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The Zhou dynasty (/dʒoʊ/ JOH) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from c. 1046 BC until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period ( c. 1046 – 771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji , had military control over territories centered on the Wei River valley and North China Plain .
The system of feudal states created by the Western Zhou dynasty underwent enormous changes after 771 BC with the flight of the Zhou court to modern-day Luoyang and the diminution of its relevance and power. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, the latter no longer able to depend on ...
The Western Zhou (Chinese: 西周; pinyin: Xīzhōu; c. 1046 [1] – 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 771 BC when Quanrong pastoralists sacked the Zhou capital at Haojing and killed ...
Qin conquered West Zhou in 256 BC, claiming the Nine Cauldrons and symbolically making King Zhaoxiang of Qin the new Son of Heaven. In 249, King Zhuangxiang of Qin conquered East Zhou, bringing the Zhou dynasty to an end more than eight centuries after it had replaced the Shang dynasty.
Asking such a question was, at that time, a direct challenge to the power and authority of the reigning dynasty. At the time of King Nan of Zhou, the kings of Zhou had lost almost all political and military power, as even their remaining crown land was split into two states or factions, led by rival feudal lords: West Zhou, where the capital ...
Shortly after the Zhou conquest of Shang (1046 or 1045 BCE), the immediate goal of the nascent dynasty was to consolidate its power over its newly expanded geographical range, especially in light of the Rebellion of the Three Guards following the death of the conquering King Wu of Zhou. To this end, royal relatives were granted lands outside ...
The Zhou defeated the Shang at Muye and captured the Shang capital Yin, marking the end of the Shang and the establishment of the Zhou dynasty—an event that features prominently in Chinese historiography as an example of the Mandate of Heaven theory that functioned to justify dynastic conquest throughout Chinese history.
As the first Zhou ruler to be enshrined this way, he eventually became a key figure for ancestor veneration of the middle Zhou dynasty. [15] One major reason for the initially positive appraisal of his reign was possibly that later Zhou rulers did not want their ancestor being remembered for a defeat that cast shame upon the dynasty. [16]