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92-607: During the Western Zhou period, the area belonged to the State of Zheng . During the Spring and Autumn period , the State of Qin established Zheng County  [ zh ] in the area of present-day Huazhou. Zheng County was put under the jurisdiction of Hua Prefecture . Early in the Yuan dynasty , Zheng County was merged into Hua Prefecture. The epicenter of the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake

184-501: A Chenggu -style dagger-axe at Xiaohenan demonstrates that even at this early stage of Chinese history, there were some ties between the distant areas of north China. The Panlongcheng site in the middle Yangtze valley was an important regional centre of the Erligang culture. Accidental finds elsewhere in China have revealed advanced civilisations contemporaneous with but culturally unlike

276-704: A black bird and subsequently gave birth miraculously to Xie . Xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. The period before the Shang dynasty was established is known as the " Predynastic Shang " (or "Proto-Shang"). In the Annals of the Yin , Sima Qian writes that the dynasty was founded 13 generations after Xie, when Xie's descendant Tang overthrew

368-502: A date first established by Sima Qian . Attempts to establish earlier dates have been plagued by doubts about the origin and transmission of traditional texts and the difficulties in their interpretation. More recent attempts have compared the traditional histories with archaeological and astronomical data. At least 44 dates for the end of the dynasty have been proposed, ranging from 1130 to 1018 BC. The oldest extant direct records date from c.  1250 BC at Anyang, covering

460-530: A family cache found in western Shaanxi, was cast in the reign of King Gong by the latest in a family of scribes descended from a scribe brought to Shaanxi after the conquest. The lengthy inscription, summarizing the history of the Zhou and that of the Wei ( 微 ) family, begins: Accordant with antiquity was King Wen! (He) first brought harmony to government. The Lord on High sent down fine virtue and great security. Extending to

552-431: A few hundred humans and horses as well to accompany the king into the afterlife, in some cases even numbering four hundred. Finally, tombs included ornaments such as jade, which the Shang may have believed to protect against decay or confer immortality. The Shang religion was highly bureaucratic and meticulously ordered. Oracle bones contained descriptions of the date, ritual, person, ancestor, and questions associated with

644-479: A force of about a thousand troops at his capital and would personally lead this force into battle. A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand troops for suppressing rebellions. The earliest records are the oracle bones inscribed during the reigns of the Shang kings from Wu Ding . Oracle bone inscriptions do not contain king lists, but they do record

736-457: A height of 8 m (26 ft), and formed a roughly rectangular wall 7 km (4 mi) around the ancient city. The rammed earth construction of these walls was an inherited tradition, since much older fortifications of this type have been found at Chinese Neolithic sites of the Longshan culture ( c.  3000  – c.  2000 BC }. In 2022, excavation of an elite tomb inside

828-473: A large labour force that could handle the mining, refining, and transportation of the necessary copper, tin, and lead ores. This in turn created a need for official managers that could oversee both labourers and skilled artisans and craftsmen. The Shang royal court and aristocrats required a vast number of different bronze vessels for various ceremonial purposes and events of religious divination. Ceremonial rules even decreed how many bronze containers of each type

920-521: A noble of a certain rank could own. With the increased amount of bronze available, the army could also better equip itself with an assortment of bronze weaponry. Bronze was also used for the fittings of spoke-wheeled chariots , which appeared in China around 1200 BC. The Shang dynasty entered into prolonged conflicts with northern frontier tribes called the Guifang . Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society. Shang infantry were armed with

1012-467: A quintessential part of the late Shang ritual complex. Chinese historians were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, and readily identified the Erligang and Erlitou sites with the early Shang and Xia dynasty of traditional histories. The actual political situation in early China may have been more complicated, with the Xia and Shang being political entities that existed concurrently, just as

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1104-448: 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

1196-508: A small army. According to these legends, he founded a state known as Gija Joseon in northwest Korea during the Gojoseon period of ancient Korean history. However, scholars debate the historical accuracy of these legends. Before the 20th century, the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) was the earliest that could be verified from its own records. However, during the Song dynasty (960–1279), antiquarians collected bronze ritual vessels attributed to

1288-533: A variety of stone and bronze weaponry, including spears, pole-axes, pole-based dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets. Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilise the masses of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript labourers and soldiers for both campaigns of defence and conquest. Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary equipment, armour, and armaments. The Shang king maintained

