Late Zhou Changes

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Late Zhou Changes

• Rise of ministerial families decline of
  hereditary aristocracy
• Legacy of Confucius real-world philosophy of
  regulating inter-personal relations for the good
  of the state (filial piety, proper sacrifice)
• Economic competition that began in the Middle
  Zhou increases with the rise of a few powerful
  states
• Knife money is replaced by coinage, notably of
  gold, silver, etc., especially in Chu and others
  adopt the practice
• The use of iron, first mined for its own sake in
  Middle Zhou (Wu), becomes widespread, uses high
  carbon cast iron, and reaches the commoner
  class (steel is almost as early)
• Iron transformed agricultural, economic and
  military sectors and increased inter-state
  competition
• Increasing hostility from powerful groups on the
  northern frontiers who raided on horseback from
  earlier times (Zhou late in adopting horseback
  riding)
• Drastic reorganization of city architecture the
  ceremonial center with outlying workshops and
  cemetery becomes a double walled enclave for
  protection from warring states and tribal
  neighbors
• Rise of infantry armies and mounted cavalry
  further erodes authority of the old aristocracy
• A few states adopt county administration (Chu,
  later Qin), bringing districts under direct
  control of the ruler (through appointed
  officials) rather than semi-autonomous lords (
  old benefice, patrimonial system).

2
Confucius Philosophy on Government and Rule

• Confucius (Kung fu-tzu, Kongzi) lived in the
  Middle Zhou (551-479 B.C.) from a family of
  minor aristocrats. He left his minor post at the
  Lu court to be political advisor to several
  states.
• His philosophy was one of moral politics and just
  rule (e.g., legend of the founding of Zhou) and
  came at a time when hereditary power and
  authority were being challenged by men such as
  him.
• Moderation and harmony in all things good
  government based on analogy of the
  familyauthoritarian and hierarchical proper
  ritual was also revived from Three Dynasties.
• Human nature is good therefore, loyalty,
  reciprocity, dutifulness, filial and fraternal
  affection, courtesy, friendship and good faith
  were at the heart of moral leadership (moral
  failure of the king was grounds for his
  overthrow).
• His focus on merit underlies the later
  bureaucratic examination systemhis works guided
  several later dynasties (Tang and Song, two
  illustrious periods, revived old court rituals
  and paraphernalia).

3
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Confucianism
• Confucianism consists of writings about
  maintaining good orderan ethical system--in
  human society through the preservation of past
  values.
• It talks about restoring the way of the
  ancients--the moral values that are idealized in
  the past--and maintaining the elaborate structure
  of rituals in which those values were expressed.
  
• Filial piety was a virtue humankind fully
  realized itself in the perfect fulfillment of
  ones roles as subject, father/mother,
  son/daughter, friend, husband/wife, etc.
• Confucius is silent on matters of religion
  (except to say, one should venerate only ones
  own ancestors). Hence, the irony that Han adopted
  Confucianism as an official cult, built temples
  and made sacrifices to his ancestral tablet.
  This veneration has continued (although during
  the Cultural Revolution Legalism was elevated and
  Confucianism downgraded).
• Neo-Confucianism in Song times reaffirmed the
  classic one branch advocated for reform and
  promoted the moral responsibilities of the
  bureaucracyit was inherently conservative and
  paternalistically authoritarian.

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Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Mohism
• Mohism (Mo Ti, Mo-tzu, 551-479 BC) was of humble
  origin and his doctrine had adherents for only a
  few hundred yearshe proposed novel doctrines and
  innovation of new ideas.
• The central principal was an equal concern for
  the benefit of all, without favor to oneself or
  ones own kinthis, like Christianity, is highly
  offensive to Confucians who placed family
  loyalties first.
• Mohism also rejected aggression, saying state
  offensive wars were the same as crimes of
  violence, rejected useless luxuries, and court
  extravagance.
• Mohists supported the rise of scholar officials,
  recommended promotion to office purely on merit,
  and, unlike Confucians, perceived Heaven as a
  personal power that loves good and hates evil.
• Later Mohists ignored or repudiated such current
  explanatory concepts as Yin and Yang, etc.

