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The Shang dynasty, also known as the Yin dynasty, was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals and Shiji. Modern scholarship dates the dynasty between the 16th and 11th centuries BC, with more agreement surrounding the end date than beginning date.
The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou, characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject to the Zhou exercised increasing political autonomy. The period's name derives from the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 481 BCE, which tradition associates with Confucius.
The Western Zhou 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 King You of Zhou. The "Western" label for the period refers to the location of the Zhou royal capitals, which were clustered in the Wei River valley near present-day Xi'an.
Qin was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. It is traditionally dated to 897 BC. The Qin state originated from a reconquest of western lands that had previously been lost to the Xirong. Its location at the western edge of Chinese civilisation allowed for expansion and development that was not available to its rivals in the North China Plain.
Qi, or Ch'i in Wade–Giles romanization, was a regional state of the Zhou dynasty in ancient China, whose rulers held titles of Hou (侯), then Gong, before declaring themselves independent Kings. Its capital was Linzi, located in present-day Shandong. Qi was founded shortly after the Zhou conquest of Shang, c. 1046 BCE. Its first monarch was Jiang Ziya, minister of King Wen and a legendary figure in Chinese culture. His family ruled Qi for several centuries before it was replaced by the Tian family in 386 BCE. Qi was the final surviving state to be annexed by Qin during its unification of China.
Yinxu is a Chinese archeological site corresponding to Yin, the final capital of the Shang dynasty. Located in present-day Anyang, Henan, Yin served as the capital during the Late Shang period which spanned the reigns of 12 Shang kings and saw the emergence of oracle bone script, the earliest known Chinese writing. Along with oracle bone script and other material evidence for the Shang's existence, the site was forgotten for millennia. Its rediscovery in 1899 resulted from an investigation into oracle bones that were discovered being sold nearby. The rediscovery of Yinxu marked the beginning of decades of intensive excavation and study. It is one of China's oldest and largest archeological sites, and was selected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. Yinxu is located in northern Henan, near modern Anyang and the borders Henan shares with Hebei and Shanxi. Public access to the site is permitted.
Pán Gēng, personal name Zi Xun, was a Shang dynasty King of China. He is best known for having moved the capital of the Shang dynasty to its final location at Yīn.
Wu Ding ; personal name Zi Zhao (子昭), was a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty who ruled the central Yellow River valley c. 1250 BC – c. 1200 BC. He is the earliest figure in Chinese history mentioned in contemporary records. The annals of the Shang dynasty compiled by later historians were once thought to be little more than legends until oracle script inscriptions on bones dating from his reign were unearthed at the ruins of his capital Yin in 1899. Oracle bone inscriptions from his reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC ±10 years, closely according with regnal dates derived by modern scholars from received texts, epigraphic evidence, and astronomical calculations.
Chu was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BC. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was destroyed by the Qin in 223 BC during the Qin's wars of unification.
Binzhou, formerly Putai, is a prefecture-level city in northern Shandong Province in the People's Republic of China. The city proper sits on the northern bank of the Yellow River, while its administrative area straddles both sides of its lower course before its present delta. As of the 2020 Chinese census, its population was 3,928,568 inhabitants, and its built-up area made of Bincheng and Zhanhua urban Districts was home to 1,188,597 inhabitants.
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula and Japanese Archipelago. Dongyi refers to different group of people in different periods. As such, the name "Yí" 夷 was something of a catch-all and was applied to different groups over time. According to the earliest Chinese record, the Zuo Zhuan, the Shang dynasty was attacked by King Wu of Zhou while attacking the Dongyi and collapsed afterward.
Zu Jia (祖甲) or Di Jia (帝甲), personal name Zǐ Zǎi (子載), was a Shang dynasty King of China. He was the third recorded son of Wu Ding, the first Chinese monarch verified by contemporary records. Having inherited a large area of lands conquered by his father and brother, he led the Shang kingdom through the last brief period of stability. After his reign, Shang went into irreversible decline.
Wu Yi (武乙), personal name Zi Qu (子瞿) was king of the Shang dynasty of ancient China from 1147 to 1112 BC. According to the Bamboo Annals, his capital was at Yin. He was a son of his predecessor Geng Ding and father of King Wen Ding.
The State of Xu was an independent Huaiyi state of the Chinese Bronze Age that was ruled by the Ying family (嬴) and controlled much of the Huai River valley for at least two centuries. It was centered in northern Jiangsu and Anhui.
Guifang was an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang dynasty. Chinese historical tradition used various names, at different periods, for northern tribes such as Guifang, Rong, Di, Xunyu, Xianyun, or Xiongnu peoples. This Chinese exonym combines gui and fang, a suffix referring to "non-Shang or enemy countries that existed in and beyond the borders of the Shang polity."
The Rebellion of the Three Guards, or less commonly the Wu Geng Rebellion, was a civil war, instigated by an alliance of discontent Zhou princes, Shang loyalists, vassal states and other non-Zhou peoples against the Western Zhou government under the Duke of Zhou's regency in late 11th century BC.
"Four Barbarians" was a term used by subjects of the Zhou and Han dynasties to refer to the four major people groups living outside the borders of Huaxia. Each was named for a cardinal direction: the Dongyi, Nanman, Xirong, and Beidi. Ultimately, the four barbarian groups either emigrated away from the Chinese heartland or were partly assimilated through sinicization into Chinese culture during later dynasties. After this early period, "barbarians" to the north and the west would often be designated as "Hu" (胡).
Qingzhou or Qing Province was one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China dating back to c. 2070 BCE that later became one of the thirteen provinces of the Han dynasty. The Nine Provinces were first described in the Tribute of Yu chapter of the classic Book of Documents, with Qingzhou lying to the east of Yuzhou and north of Yangzhou. Qingzhou's primary territory included most of modern Shandong province except the southwest corner.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient China:
In course of the Qi coup d'état of 860 BC Duke Hu of Qi was overthrown and killed by a rebel faction, led by his half-brother Shan. As Hu had been appointed and supported by the Zhou dynasty, the coup led to a royal punitive expedition that failed in removing Shan from the throne. Later known as Duke Xian, Shan went on to rule Qi for seven or eight years.
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Li Feng (2006), Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou 1045–771 BC, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781139456883 .
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1997), Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics, Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Sima Qian, "齐太公世家 [House of the Great Duke of Qi]", Records of the Grand Historian , Guoxue, retrieved 14 May 2012. (in Chinese)
- Theobald, Ulrich (2013), "Chinese History: Barbarian Peoples: Yi 夷", China Knowledge .