1380-481: Is Huazhou Subdistrict . The district's nine towns are Xinglin  [ zh ] , Chishui  [ zh ] , Gaotang , Daming  [ zh ] , Guapo  [ zh ] , Lianhuasi  [ zh ] , Liuzhi  [ zh ] , Xiamiao  [ zh ] , and Jindui  [ zh ] . Huazhou District has significant mineral deposits of molybdenum , gold , silver , iron , and granite . National Highway 310 runs through

1472-857: Is located in the eastern Qin Mountains , and along the southern banks of the Wei River . The district is also home to a number of smaller rivers which flow into the Wei, such as the Chishui River , the Yuxian River , the Shidi River , and others. The average annual temperature in Huazhou District is 13.4 °C (56.1 °F), and the average annual precipitation in the district totals 586.1 millimetres (23.07 in). Huazhou District administers one subdistrict and nine towns . The district's sole subdistrict

1564-410: Is unknown what criteria the diviners used to determine the response, but it is believed to be the sound or pattern of the cracks on the bone. The Shang also seem to have believed in an afterlife, as evidenced by the elaborate burial tombs built for deceased rulers. Often "carriages, utensils, sacrificial vessels, [and] weapons" would be included in the tomb. A king's burial involved the burial of up to

1656-505: Is varied and complex, but no material culture comparable to the dynastic Zhou has been found. Archaeologists searching for the predynastic Zhou have focused on the Qishan area, which is mentioned in early texts and was a key ritual centre of the Western Zhou. Two different pottery types are found in this area, and archaeologists differ on whether one or the other group of people, or a mixture of

1748-556: 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 as 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

1840-699: The Historical Records compiled by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian . Most scholars divide the Western Zhou into early, middle and late periods, which also correspond roughly to stylistic changes in bronze vessels. The Han historian Sima Qian felt unable to extend his chronological table beyond 841 BC, the first year of the Gonghe Regency , and there is still no accepted chronology of Chinese history before that point. The Cambridge History of Ancient China used dates determined by Edward L. Shaughnessy from

1932-623: The Quanrong attacked from the west, killing the king and causing the Zhou elite to flee from the Wei valley to the eastern capital, bringing the Western Zhou era to a close. Although Zhou royal power had been declining for over a century, this dramatic event presents a convenient milestone. The Zhou would continue to occupy the eastern capital for another five centuries, their sway over the states they had established became increasingly nominal. Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty ( Chinese : 商朝 ; pinyin : Shāng cháo ), also known as

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2024-609: The Yin dynasty ( 殷代 ; Yīn dài ), 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

2116-497: The "Old Script" chapters are post-Han forgeries, but 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. Four more chapters, "Catalpa Timbers", "Many Officers", "Take No Ease" and "Many Regions", are set in

2208-489: The "current text" Bamboo Annals and bronze inscriptions. In 2000, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project produced a schedule of dates based on received texts, bronze inscriptions, radiocarbon dating and astronomical events. However, several bronze inscriptions discovered since then are inconsistent with the project's dates. The origins of the Zhou are obscure. The archaeology of pre-conquest Wei valley

2300-526: The 3rd century AD, "Yin" has been frequently used to refer specifically to the latter half of the Shang. It is also the name predominantly used for the dynasty in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, being rendered as In , Eun and Ân in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese respectively. The name seems to have originated during the subsequent Zhou dynasty ; it does not appear in oracle bone inscriptions—which refer to

2392-568: The Duke of Song , with its capital at Shangqiu . This practice was known as 'enfeoffment of three generations for two kings'. The dukes of Song would maintain rites honouring the Shang kings until Qi conquered Song in 286 BC. Confucius was possibly a descendant of the Shang Kings through the Dukes of Song. The Eastern Han dynasty bestowed the title of Duke of Song and 'Duke Who Continues and Honours

2484-521: The Grand Historian . According to the Records of the Grand Historian , the Shang moved their capital five times, with the final move to Yin in the reign of Pan Geng inaugurating the golden age of the dynasty. Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou . Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in

2576-538: The Late Shang practice of inscribing bronze vessels to create lengthy texts recording the accomplishments of their owners and honours bestowed on them by the king. The inscriptions also show that the Zhou had adopted Shang ancestor ritual. This adoption of Shang features suggests an effort to legitimate Zhou rule. However, the Zhou did not adopt human sacrifice, which was so extensive in the Late Shang, or even mention it in any of their texts. The Shi Qiang pan , part of