5
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Yin-Yang School
• Early Chinese thought is primarily moral and
  political however, this Late Zhou school used
  cosmology as a theoretical basis for both the
  political and moral order and for explaining and
  predicting the rise and fall of dynasties (it was
  incorporated whole into later Taoism and
  Confucianism).
• It expresses the cosmological schemes current
  earlier only among diviners, astronomers and
  physicians, for example.
• Concepts are the pair Yin and Yang and the Five
  Agencies (elements)both are conceived as
  energetic fluids in the cosmos.
• Yin is female, low, earth, dark, cold Yang is
  male, high, heaven, light, hot.
• The Five Agencies, earth, wood, metal, fire and
  water, activate all groups of five such as the
  Five Colors (yellow, green, white, red and
  blackcolors on the altar of heaven in capitals),
  and they take turns, each conquered by the next,
  in sequences like the rise and fall of dynasties.
  Zhou reigned by fire with the color red the
  coming dynasty would rule under the color
  blackQin did choose black as its color.
• The appeal to later rationalist Confucians was in
  cosmic and earthly harmony, unity, etc.

6
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Legalism
• Several state officials offered concepts of
  practical statecraft, scorning the moralism of
  Confucians and Mohiststhe concept of law was
  often central.
• One emphasized techniques of ruling (outcomes)
  others stressed law or power. Han Fei placed law
  first but recognized merit and power as important
  as well. Whether moral or not, what is important
  is the functioning of sound institutions.
• In the world of the past when land was plentiful,
  morality was sufficient to harmonize interests
  but in times of competition for resources moral
  constraints become ineffective.
• The ruler has his place in this social order and
  acts without regard for his own
  preferencespunish all who break the law, whether
  they be noble or peasant.
• The Legalist state is a machine for making war in
  which each occupation is judged by whether or not
  it contributes to the strength of the state (up
  with farmer and soldier down with scholar of the
  classics, merchants and hermits).
• Confucians and others hated Legalism but found
  their writings on practical statecraft useful.
• The recent Cultural Revolution extolled Legalism
  and the excesses of Emperor Qin (whose failure
  historiographers credited to following Legalism).

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Zhou Philosophical Schools

• Taoism
• This tradition focuses on topics Confucians
  deliberately ignored but because it questions
  Confucian values it is sometimes placed in
  opposition Confucians opposed its occult focus.
• The most all-inclusive concept is the Way which
  means sole unseen reality lying behind
  appearances.
• Taoism involves the pursuit of immortality (a
  transient being with a physical undying
  existence).
• Breathing exercises, use of elixirs brewed by
  alchemists, meditation, etc., were at times part
  of the tradition later Taoism borrowed from
  Buddhism and folk religion.
• Ritual was the main means priests earned their
  livingconducting rites of penitence,
  etc.ritually distinct from folk shamans is the
  burning written memorials to reach the spirits.
• Lao-tzu (one of a number of writers) after the
  fact became the Taoist sage said to be a rival of
  Confucius. He supposedly went west and later
  some saw Buddhism as borne of his teachingshe
  was or taught Buddha (an assertion that was
  eliminated from Taoist texts by royal decree in
  1281 AD).

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Cosmology and the City in Late Zhou States

• Late Zhou cites were more compact than Xia, Shang
  and Early Zhou, necessitated by increased
  hostilities in the regiontrue urban settlement
  developed.
• Underpinning urban form was a complex of ideas
  that saw parallelism between heaven and
  earththis translated into a symbolic center as
  part of the overall of space emphasis on
  cardinal compass directions proper siting of the
  city via geomancy, a form of divination, and
  altering terrain (landscaping).
• Symbolism of the center, the place an official
  calculated as the place where earth and sky
  meet, where the four seasons merge, where wind
  and rain are gathered in, and where ying and yang
  are in harmony. Here the kings literally raised
  their palaces on platforms that they might
  scrupulously sacrifice to the upper and lower
  spirits, and from there govern as the central
  pivot.
• Zhou constructed an altar to the God of Soil in
  the capital, faced with colors appropriate to the
  cardinal directions eastCerulean (blue)
  Dragon, bursting vegetation of spring southRed
  Phoenix, fire of summer westWhite Tiger of
  autumn harvest northblack, facing the realm of
  darkness yellow capped the altar, yellow for
  Shang Ti on high (cover the altar and
  symbolically extinguish the kings reign).
• Main gates, palace and house doors, etc. do not
  face north in this scheme.

