Early China: A Social and Cultural History

by Li Feng

  Fig. 6.5 An early Western Zhou you-vessel (h. 35.5 cm, w. 22.8 cm).

  Fig. 6.6 Stylistic evolution of Western Zhou bronze vessels: 1 and 7, zun-pitchers; 2 and 6, you-jars; 3, gong-wine container; 4, square yi-vessel; 5, gui-tureen; 8 and 12, ding-cauldrons; 9, hu-wine jug; 10, he-water pot; 11, fu-grain box. 1–4, early Western Zhou, 5–8, mid-Western Zhou, 9–12, late Western Zhou.

  From the early phase of the mid Western Zhou, significant new changes were introduced to Zhou bronze culture. The mysterious feature that once dominated Shang bronze art and also characterized early Western Zhou bronzes began to disappear – very few bronzes still bear animal masks and display complex surface structure created by the use of flanges and pendants. Instead, the craftsmen seem to have shifted their interests to more detailed plain depiction of the preferred images. This trend led to the creation of various types of bird, often portrayed with exaggerated feathers that became the most salient feature of mid-Western Zhou bronzes. At the same time the set of wine vessels began to disappear completely from burials in the Wei River valley, although some remained in use for a longer time in the regional centers outside of Shaanxi. This gave rise to groups of burial bronzes that consisted almost entirely of food containers supplemented often by a set of water vessels used for hand-washing. These two changes put an end to the long-lasting bronze production tradition of the Shang. However, almost immediately after the reign of King Mu, Zhou bronze art began to take another new turn – the various bird patterns began to dissolve structurally and evolved gradually into different types of abstract pattern of geometric formation. These new geometric patterns were often executed in bold lines as single-layer reliefs and could be freely replicated in four directions, thus leaving no image as the visual focus of the decorated bronzed surface.7 This new trend of artistic expression seems to have fully taken root before the arrival of the late Western Zhou period and continued to dominate the bronze art of China until the late Spring and Autumn period.

  In contrast to the Zhou bronze culture in which new standards developed in the central area could win early acceptance across a large geographic space in the Western Zhou state, the pottery culture of the Western Zhou remained essentially local. Although the Wei River pottery traditions in pre-dynastic time already adopted certain types such as gui-tureen and dou-high plate from the Shang culture, the high frequency of the appearance of the set of “li-tripod + guan-jar” in burials suggests a ceramic culture that was fundamentally different from that of the Shang. In fact, through the entire early Western Zhou period, the pottery assemblage in the eastern plains continued to follow the Shang tradition, while in the Zhou central sites in the Wei River valley the pottery culture seems to have gone through a long process of adaptation and modification of the types of different cultural origins. For instance, all three types of pottery li-tripod that were present at the various pre-dynastic sites had made their ways into the pottery assemblage found in the Zhou capitals Feng and Hao (Fig. 6.7). During the mid Western Zhou period burial pottery types seem to have undergone a process of standardization and simplification at central sites such as Feng and Hao. As the range of typological changes at a single site was significantly narrowed down, inter-site variation in the use of standard burial pottery sets gradually became evident in the Wei River valley. For instance, by the late Western Zhou period, distinctions in the production and use of pottery types can even be seen between the Zhouyuan area to the west and the Feng–Hao area at the center of the Wei River valley.

  Fig. 6.7 Standard burial pottery sets from Zhangjiapo.

  “Fengjian,” not “Feudalism”

  For a long time, the political system of the Western Zhou state has been analyzed within the theoretical framework in which historians of the West analyzed medieval European feudalism.8 In this framework, the Western Zhou state was regarded as a cluster of proto-independent political entities loosely bound together by contracted obligations between the vassals and the Zhou king. The Zhou king, in such relations, had little power beyond the small area of his own domain. The Zhou royal government, on the other hand, was staffed with hereditary officials who were little more than the king’s personal servants. Recent analyses have shown that this is an inaccurate characterization of the Western Zhou system. A number of newly discovered inscriptions show that even in the last reigns of the period, the Zhou king was still able to command regional forces to conduct warfare far away from the Wei River valley. There was clearly a state structure at work that was fully recognized by the regional elements and, to a higher degree, by the Zhou king and the royal officials. The failure of “Western Zhou feudalism” is due at the fundamental level to the collapse of “feudalism” as a valid sociopolitical model in global context when its legitimacy in European historiography has been seriously challenged since the 1970s. Today, very few scholars still think that “feudalism” was a proper way to describe what had been a much more complicated situation in medieval Europe.9

  The system that characterized the Western Zhou state was referred to retrospectively by Warring States politicians as “Fengjian” (literally, to define borders and to establish states), but the two characters that formed the term both had their origins in the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, and were used in contexts clearly related to the founding of the regional states. A number of inscriptions record circumstances of the founding of the regional states, but most fully in the inscription of the Yihou Ze gui-tureen, discovered in the 1950s (Fig. 6.8).

