• Zhou Dynasty 1000 BC

The first historic dynasty of ancient China, the Shang, has fallen, conquered by the Zhou (1122 BC). This is a people who for centuries have come within the orbit of the Shang cultural and political sphere, and shared in the civilization of the Chinese world, but are probably at a slightly lower cultural level. There has been no sharp decline, but the Zhou state is more loosely organized than its predecessor had been. The Zhou kings have had to reward a large number of their leading followers and princes of the ruling clan with fiefs, so that royal power has become fragmented and the state has taken on a “feudal” complexion. The early history of the Zhou is one in which the number of these fiefs multiplies as the Zhou state expands, both outwards into surrounding lands and also internally as Zhou lords annex “barbarian” territory still remaining within the borders. By this date, there are a hundred or more such lordships.

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