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 Ping's royal forces at the Battle of Mount Li in 771 BC, killing King Ping 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 became dominated by the ambitions of the now-autonomous vassals.
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Elite burials usually contain sets of vessels, which can be dated using known variations in styles, as well as the paleography and content of inscriptions.
Hundreds of hoards of bronzes have been found in Shaanxi, dating from the fall of the western capital in 771 BC.
A hoard typically contains treasured vessels accumulated by a family over three centuries, carefully buried to hide them from the invaders.
The Zhou produced thousands of inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels and often considerably longer than those of the Late Shang.
Early inscriptions are quite short. The length of texts gradually increased until the middle of the Western Zhou period and remained fairly consistent thereafter.
The character forms and language of these inscriptions are obscure, and their interpretation rests heavily on transmitted texts.
Naturally the picture is incomplete, as very few inscriptions touch on military defeats or failures of government.
As the Book of Rites says of these inscriptions, "The intention of the inscriber is to extol the beautiful and not to extol the ugly."
Inscriptions usually contain some dating information, but usually not the name of the current king.
Scholars have devised a range of criteria to narrow down the reign of an inscription, including the style of the vessel, the form of the characters and details within the text.
Classics
The earliest received texts, including parts of the Book of Odes and the Book of Documents, are believed to date from the Western Zhou period.
The Book of Odes is a collection of songs, traditionally divided into 160 State Airs, 105 Court Songs (Major and Minor) and 40 Hymns (Zhou, Lu and Song), set to melodies that have since been lost.
Most specialists agree that the Zhou Hymns date to the Western Zhou, followed by the Court Songs and the Airs of the States.
The Airs are said to have been collected from throughout the Western Zhou domains, but have a consistency and elegance that suggests that they were polished by the literati of the Zhou court.
The Book of Documents is a collection of formal speeches presented as spanning two millennia from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Spring and Autumn period.
Most scholars agree that the "Old Script" chapters are post-Han forgeries, and that many of the remaining "Modern Script" chapters were written long after the periods they purport to represent.
The five "announcement" (or "proclamation") chapters use the most archaic language, similar to that of bronze inscriptions, and are thought to have been recorded close to the events of the early Western Zhou reigns they describe.
However, they feature significant differences in vocabulary, grammar and outlook from bronze inscriptions dated to that period, and may date from the middle or late Western Zhou.
Four more chapters, "Catalpa Timbers", "Many Officers", "Take No Ease" and "Many Regions", are set in the same period, but their language suggests that they were written late in the Western Zhou period.
The prefaces written for each chapter, tying the Documents together as a continuous narrative, are thought to have been written in the Western Han period.
Early histories
Texts transmitted from the Warring States period relate traditions from the Western Zhou period.
The "Discourses of Zhou" chapter of the Guoyu includes speeches claimed to be from the time of King Mu onward.
The Zuo Zhuan is primarily concerned with the Spring and Autumn period, but contains many references to events in the preceding Western Zhou period.
The Bamboo Annals provides a wealth of detail, often varying from other sources, but its transmission history presents many problems.
The original text was a chronicle of the state of Wei buried in a royal tomb in the early 3rd century BC and recovered in the late 3rd century AD, but lost before the Song dynasty.
Two versions exist today: an "ancient text" assembled from quotations in other works and a fuller "current text" that Qian Daxin pronounced a forgery but some scholars believe contains authentic material.
The standard account is found in the "Basic Annals of Zhou", chapter 4 of the Historical Records compiled by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian.
This account is a synthesis of earlier sources, relying most heavily on the Book of Documents for the early kings and the Guoyu for early ancestors and the middle and late Western Zhou period.
Sima Qian's depiction of the entire Zhou dynasty as eight centuries of decline from its idealized founders has shaped views of the dynasty from his time until the present day.
Wei River valley
The valley of the Wei River was the homeland of the Zhou before their conquest of the Shang, and remained the political centre and directly-ruled royal domain throughout the Western Zhou period.
It also contains the vast majority of archaeological finds from the period.
The valley is a graben formed in the Cenozoic era as part of the Fen–Wei Rift System.
It is bounded on the south by the Qinling Mountains and on the west by the Liupan Mountains.
To the north lies the Loess Plateau, into which the northern tributaries of the Wei have carved deep valleys.
The valley is broad, with fertile soil, abundant rainfall and ground water from the Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains.
The areas to the west and north are much drier and less suited to agriculture.
The valley was known historically as the Guanzhong, or 'land within the passes'.
To the east, a long and difficult road through the Hangu Pass, Sanmenxia and eastern extensions of the Qinling Mountains leads to the Luo River basin, which opens into the North China Plain.
The route to the interior follows the Jing River to Xiao Pass on an eastern spur of the Liupan range and thence down the valley of the Qingshui River to the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
This route would later be part of the Silk Road, and was used by armies throughout history.
To the west, the Wei River passes through a deep gorge. The main route to the upper Wei valley followed the Qian River to Long Pass, and was still very difficult.
The origins of the Zhou are obscure.
The archaeology of pre-conquest Wei valley is varied and complex, but no material culture comparable to the dynastic Zhou has been found.
