Author: Justin

Zhou Dynasty had a long history from 1046BC to 256BC, and it mainly cut into two parts of Eastern Zhou and Western Zhou. Western Zhou lasted from 1046BC until 771BC, and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into the Eastern Zhou period for another 500 years.

The last emperor of Shang dynasty, De Xin attached great importance to the development of agriculture and productivity, and implemented social changes to make its national strength strong. In same time he kept leading war to the southeast of China to lead war to another clan which called Dong Yi and The Shang Dynasty extended its influence to the Jianghuai area. But this also cause the domestic emptiness eventually led to the collapse of the Shang Dynasty later.

The Zhou nationality was a tribe living in the Loess Plateau of northern Shaanxi during the Shang Dynasty. In the early period of the Shang Dynasty Di Xin, the Nine Hou (also called Ghost Hou), illustrateshou and Zhou Hou (Ji Chang, later named Xibo) are merged into three princes of the Shang Dynasty. The nine Hou and the Marquis were killed by King Zhou of the Shang one after another because of the incident of the nine Hou’s daughter, and Zhou Houchang was also imprisoned in Youli. Zhou Houchang was later redeemed and given the power to invade the West by Emperor Di Xin of the Shang Dynasty, known as Xibochang. Laws were enacted to control slaves, such as “no sinners, no children” and “no dead children.” To avoid further direct conflict with the Shang Dynasty, Xibochang adopted the policy of uniting friends, eliminating Western military states and friends of the Shang Dynasty, and completing the isolation of the Shang Dynasty. But King Wen died suddenly the following year and was succeeded by his son Ji Fa as King Wu of Zhou.

King Wu of Zhou wait for a long time and finally find a great chance in War of Mu Ye. When all the main army of Di Xin striked the Dong Yi in 1046BC, King Wu decided to use this chance and mass all his 40,000 army to the Mu Ye. On February 26th, Zhou’s army all ready for the war and after the King Wu had announce all the crime that Shang (Di Xin) have done, the Shang’s army in that war was form up mainly in peasant and had no more morale and defeat utterly, in this war Zhou’s army had kill 180,000 of Di Xin army. After this war, Di Xin escaped back to Zhao Ge and commit suicide which lead to the end of Dynasty Shang.

During the reign of King You, the Zhou Chamber disintegrated and collapsed. Guo was reappointed by King You of Zhou to govern the state, but he was fond of profit and corruption, and sent the seized wealth to Xiang Yi, which was widely resented by the Chinese people. Two years of earthquake, landslide and drought, the people believe that this is caused by a bad emperor.

The decision of King You to abolish the crown prince pushed Western Zhou into the abyss. King You of Zhou attacked the Kingdom of Bao and obtained Bao Si, whom he love very much. King You of Zhou removed the daughter and crown prince of Marquis Xishen and appointed Baosi and his son Bofu as crown prince, so that he could only return to the Kingdom of Xishen. Shen Hou allied with Zeng and Xirong to support Yizu, and King You of Zhou also sent an army against Xishen the following year. Finally, Shen Zeng led Xirong and Quanrong to defeat King You of Zhou which meant the end of Western Zhou.

Shang Dynasty, also well known as Yin Shang Dynasty, which was second dynasty of Chinese history, it was meaningful because it pioneered the trade system in Chinese history. That’s also one of the reason that the dynasty was named as “Shang”, in Chinese the spelling of trade was exactly Shang.

The creator of Shang, Wang Hai pioneered Chinese commercial trade, so he is revered as the ancestor of Chinese merchants. At the same time, because Wang Hai is also the ancestor of the Shang Dynasty, this trading activity is called commerce, and the origin of merchants’ goods is also the same. During the period of King Zhou of the Shang Dynasty, commerce and trade had become an important part of the social structure. Xiqi gradually became stronger due to the rise of commerce, threatening the rule of the Yin Shang Dynasty.