2668-547: The Ordos region, late in the reign of King Kang. This phase of expansion came to an end in a disastrous southern campaign in the Han River region, in which King Zhao lost his armies and his own life. During the reign of King Mu , the Zhou state shifted to the defensive, particularly in the east. The Bamboo Annals records a campaign against the Xu Rong , who had to be driven back from

2760-485: The Shang King in exchange for military aid and augury services. However these alliances were unstable, as indicated by the frequent royal divinations about the sustainability of such relations. The existence of records regarding enemy kills, prisoners and booty taken point to the existence of a proto-bureaucracy of written documents. Shang religious rituals featured divination and sacrifice. The degree to which shamanism

2852-555: The Shang era, some of which bore inscriptions. In 1899, several scholars noticed that Chinese pharmacists were selling "dragon bones" marked with curious and archaic characters. These were finally traced back in 1928 to what is now called Yinxu , north of the Yellow River near Anyang , where the Academia Sinica undertook archaeological excavation until the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Archaeologists focused on

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2944-577: The Shang joined the Rebellion of the Three Guards against the Duke of Zhou , but the rebellion collapsed after three years, leaving Zhou in control of Shang territory. After the collapse of the Shang dynasty, Zhou's rulers forcibly relocated "Yin diehards" and scattered them throughout Zhou territory. Some surviving members of the Shang royal family collectively changed their surname from the ancestral name Zi to

3036-414: The Shang kings were viewed as the best qualified members of society to offer sacrifices to their royal ancestors and to the high god Di, who in their beliefs was responsible for the rain, wind, and thunder. The King appointed officials to manage certain activities, usually in a specified region. These included agricultural official, pastors, dog officers, and guards. These officers led their own retinues in

3128-476: The State Airs. 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

3220-539: The Wei valley to the Nanyang basin and sought to inprove relations with distant Zhou states in the northeast and east. At the same time, the king also had to contend with succession struggles in some of the old Zhou states. According to received texts, King You 's reign began with ominous portents. The texts, as well as some of the Minor Court Songs, hint at factional struggles within the Zhou court. In his 11th year,

3312-407: The Wei valley. King Wen left two or three of his brothers (depending on the source) to oversee the former Shang domains, nominally ruled by Wu Geng , the son of the last Shang king. King Wu died two or three years after the conquest, triggering a crisis of the young state. According to the traditional histories, one of King Wu's brothers, the Duke of Zhou declared himself regent for King Wu's son,

3404-517: The Yellow River valley in Henan as the most likely site of the states described in the traditional histories. After 1950, the remnants of the earlier walled settlement of Zhengzhou Shang City were discovered within the modern city of Zhengzhou . It has been determined that the earth walls at Zhengzhou, erected in the 15th century BC, would have been 20 m (66 ft) wide at the base, rising to

3496-454: The Yin' upon Kong An, because he was part of the legacy of the Shang. This branch of the Confucius family is a separate branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village and later Duke Yansheng. Another remnant of the Shang established the vassal state of Guzhu (present-day Tangshan ), which Duke Huan of Qi destroyed. Many Shang clans that migrated northeast after

3588-421: 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 . The early Zhou state was ascendant for about 75 years; thereafter, it gradually lost power. The former lands of the Shang were divided into hereditary fiefs that became increasingly independent of

3680-571: The Zhou capital from Qiyi to Feng , and his son, King Wu , made a further move to Hao across the Feng River. King Wu expanded his father's campaigns to the Shang, defeating them in the decisive Battle of Muye , which is also described in the "Great brightness" song of the Classic of Poetry . According to the Yi Zhou Shu , the Zhou army spent two months in the area mopping up resistance before returning to

3772-570: The Zhou king over time. The Zhou court was driven out of the Wei River valley in 771 BC: this marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, wherein political power was wielded in actuality by the king's nominal vassals. The Western Zhou are known from archaeological finds, including substantial inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels. In contrast to earlier periods, this direct evidence can be usefully compared with texts transmitted through

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3864-583: The Zhou king. Soon afterwards, the Zhou were attacked by Chu , who reached as far as the Luo River before being driven off in a counterattack described in the Yu ding and Yu gui . King Li embarked on defensive campaigns in the east and northwest. The received texts all present him in a negative light, and record that he was driven out of the capital into exile in the Fen River valley. Sources disagree on whether this

