Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history, traditionally dated from 1046 to 256 BCE.

It was founded when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the last Shang king at the Battle of Muye, and its early statesmen, especially the Duke of Zhou, articulated the enduring doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven, the idea that Heaven grants the right to rule to a just sovereign and withdraws it from a corrupt one. This concept legitimised the Zhou conquest and became a foundational principle of Chinese political philosophy for the next three thousand years. Historians divide the dynasty into two phases. During the Western Zhou (c. 1046–771 BCE), the kings ruled from the west near modern Xi'an and governed through a decentralised system of regional lords bound by kinship and ritual obligation. In 771 BCE invasions and internal revolt forced the court to flee east to Luoyang, beginning the Eastern Zhou (770–256 BCE), during which royal authority steadily eroded and real power passed to increasingly independent states. The Eastern Zhou is subdivided into the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, an era of intense conflict but also extraordinary intellectual ferment. This was the age of the 'Hundred Schools of Thought,' which produced Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, and Mohism, philosophies that would shape East Asian civilisation permanently. Advances in iron technology, agriculture, commerce, and statecraft accompanied the political fragmentation. By the late Warring States period the Zhou kings were powerless figureheads; the dynasty was formally extinguished in 256 BCE when the rising state of Qin annexed the last Zhou domain, shortly before Qin unified all of China. Despite its long decline, the Zhou era is regarded as the formative period of classical Chinese thought and culture.

Key figures