the role of regent than a large-scale rebellion broke out. His two brothers, entrusted with overseeing the activities of the son of Zhou, joined the Shang prince in rebel- lion, and it took Zhougong three full years to reconquer the Shang domain, subjugate the eastern tribes, and reestab- lish the suzerainty of the Zhou court.
These three years of extensive cam- paigning consolidated the rule of the Zhou over all of China. An eastern capital was constructed on the middle reach of superiority of the Shang out of feudal loy-
alty. There is not enough evidence either to establish or to deny this. A careful his- torian, however, tends to take the Zhou subjugation to the Shang as a recogni- tion of Shang strength. It was not until the reign of the last Shang ruler, Zhou, that the kingdom exhausted its strength by engaging in large-scale military cam- paigns against nomads to the north and against a group of native tribes to the east. At that time Wuwang organized the first probing expedition and reached the neighbourhood of the Shang capital. A full-scale invasion soon followed. Along with forces of the Zhou, the army was made up of the Jiang, southern neigh- bours of the Zhou, and of eight allied tribes from the west. The Shang dis- patched a large army to meet the invaders. The pro-Zhou records say that, after the Shang vanguard defected to join the Zhou, the entire army collapsed, and Wuwang entered the capital without resistance. Yet Mencius, the 4th-century- BC thinker, cast doubt on the reliability of this account by pointing out that a vic- tory without enemy resistance should not have been accompanied by the heavy casualties mentioned in the classical doc- ument. One may speculate that the Shang vanguard consisted of remnants of the eastern tribes suppressed by the Shang ruler Zhou during his last expedition and that their sudden defection caught the Shang defenders by surprise, making them easy prey for the invading enemy. The decisive battle took place in 1111 BC
and the city were therefore identical, both being guo, a combination of city
wall and weapons. Satellite cities were established at convenient distances from the main city in order to expand the ter- ritory under control. Each feudal state consisted of an alliance of the Zhou, the Shang, and the local population. A Chinese nation was formed on the foun- dation of Zhou feudalism.
The scattered feudal states gradually acquired something like territorial solid- ity as the neighbouring populations established closer ties with them, either by marriage or by accepting vassal sta- tus; the gaps between the fortified cities were thus filled by political control and cultural assimilation. This created a dilemma for the Zhou central court: the evolution of the feudal network but- tressed the structure of the Zhou order, but the strong local ties and parochial interests of the feudal lords tended to pull them away from the centre. Each of these opposing forces became at one time or another strong enough to affect the his- tory of the Zhou order.
For about two centuries Zhou China enjoyed stability and peace. There were wars against the non-Zhou peoples of the interior and against the nomads along the northern frontier, but there was little dispute among the Chinese states themselves. The southern expansion was successful, and the northern expansion worked to keep the nomads away from the Chinese areas. The changing strength of the feudal order can be seen from two occurrences at the Zhou court. the Huang He (Yellow River) as a strong-
hold to support the feudal lords in the east. Several states established by Zhou kinsmen and relatives were transferred farther east and northeast as the van- guard of expansion, including one established by the son of Zhougong. The total number of such feudal states men- tioned in historical records and later accounts varies from 20 to 70; the figures in later records would naturally be higher, since enfeoffment might take place more than once. Each of these states included fortified cities. They were strung out along the valley of the Huang He between the old capital and the new eastern capi- tal, reaching as far as the valleys of the Huai and Han rivers in the south and extending eastward to the Shandong Peninsula and the coastal area north of it. All these colonies mutually supported each other and were buttressed by the strength of the eastern capital, where the conquered Shang troops were kept, together with several divisions of the Zhou legions. Ancient bronze inscrip- tions make frequent mention of mobilizing the military units at the east- ern capital at times when the Zhou feudal states needed assistance.