3956-399: The afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse. A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighbouring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. The Shang king, in his oracular divinations, repeatedly showed concern about

4048-482: The barbarians living outside of the civilised regions, which made up the centre of Shang territory. In particular, the group living in the Yan Mountains were regularly mentioned as hostile to the Shang. Apart from their role as the head military commanders, Shang kings also asserted their social supremacy by acting as the high priests of society and leading the divination ceremonies. As the oracle bone texts reveal,

4140-596: The city walls yielded over 200 artefacts, including a gold face covering measuring 18.3 by 14.5 cm (7.2 by 5.7 in). In 1959, the site of the Erlitou culture was found in Yanshi, south of the Yellow River near Luoyang . Radiocarbon dating suggests that the Erlitou culture flourished c.  2100 BC to 1800 BC. They built large palaces, suggesting the existence of an organised state. In 1983, Yanshi Shang City

4232-425: The conduct of their duties, and some grew more independent and emerged as rulers of their own. There was a basic system of bureaucracy in place, with references to positions such as the "Many Dog officers", "Many horse officers", the "Many Artisans", the "Many Archers" or court titles like "Junior Servitor for Cultivation" or "Junior Servitor for labourers". Members of the royal family would be assigned personal estates;

4324-548: The core Wei River valley and the Luoyang areas in the 1930s and expanded to a broader area from the 1980s. Bronze vessels are a key marker of Western Zhou sites, including buildings, workshops, city walls and burials. Elite burials usually contain sets of vessels, which can be dated using known variations in styles, as well the paleography and content of inscriptions. Hundreds of hoards of bronzes have been found in Shaanxi , dating from

4416-631: The decisive Battle of Muye . According to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody. The classic Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods retells the story of the war between Shang and Zhou as a conflict with rival factions of gods supporting different sides in the war. After the Shang were defeated, King Wu allowed Di Xin's son Wu Geng to rule the Shang as a vassal kingdom. However, Zhou Wu sent three of his brothers and an army to ensure that Wu Geng would not rebel. After Zhou Wu's death,

4508-623: The district, as does the Longhai railway . Western Zhou 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 when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 771 BC when Quanrong pastoralists sacked

4600-454: The divination. Tombs displayed highly ordered arrangements of bones, with groups of skeletons laid out facing the same direction. Chinese bronze casting and pottery advanced during the Shang, with bronze typically being used for ritually significant, rather than primarily utilitarian, items. As early as c.  1500 BC , the early Shang dynasty engaged in large-scale production of bronzeware vessels and weapons. This production required

4692-464: The dynasty's collapse were integrated into Yan culture during the Western Zhou period. These clans maintained an elite status and continued practising the sacrificial and burial traditions of the Shang. Both Korean and Chinese legends, including reports in the Book of Documents and Bamboo Annals , state that a disgruntled Shang prince named Jizi , who had refused to cede power to the Zhou, left China with

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4784-513: The earliest layers of the Wucheng culture predating Anyang have yielded pottery fragments containing short sequences of symbols, suggesting that they may be a form of writing quite different in form from oracle bone characters, but the sample is too small for decipherment. The earliest securely dated event in Chinese history is the start of the Gonghe Regency in 841 BC, early in the Zhou dynasty,

4876-594: The early Zhou , who established the successor state of the Shang, are known to have existed at the same time as the Shang. It has also been suggested the Xia legend originated as a Shang myth of an earlier people who were their opposites. The Erligang culture centred on the Zhengzhou site is found across a wide area of China, even as far northeast as the area of modern Beijing, where at least one burial in this region during this period contained both Erligang-style bronze utensils and local-style gold jewellery. The discovery of

4968-537: The eastern capital. The inscription on the Dong gui celebrates a defeat inflicted by the Zhou on the Dongyi near Ying, a colony set up by one of King Cheng's brothers to guard the southern approaches to the capital. With the passing of generations, the family relationships between the king and the rulers of the colonies had also become more distant. Instead, the Zhou state developed a bureaucracy and formalized relations between

5060-499: The elites. There were reforms of the military, official titles and the distribution of land. A drastic shift in the style and types of bronze ritual vessels, formerly based on Late Shang models, also suggests a change in ritual practice at this time. Very little historical information is available for the reigns of the next four kings, Gong, Yih, Xiao and Yi. Western Zhou kings were customarily succeeded by their oldest sons. However, Sima Qian states, without explanation, that King Yih