  Fig. 6.8 The Yihou Ze gui-tureen.

  Yihou Ze gui (JC: 4320):

  It was the fourth month; the time was the dingwei day (#44). [The king] observed the map of King Wu and King Cheng’s campaigns against Shang, and thereupon inspected the map of the eastern states. The king stood in the ancestral temple of Yi, facing south. The king commanded Ruler of Yu, Ze, and said: “Transfer and be the ruler (hou) at Yi. [I] award you X-fragrant wine of one yu-jar, and award zan-jade, one red-lacquered bow and one hundred red-lacquered arrows; ten black bows and one thousand black arrows. [I] award you land, the zhen-fields of which are three hundred and [. . .]; the [..] of which are one hundred and [. . .]; the residential settlements of which are thirty-five; and the [. . .] of which are one hundred and forty. [I] award you [. . .] and seven clans of the king’s men at Yi, and award the seven Elders (bo) of Zheng whose X-retainers are [. . .] and fifty men. [I] award you commoners of Yi six hundred and [. . .] six men.” Yihou Ze extols the king’s beneficence, making [for] Yugong, Father Ding, [this] sacrificial vessel.

  Thus, a regional state received everything from the Zhou king that is needed to form a local polity in defense of the Zhou capital, of which particularly noteworthy is the granting of people either from the possession of the king’s or as state property. No bronze inscription gives the total number of regional states founded by Zhou, but a list in the Warring States period texts names twenty-six states which were founded either by brothers of King Wu, or by sons of King Wu and the Duke of Zhou. This genealogical relationship between the Zhou king and the regional rulers can be confirmed with inscriptions with regard to a number of prominent states such as Wey, Jin, Lu, and Yan; thus through the “Fengjian” practice, the house of Zhou actually established its kin branches all over eastern China. Furthermore, the regional states were not randomly distributed (Map 6.3); they were either established in former Shang strongholds or were located at key points in the main transportation lines in eastern China near places of potential threat. They formed a network that could effectively defend the Zhou kingdom.

  Map 6.3 Distribution of the Zhou major regional states.

  The establishment of the regional states was first of all considered necessary based on the grant strategy of the Western Zhou state. Once established, the regional rulers enjoyed full rights to decide matters of administration within their respective states, and the inscriptions show that the Zhou king accorded the regional rulers a level of courtesy and hospitality much higher than what a royal official serving a
t the central court could expect to have. There is no evidence that the central court had ever attempted to interfere in the domestic affairs of the regional states, except in matters of succession to regional rulership that could well concern the interests of the Zhou king. The latter situation could bring a regional state into sharp conflict with the Zhou king and could have needed to be settled by means of civil war, as was once perhaps the case with respect to the state of Qi in Shandong during the short reign of King Yi. However, the regional states were not independent kingdoms but were active participants in the political life of the Western Zhou state. The early Western Zhou inscriptions suggest that, if not a rule, it must have been quite frequent for the regional rulers, especially newly established ones, to pay visits to the Zhou king in his capital in the Wei River valley. Moreover, the bronze inscriptions also show that the Zhou king stationed royal inspectors in the regional states, a practice that continued through the entire Western Zhou period. Thus the Zhou system was one that was designed to achieve political control over the whole population in the area perceived as Zhou “territory” through the delegation of administrative authority to its regionally based agents. Clearly, the Zhou king regarded the security of the whole of the Western Zhou state as his responsibility and would when necessary call out the service of the regional rulers in coordinated military actions to defend it. The regional rulers not only enjoyed a high degree of administrative autonomy, but also had obligations to the Western Zhou state.10

  However, it is also true that with the passing of time, the ties between the Zhou king and the regional rulers tended naturally to be weakened as the position of the latter on the genealogical tree became more and more remote from the Zhou king. As the regional rulers sank their roots deeper into the local society in their respective regions, they inevitably provided a centrifugal force that contributed significantly to the eventual weakening of the Western Zhou state.11

  Discovering the Regional Zhou States

  In the 1980s and 1990s, the regional states were the focus of Western Zhou archaeology. By the turn of the new century, archaeologists had exposed fully or partially the cultural remains of about nine regional states including Wey, Ying, Guo (Henan), Lu, Qi, Teng (Shandong), Xing (Hebei), Yan (Beijing), Jin (Shanxi), and Qin (Gansu), all dating to the Western Zhou period. The most systematically explored sites are those of Jin and Yan. The center of Jin, founded by a son of King Wu, was located in the lower Fen River valley in southern Shanxi where archaeologists had been excavating residential sites and cemeteries since the early 1980s. A major burial ground was discovered in 1992 to the south of the Beizhao village where nine rulers of Jin with their spouses were buried in three rows, dating from the early Western Zhou to the early Spring and Autumn period. Most recently, a large pit situated in the south section of the burial ground was excavated, offering a dramatic scene of forty-eight chariots together with one hundred and five horses that accompanied the Jin rulers to the afterlife. The state of Yan, founded by a son of the Duke of Shao, was located at Liulihe to the south of Beijing where not only a cemetery consisting of tombs of different ranks has been discovered, but also, not far from the cemetery, the walled city of the state. Most importantly, two bronze vessels whose inscriptions record the initial granting of the Yan state by the Zhou king have been excavated from a large tomb (no. 1193) that was apparently the burial of the first Yan ruler (Fig. 6.9). These discoveries not only confirmed the geographical locations of these regional states known previously from the received texts and the inscriptions, but offered important new insights into the formation and characteristics of their material culture. Most importantly, the archaeological discovery of the regional states in the Western Zhou period offers us new ideas about the roots of the regional cultures during the Eastern Zhou period.