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Idealized City form in China

• Illustrations from Wheatley 412, 415

10
China Unified Qin Han Empires 2200-1500 y.a.

• The Late Zhou saw constant warfare among rivals,
  Royal Zhou having capitulated earlier. Qin on
  the west defeated Chu to the south (home area of
  Taoism), the last of six major rivals it
  overcame. China was one state under one ruler
  for the first time and the name China derives
  from Qin (pronounced chin).
• Qin expanded south to the coast over roads it
  built and established administrative centers
  known as commanderies. Qin moved NW and
  consolidated the many state walls that marked
  their boundaries from lands of the barbarians.
• Administration was through counties by appointed
  officials.
• Qin pursued strategies for economic unification
  on a grand scaleuniform weights and measures,
  axle width roads coinage (round with a square
  hole heaven and earth) codified law common
  calendar the Emperor banned the Confucian
  classics (burned the books) and ruled harshly,
  following Legalist principles.
• Legalism was the political philosophy state
  rewards and punishment based on performance (not
  moral goodness) demanded popular obedience the
  military was highly disciplined.
• The First Emperor himself died from drinking an
  alchemic elixir of eternal life, following Taoist
  ideas of a path to immortality (better life)
  through chemistry.
• Shameful taxation and use of peasant labor (note
  the tomb furnishings of the short-lived first
  emperor with its terracotta army) led to many
  up-risings against his successor-son.

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Tomb of Emperor Qin Si Wang Di

• Pictures/Slides here Barnes 194-95.

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Han Dynasty 2200-1800 y.a.

• Backdrop is Cambridge Encyc 172.
• With the defeat of Qin there was fighting among
  leaders vying for the title of emperor until Liu
  Pang (who began as an official but was given the
  title of king) won and proclaimed himself emperor
  and leader of a new dynasty.
• Administration followed the Qin model.
• Liu Pang began by suppressing all potential
  rivals (strong men who had supported him
  earlier), placing his close relatives in charge
  of kingdoms and maintaining commanderies in
  hinterlandstribal enemies to the NW were
  appeased (with gifts of silk to keep the caravan
  roads open to the west).
• His grandson oversaw the development of state
  monopolies over iron, salt and other products,
  taxing the products, and stifling private
  entrepreneurs. Han attempts were not
  particularly successful.
• Eventually, the family was replaced by
  appointed governors and territory expanded into
  NW, finding that tribute was more costly than
  maintaining garrisons, as well as S and S coast.
  
• Internal rebellions/uprisings ended the dynasty.

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Han Economic Expansion

• The south held great potential, hence the
  interest in controlling it for iron, salt, rice
  (a new plough saw huge gains in production).
  Elite (by now elite was not equivalent with
  aristocracy) wealth was greater than ever as seen
  in tombs and their contents.
• Iron and salt monopolies were key, the former for
  military success next, the court minted all
  coinage.
• The rise of a middle class of aristocratic
  managers squeezed out merchants and entrepreneurs
  (reviving the Confucian ethic that placed the
  latter below farmers on the social scale).
• In late Han, foreign merchants took up residence
  in the capital and the economic stranglehold of
  the monopolies was broken.
• Silk trade routes were kept open by the military
  rather than by appeasing (buying off) the locals.
  This opened the door to new C Asian products,
  all bought with Han silks.
• An incidental but key import was Buddhism monks
  accompanied trading caravans and established
  places of worship en route to China. Buddhism
  gained a foothold following the Han Dynasty.

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