5152-595: The end date than beginning date. The Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty within traditional Chinese history that is firmly supported by archaeological evidence. The archaeological site of Yinxu , near modern-day Anyang , corresponds to the final Shang capital of Yin. Excavations at Yinxu have revealed eleven major royal tombs, the foundations of former palace buildings, and the remains of both animals and humans that were sacrificed in official state rituals. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade , stone, bone, and ceramic artefacts have been uncovered at Yinxu. Most prominently,

5244-438: 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. A vessel was typically cast for some member of the Zhou elite, recording a relevant event or an honour bestowed on

5336-450: The future King Cheng . Later Confucian scholars, who glorified the Duke of Zhou, described the young king as a babe in his mother's arms, but other evidence indicates that he was a young man at the time. Some authors suggest that the Duke appointed himself king, and in the "Announcement to Kang" chapter of the Book of Documents he seems to speak as a king. Wu Geng and the brothers of King Wu tasked with supervising him rebelled against

5428-651: The high and low, he joined the ten thousand states. Capturing and controlling was King Wu! (He) proceeded and campaigned through the four quarters, piercing Yin [= Shang] and governing its people. Eternally unfearful of the Di (Distant Ones), oh, he attacked the Yi minions. Longer accounts are found in later sources. Both the Historical Records and the Bamboo Annals describe campaigns by King Wen in southern Shanxi. King Wen moved

5520-489: The impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao . The Records of the Grand Historian recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia , Tai Wu , Pan Geng , Wu Ding , Wu Yi and the depraved final king Di Xin , but the rest of the Shang rulers are merely mentioned by name. In the last century, Wang Guowei demonstrated that the succession to the Shang throne matched the list of kings in Sima Qian's Records of

5612-447: The invention of many musical instruments and celestial observations of Mars and various comets by Shang astronomers. Their civilisation was based on agriculture and augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. In addition to war, the Shang practised human sacrifice . The majority of human sacrifice victims mentioned in Shang writings were war captives taken from the Qiang people, who lived to

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5704-417: The king provided them with pre-determined public works such as walling cities in their regions, distributed materials and issued commands to them. In turn, their estates belonged ultimately to the king's land, and they paid tribute to the king as well as reporting to him about conquered lands. More distant rulers were known by titles translated as marquess or count, who sometimes provided tribute and support to

5796-563: The main palatial complex, there were underground pits used for storage, servants' quarters, and housing quarters. Many Shang royal tombs had been tunnelled into and ravaged by grave robbers in ancient times, but in the spring of 1976, the discovery of Tomb 5 at Yinxu revealed a tomb that was not only undisturbed, but one of the most richly furnished Shang tombs that archaeologists had yet come across. With over 200 bronze ritual vessels and 109 inscriptions of Fu Hao 's name, Zheng Zhenxiang and other archaeologists realised they had stumbled across

5888-472: The manuscript tradition. These include some Confucian classics , the oldest parts of which are thought to date from this period. Texts from the Warring States period and Han dynasty provide fuller accounts, though further removed from the original events. Zhou ritual bronzes have been collected since the Song dynasty and are now scattered in collections around the world. Scientific excavations began in

5980-464: The name of their fallen dynasty, Yin. The family retained an aristocratic standing and often provided needed administrative services to the succeeding Zhou dynasty. King Wu of Zhou ennobled Lin Jian ( 林堅 ), the son of Prince Bigan , as the Duke of Bo'ling. The Shiji states that King Cheng of Zhou , with the support of his regent and uncle, the Duke of Zhou , enfeoffed Weiziqi ( 微子啟 ), a brother of Di Xin, as

6072-557: The new regime. The Duke of Zhou and his half-brother, the Duke of Shao , organized another eastern campaign. After three years they had regained the lost areas and expanded their domain over an area stretching into Shandong. The victorious triumvirate of the Duke of Zhou, Duke of Shao and King Cheng then consolidated their control over this expanded territory. They built an eastern capital at Chengzhou (modern day Luoyang ) and began founding colonies or states at strategic points in their domain. The most important were placed under members of

6164-469: The northwest of the Shang. Using skeletal isotope analysis, a group of Shang sacrifice victims at the Zhengzhou site was also found to most likely have been war captives. Skulls of sacrificial victims have been found to be similar to modern Chinese ones (based on comparisons with remains from Hainan and Taiwan ). Cowry shells were also excavated at Anyang, suggesting trade with coast-dwellers, but there