  Fig. 6.9 Tomb no. 1193 at Liulihe and the Ke lei from it.

  In general, the elite culture in the regional states, located at varying distances from the Zhou capitals in the Wei River valley, show a remarkable degree of consistency with their metropolitan counterparts in terms of the design of the decorative patterns of their bronzes. Diachronically, the regional bronzes seem to have followed the same trend of development shown in the metropolitan bronzes, a phenomenon that has led scholars to suggest a close communication necessary for the timely adoption of new patterns developed in the central area to the regional sites. In fact, this phenomenon in the material culture of the regional states can be explained by the visits of the regional rulers and their officials to the Zhou capitals, frequently documented in the bronze inscriptions during the early and early–mid Western Zhou, many being found in the regional centers. There are minor differences between bronzes from different regions which need further study to clarify them, but the differences were not really significant until the arrival of the later Western Zhou when some regional centers continued to use types no longer in use in the Wei River valley; other regional centers began to create new types of bronzes possibly based on the local pottery. However, material culture represented by the more practically useful items such as ceramics shows very different trends tying strongly to local traditions. For instance, the pottery assemblages in regional centers like Xing and Yan show strong links to the pre-conquest Shang culture, not the Zhou manufacture tradition, which began to be introduced to these distant regions only gradually from the mid Western Zhou period. However, in the Fen River valley where the state of Jin was located, the pottery assemblage was essentially identical to that of the Wei River valley.

  Therefore, the formation of the Western Zhou state, viewed from a purely archaeological perspective, can be seen as a process of installation of elements of the Zhou elite culture in the various regions with strong local traditions lying beyond the Wei River valley. And the eventual merging of the Zhou tradition with the various regional traditions since the beginning of the mid Western Zhou provided foundations for the regional cultures that prospered thereafter during the Eastern Zhou period.

  The External World and the Great Early Western Zhou Expansion

  The Zhou were certainly not the only powerhouse in China. The preceding chapters have made clear that advanced Bronze Age societies existed in the Yangzi regions in the south and on the northern steppe during the late Shang, and their descendants continued to exist into the Western Zhou period. Through the establishment of the regional states, the Zhou were able to consolidate a geographical perimeter along the edges of the eastern plain. There is good evidence that the practice of granting states was revived on a number of occasions later in the dynasty in coping with changing situations on the borders; however, as an institutional practice, the process was largely completed within the reign of King Cheng, the second king after the conquest. By the middle period of King Kang, about fifty years after the conquest,12 the Zhou periphery was firmly consolidated and became the new frontline for further military and cultural expansion, now conducted through the collaboration of the royal armies and the regional forces.

  The bronze inscriptions indicate that two major expeditions were organized towards the end of the reign of King Kang to conquer a society located probably in the lower Ordos region, to the north of Zhou across the difficult terrain of northern Shaanxi and Shanxi. The enemies are identified as Gui Fang who were previously at war with the Shang people, according to the oracle-bone inscriptions from Anyang. The inscriptions record captures of as many as 13,081 people and 352 cattle, along with large numbers of wagons, sheep, and other war spoils. It is very possible that the campaigns were responsible for the collapse of this Bronze Age society that had been prosperous for some 200 years on the edge of the northern steppe. Moving westwards, typical Zhou burials with bronzes and pottery identical to Wei River styles have been found as far north as the south Ningxia plain. It is very possible that the Zhou troops were once active on the edges of the northern steppe, encountering the rising nomads or semi-nomadic societies farther north and northwest. Archaeological discoveries show that some groups that descen
ded from northern cultures might have moved south, after the collapse of Ordos, to the centrally located areas of the Western Zhou, such as the polity of Peng whose cemetery has recently been found in Jiangxian in southern Shanxi. It is also possible that some foreigners might have arrived in Zhou from regions as far as Central Asia in the west, as vividly illustrated by the images of two small bone sculptures excavated in Zhouyuan whose Caucasoid features simply cannot be mistaken; the graph that means “shaman” (wu) on the top of one of the bone heads identifies him as a magician (Fig. 6.10).13 This remote contact is also indicated by the frequent occurrence of carnelian and faience items in middle–late Western Zhou tombs whose origins were in India and West Asia.14