Zhou dynasty

Chinese succession of rulers c. 1066–256 BC, during which cities emerged and philosophy flourished. The dynasty was established by the Zhou, a semi-nomadic people from the Wei Valley region, west of the great bend in the Huang He (Yellow River). Zhou influence waned from 403 BC, as the Warring States era began.

The founder was Wu Wang, ‘the Martial’, who claimed that Shang dynasty misrule justified the transfer of the ‘mandate of heaven’. Under the Zhou, agriculture and commerce developed further, iron implements and metal coins came into use, cities grew up, and the philosophies of Confucius, Lao Zi, Mencius, and Taoism flowered. The Western Zhou controlled feudal vassal states in the Wei Valley, basing their capital at Hao, near Xi'an, until 771 BC. A new capital was later set up at Luoyang, to serve the Eastern Zhou. Zhou society had a very similar structure to later feudal European and Japanese periods, with strict divisions and hereditary classes.