6256-500: The oracle bones by posthumous names . The last character of each name is one of the 10 celestial stems , which also denoted the day of the 10-day Shang week on which sacrifices would be offered to that ancestor within the ritual schedule. There were more kings than stems, so the names have distinguishing prefixes such as da ('greater', 大 ), zhong ('middle', 中 ), xiao ('lesser', 小 ), bu ('outer', 卜 ), and zu ('ancestor', 祖 ), as well as other, more obscure ones. The kings, in

6348-456: The owner by the king. In the latter case, the inscription might include a narrative of the ceremony and report the speech of participants. These give a rich insight into Zhou governance and the upper levels of Zhou society. Many inscriptions contain details that may be compared with later histories. More than a hundred of them commemorate a royal appointment to some government position. More than 50 of them describe military campaigns. Naturally

6440-427: The picture is incomplete, as very few inscriptions touch on military defeats or failures of government. Inscriptions usually contain some dating information, but 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. The earliest received texts, including parts of

6532-746: The politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of the early stages of Chinese history. Several of the Chinese classics discuss the history of the Shang, including the Book of Documents , the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan . From the sources available to him, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a chronological account of the Shang as part of the Shiji ( c.  91 BC ) official history. Sima describes some Shang-era events in detail, while others are only mentioned as taking place during

6624-550: The reign of a particular king. A slightly different account of the Shang is given in the Bamboo Annals , a text whose history is complex: while originally interred in 296 BC, the authenticity of the manuscripts that have survived is controversial. Throughout history, the Shang have also been referred to as "Yin" ( 殷 ). The Shiji and the Bamboo Annals each use this name for both the dynasty, as well as its final capital. Since Huangfu Mi 's Records of Emperors and Kings in

6716-421: The reigns of the last nine Shang kings. The Shang had a fully developed system of writing, preserved on bronze inscriptions and a small number of other writings on pottery, jade and other stones, horn, etc., but most prolifically on oracle bones. The complexity and sophistication of this writing system indicates an earlier period of development, but direct evidence of such is still lacking. Other advances included

6808-563: The ruling Jī ( 姬 ) family. These colonies are listed in the Zuozhuan , and some have been confirmed by archaeological finds. The inscription on the Mai zun narrates the ceremony in which King Cheng appointed a son of the Duke of Zhou to rule Xing . Kings Cheng and Kang mounted numerous military campaigns to expand their domains. The Xiao Yu ding relates a victory over the Guifang, presumably in

6900-433: The sacrifices to previous kings and the ancestors of the current king, which follow a standard schedule that scholars have reconstructed. From this evidence, scholars have assembled the implied king list and genealogy, finding that it is in substantial agreement with the later accounts, especially for later kings. According to this implied king list, Wu Ding was the twenty-first Shang king. The Shang kings were referred to in

6992-597: 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 account, are thought to have been written in the Western Han period. 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

7084-502: The settlement at Anyang, such as the walled city of Sanxingdui in Sichuan . Western scholars are hesitant to designate such settlements as belonging to the Shang. Also unlike the Shang, there is no known evidence that the Sanxingdui culture had a system of writing. The late Shang state at Anyang is thus generally considered the first verifiable civilisation in Chinese history. In contrast,

7176-442: The site has yielded the earliest known examples of Chinese writing —a corpus primarily consisting of divination texts inscribed on oracle bones , which were usually either turtle shells or ox scapulae . More than 20,000 oracle bones were discovered during the initial scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s, with over four times as many having been found since. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from

7268-445: The state as "Shang" ( 商 ), and to its capital as "Great Settlement of Shang" ( 大邑商 ; Dàyì Shāng ) —nor does it appear in any bronze inscriptions securely dated to the Western Zhou ( c.  1046  – 771 BC). The founding myth of the Shang is described by Sima Qian in the Annals of the Yin . In the text, a woman named Jiandi , who was the second wife of Emperor Ku , swallowed an egg dropped by

7360-551: The state. In his 5th year, he ordered a campaign against the Xianyun in the west, and then appointed the successful general to command the eastern territories. According to the Bamboo Annals , in the following year he ordered a campaign against the Huaiyi. Bronze inscriptions record victories in this campaign and others against the Xianyun. He reinforced the south by relocating settlements from