The end of Xia Dynasty, the King Xia Jie be specially fond of and trust unduly his Queen Mei Xi, and increase the tax of other tribes in his territory. People don’t have great time due to the high tax. At this time the tribe Shang had keep advancing, noble Yi Sun had giving Shang Tang a lot of great advices and sent the first spy of Chinese history into Xia. Finally on BC 1600, they assault XIa Dynasty which lead the famous battle of Mingtiao。

At Battle of Mingtiao, Shang Tang lead 6000 army and other tribes military powers to detour from the back of Xia Jie and have final battle in Mingtiao and destroy the main army of Xia Jie, XIa Jie escape to Nan Chao and die due to the disease.

Because Shang Tang destroyed Xia by force and broke the idea that the king would be eternal, it was called the “aristocratic revolution” in history. After Tang established the Shang Dynasty, he relaxed internal expropriation, encouraged production, and appeased the people, thereby expanding his ruling area and influencing as far as the upper reaches of the Yellow River. The Di and Qiang tribes came to pay tribute and submit.
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Chinese had long history recorded, by this long time zone, the first dynasty they had record was dynasty Xia. To us, it was still a mystery, it was hard to prove this dynasty had existed, it had no words and language that was found yet. The first Emperor in Xia, which was Yu was quite first legend in Chinese civilization.

But recorded on my first personal writing, the civilization must need a common language or the word that was able to speak or written to be founded then it can be proved that it was existed. But we still don’t find word recorded on Xia Dynasty and that was one of the reason that it became an mystery dynasty.

The first Emperor of Dynasty Xia was typically like a myth, when Yao conqueror the China, there was a big flood happened in full China, he gave permission to Yu’s Dad which was Gun to solve the flood. In legend, Gun stole a wall from god he use that wall to block the water. But someday the wall broke, Gun was killed by Yao due to his fail, then his son which was Yu continue to solve the flood problem. He used a different ways to separate water into many rivers and guided them into the sea. After few years, the flood was solved and Emperor Yao abdicate and hand over the crown to Yu, people was thankful to Yu and called him great Yu, dynasty Xia, which was the first dynasty of Chinese civilization was created, which start a new chapter in Asia.

There was a famous story about Yu, when he try to solve the flood problem, he had pass by his home, and he heard her wife give birth to his son. His subordinates all suggest he to take a look but he disciplined due to the flood. On second time he pass by his home his son already knew how to speak simply and waved to him, but he didn’t stop again because his work was not done. Third time he passed by his home his son already about 10 years old and pulled Yu to the home, but Yu declined again he said,”The flood haven’t solve yet, I can’t get back to home.” This is one of the reason that people respect Yu.

Dynasty Xia hadn’t been proved to existed yet, but I believe this blank dynasty will be proved in one day, because this was the start point of all Chinese history and it should be existed.

Chinese culture, that was founded at BC 2070 (Dynasty Xia), which was one of the longest civilization in the world. After 4000 years: Ancient Babylon, Ancient Egypt and Ancient India had all vanished in the time zone. But why did Chinese survive?

Before we discussed why did Chinese civilization survived, we first needed to know how to define the difference between civilization and culture. Civilization usually meant multiple human lived together and having common language and book to communicated with each others. But the culture didn’t need have a language to speak, they can invented other type remains to prove they were on this world. Chinese earliest word was founded at 1 million years ago but they didn’t have their self-language to speak so they were not Chinese civilization.

Then why did Chinese civilization survive? So Chinese have a special official position in all dynasty include Zhou dynasty to Qing dynasty, these people were recording what did the decision that king made and big event that happened. These text were important due to the life trace of people in that time were fully recorded and later generations can learned from these traditional culture and inherited them. Also later generations will inherited the dream of their ancestor and to have a plan of how to achieve these goal. For Example the first emperor in China Ying Zheng, after his first emperor life the later king all had a dream to unify the China and expanded their territories.

In other civilization, Babylon recorded the first statute book, but their history was not recorded by them, it was written by Jewish, and 2000 years ago the Old Israel instinct but in 1948 Zionist recreate Israel and the history have been inherited. Old Egypt’s history have already disappear due to they had never recorded their history, the first recordation was founded by Tang Dynasty’s monk Xuanzang which was Tang Monk.

So we can see that it was very important to record history for later generations to learn and inherit their dream and experience, and that’s how a culture can kept survived in the time zone.