Around 3800 years ago, the once dazzling northern half-moon zone was also silent, and the Yangtze River Basin was even more lifeless. Only the Luoyang Basin, which was later called the world, bloomed with a particularly strange light. Different from the ancient kingdom era of the various branches of the archaeological culture star-studded, at this time a round of bright moon rises from the ancient Iloilo River, the earliest dynasty in China's history, the Xia Dynasty at this time to show the dynastic atmosphere, a brand-new capital also proudly stands in the east of the world, telling future generations about the endless inheritance and glorious history of Chinese civilization.
The word China we use here is not a political concept, but a concept of cultural inheritance. The Xia Dynasty in our history is far less than the territory of today's China, and even the actual territory of China in the so-called Axial Era of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty is limited. But our history began here, and our culture was inherited and developed by the previous three dynasties and continued to incorporate the elements of multiculturalism in later generations.
Illustration of the distribution of archaeological culture in the Erlitou period
See the figure above, which is a map of the distribution area of the archaeological culture of this period based on the main archaeological sites found in various archaeological texts.
There are many Qijia cultural sites in the Longhai Plateau area in the west of Erlitou, the Zhukaigou culture in the northern Shaanxi region of Hetao, the Xiajiadian lower culture in the north and south of yanshan in the northeast, and the Baiyan culture in the north and south of Jinzhong (with different names, called Guangshe culture, etc., which we will not elaborate on here). The northern And southern Henan region is home to several types of the Lower Qiyuan culture, and the eastern part is dotted with the various types of Yueshi culture. In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, there is the Fighting Terrace culture, the Dianjiangtai culture and the Maqiao culture. The Xia River and the Sichuan Basin are remnants of Zhongbao Island, Chaotianzui and Sanxingdui. The Ganpo region also entered our field of vision at this time, and a very developed primitive porcelain tradition was formed here. It is not surprising that the porcelain capital of later generations, Jingdezhen, appeared here.
If you look at it from the map, the Erlitou culture is indeed not the largest distribution area, from the number of sites, the Qijia culture and the xiajiadian lower culture are estimated to have thousands of archaeological sites, removing the factor of the longer age of the two, Erlitou has at least more than a thousand archaeological sites during the three hundred years, more than the 800 of the Erlitou culture.
In terms of area, the Yueshi culture has 250,000-300,000 square kilometers, the Lower Qiyuan culture is 60,000 square kilometers, and the Erlitou culture is roughly 180,000 square kilometers (Yan Dongsheng," Haidai Archaeology and Early Civilization, 2019). Although the area of Yueshi is wide, the number of archaeological sites that have been found is not large, with more than 300. What does this mean, other than the perhaps insufficient archaeological strength?
Archaeological sites are distributed in the Erlitou period
As shown in the figure above, the erlitou culture in the west in the east of Guanzhong, the southwest direction to reach the Danshui River Basin, to the south has reached the north bank of the Yangtze River, Jingnan Temple and Panlong City have relatively deep Erlitou cultural traces, the Fighting Tai culture is also far-reaching influence by the Erlitou culture, including the Qijia culture in the north, Zhukaigou culture and even the lower xiajiadian culture, can see the existence of Erlitou pottery vessels. And it is precisely the recent Yueshi culture in the east that rarely sees the existence of erlitou ceremonial vessels. Is this what is called a courtroom?
The so-called predecessors planted trees and later people cooled down, we may as well push forward time by one or two hundred years to see what kind of foundation the ancestors of the Xia Dynasty laid for their descendants.
Dayu and the Boyi ethnic group swept through the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, especially the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which can be said to have completely lost its vitality, and there were almost no archaeological sites here in the Erlitou era, after which the merchants easily took over the control of the Xia people as if they were in no man's land, and established Panlong City, a major southern town, as an important military control town of copper in the Shang Dynasty. The lower reaches of the Yangtze River are also generally like this, although the Fighting Terrace, Dianjiangtai, Hushu, Maqiao, Qianshan Yang table name here is also the existence of archaeological culture in the Xia and Shang periods, but it is really weak, the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are basically until the late Western Zhou Dynasty, with the rise of Chu Yue to reappear alive.
Yu Zheng Sanmiao
Dayu's move brought out the tranquility of this direction for his descendants for hundreds of years, so that the biggest enemy of the Central Plains ethnic group in the Longshan period, the Jianghan Sanmiao ethnic group, completely withdrew from the stage of history.
As for the southeast direction, it is mainly the sphere of influence of the Dongyi ethnic group. The western Guanzhong region was first conquered by Qifa Youhu, and during the Erlitou period, Erlitou united with The Eastern Lower Feng of the Southwest Jin Dynasty to further approach Guanzhong and expelled the Hakka Zhuang people here, and the Keshengzhuang was integrated into the Qi family culture and the northern ethnic groups. The Qizheng West River not only allowed the Xia to control this copper- and salt-rich mineral region in southwestern Jin, but also made the Linfen Basin a blank area, and few developed archaeological sites reappeared here.
As a result, the Guanzhong and Linfen areas were basically blank areas during the Erlitou period. It shows that the Qijia culture and the Zhukaigou culture did not pose a territorial threat to the nascent Xia Dynasty in the northwest direction. We have not seen any movements in these two directions in the later literature on the Xia Dynasty. Consistent with what was seen in archaeology.