7452-401: 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 attractive 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

7544-469: The tomb of Fu Hao, Wu Ding's most famous consort also renowned as a military general, and mentioned in 170 to 180 oracle bone inscriptions. Along with bronze vessels, stoneware and pottery vessels, bronze weapons, jade figures and hair combs, and bone hairpins were found. The archaeological team argue that the large assortment of weapons and ritual vessels in her tomb correlate with the oracle bone accounts of her military and ritual activities. The capital

7636-445: The two, produced the Zhou. It is likely that several groups from across Shaanxi banded together to conquer the Shang. The conquest is reflected in the material record by the sudden appearance throughout the Wei River basin of burials in the Shang style and sophisticated bronze vessels of all the types produced by the Shang, from which the Zhou had evidently acquired skilled craftsmen, scribes and abundant resources. They also expanded

7728-411: Was a central aspect of Shang religion is a subject of debate. There were six main recipients of sacrifice: The Shang believed that their ancestors held power over them and performed divination rituals to secure their approval for planned actions. Divination involved cracking a turtle carapace or ox scapula to answer a question, and to then record the response to that question on the bone itself. It

7820-494: Was a revolt of the peasantry or the nobility, but agree that the king's infant son was barely saved from a mob. The Bamboo Annals , confirmed by bronze inscriptions, relate that control of the state passed to Lord He, instituting the Gonghe Regency . Sima Qian's belief that it was a co-regency was based on a misinterpretation of the name. When King Li died in exile, his son became King Xuan . Both received texts and bronze inscriptions suggest that King Xuan acted quickly to secure

7912-452: Was already presented as a linear sequence of kings in the Lai pan , cast in the reign of King Yi's grandson. Both Sima Qian and the Bamboo Annals state that King Yi boiled the Duke of Qi (in eastern Shandong) in a cauldron. A bronze inscription confirms a Zhou attack on Qi at this time. This incident, in a state originally founded by one of King Wu's generals, indicates the waning authority of

8004-547: Was apparently occupied for less than a century and destroyed shortly before the construction of the Yinxu complex. Between 1989 and 2000, an important Shang settlement was excavated near Xiaoshuangqiao , about 20 km (12 mi) northwest of Zhengzhou. Covering an intermediary period between the Zhengzhou site and the late capitals on the Huan River , it features most prominently sacrificial pits with articulated skeletons of cattle,

8096-503: Was discovered 6 km (3.7 mi) north-east of the Erlitou site in Yanshi's Shixianggou Township. This was a large walled city dating from 1600 BC. It had an area of nearly 200 ha (490 acres) and featured pottery characteristic of the Erligang culture . The remains of a walled city of about 470 ha (1,200 acres) were discovered in 1999 across the Huan River from the well explored Yinxu site. The city, now known as Huanbei ,

8188-468: Was in Huazhou District. In 1913, Hua Prefecture was re-organized as Hua County. On May 23, 1949, the area was taken by forces of the People's Liberation Army . In 1958, Hua County was placed under the jurisdiction of Weinan County, which soon became Weinan Prefecture in 1961, and was upgraded to a prefecture-level city in 1994. In October 2015, Hua County was upgraded to Huazhou District. Huazhou District

8280-416: Was succeeded by his uncle, who became King Xiao, and that on Xiao's death "the many lords restored" King Yih's son, King Yi. Bronze inscriptions of the time use two different royal calendars, and the Bamboo Annals mentions King Yih moving out of the capital. Some authors suggest that King Yih was forced out by his uncle, and the two were rivals for a time, but whatever happened is now obscure. The succession

8372-422: Was the centre of court life. Over time, court rituals to appease spirits developed, and in addition to his secular duties, the king would serve as the head of the ancestor worship cult. Often, the king would even perform oracle bone divinations himself, especially near the end of the dynasty. Evidence from excavations of the royal tombs indicates that royalty were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in

8464-809: Was very limited sea trade since China was isolated from other large civilisations during the Shang period. Trade relations and diplomatic ties with other formidable powers via the Silk Road and Chinese voyages to the Indian Ocean did not exist until the reign of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 221 AD). At the excavated royal palace in Yinxu, large stone pillar bases were found along with rammed earth foundations and platforms, which according to Fairbank, were "as hard as cement". These foundations in turn originally supported 53 buildings of wooden post-and-beam construction. In close proximity to

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