Therefore, for the Erlitou culture, the Yueshi culture in the east and the Lower Qiyuan culture were its main threats, while the Lower Qiyuan culture was in the Zhanghe River Valley in the north in the early days, and its expansion into the Huiwei type in northern Henan was also a late thing. Therefore, the biggest enemy of Erlitou culture is the Yi people in the east.
In fact, the main records of the Xia Dynasty seen in the literature are also filled with the exchanges and wars between the various generations of Xia kings and the Dongyi people, and the dispute between the Qi Yi we talked about above is the fuse of the anti-hatred between the Xia Yi, after the death of Qi, Tai Kang was indulged in pleasure, hunting all day, abandoning the government, after being exiled by Yi, the Dongyi people grasped the power of the Xia Dynasty, and after the Han Hun Yi, they hunted down and killed the Xia king clan. Xiang and his son Shaokang were basically in a state of exile, and Shaokang used his maternal power (there was a Tang clan) to kill Han Huan, and the Xia Dynasty was able to revive, and his mother clan was also Dongyi. Xia Yi's marriage relationship resembled Ji Zhou's relationship. The Xia people undoubtedly still occupied the upper position, that is to say, Xia Yi's alliance maintained a master-slave relationship after Shaokang.
We may wish to briefly list the following, the Xiang period of the Conquest of Huangyi, the Shaokang Period of Fang yi guests, the fen three years of Jiuyi laiyu, the barren throne and the Jiuyi East hunting in the sea, the twenty-first year of the appointment of a number of Yi leaders, when the throne of Zhu Yibin at the king's gate and dance
Xia Dynasty lineage
As shown in the figure above, of the 13 generations of Xia kings, there are 7 generations of Xia kings and Dongyi people's interactions are seen in the literature, until the last generation of Xia kings, Zhuyi is still in a state of submission.
According to archaeological observations, the erlitou cultural hierarchy is very strict, the Erlitou site is undoubtedly at the highest level, not only a number of large palaces, tic-tac-toe avenues, the ceremonial system in the center, bronze ceremonial tombs, official bronze workshops, turquoise workshops, these are not seen in other sites, at the same time, the scale of the city site is also hierarchical, scholars have examined the Erlitou culture as a clear four-level settlement, Erligang is a third-level settlement (see Mr. Chen Guoliang's article), and not only the Erlitou culture is located in the area where the Erlitou culture is located. Such archaeological sites do not exist in various other cultural areas. The only few medium- and large-scale sites are in the Erlitou Cultural Zone, such as the 500,000-square-meter Master's Gu and the 1.7 million-square-meter Wangjing Tower, which are high-walled deep trenches and belong to the military towns of the Xiawangji region. And it is precisely the direction of defense that is the east, and it is self-evident who its defenders are.
Two-mile head defensive town
In the same period, although the Yueshi culture had a wide distribution range, it did not find the site of the central class, let alone the city site, which was actually well understood, which showed that Dongyi was not a unified political system at this time, and the so-called Jiuyi in the literature also showed that the Dongyi ethnic group was divided into multiple ethnic groups at this time. In fact, these ethnic groups have their own magic in order to gain the support of the Xia Dynasty, so there are records of the Xia King interacting with different Yi tribes, rather than interacting with all Yi tribes every time.
So is the same true for other cultural districts? We think it is very likely that archaeologically, whether it is the Qijia culture or Zhukaigou Xiajiadian, these relatively vast archaeological cultures have not seen the existence of large central sites, because China's literature is based on the Central Plains as the core, so the surrounding areas have not been recorded, we know that Dayu divided the world into nine states, and the Book of Shang has a Yugong article, which records the yu division of nine states and the situation of each state and the events of tribute and property. These should not be empty. Judging from the records of Yu Zhiguang and Dayu's southern conquest of the northern war, the Yu era already had a view of the world, and it was entirely possible for Yu to set the world in the Heluo region, which was also the reason why King Wu was here to seek xiazhong when he was cutting down, and at the same time was corroborated by the zhou gongli pole.
The two mile head period internal and external clothing indication
Yugong Kyushu and Xia Dynasty internal and external service
At this time, we are not sure whether the five-service system described in "YuGong" has been formed, but the internal and external services must exist, as shown in the figure above. The red circle is the core distribution area of the Erlitou culture, and the first black circle is the area where the political forces of the Xia Dynasty can completely control, and in this area, except for the strong Yueshi culture in the east, there is almost no archaeological culture that can threaten the Xia Dynasty. Therefore, we believe that the first black circle is actually the actual territory of "China" in this period, and this area should be able to be the unified management area of the Xia Dynasty. As for the Erlitou culture, it is only the culture of the Xia Hou clan and its clan.
In the outer black circle, the Qijia culture, the Zhukaigou culture, the Xiajiadian lower culture, and the Shudi archaeological culture (according to the current archaeological understanding, at this time, it is the transitional period culture between Baodun and Sanxingdui, which can be called the Yujiao village culture) all have the influence of the Erlitou culture (many scholars in the academic circles have analyzed and sorted this out, and we will not elaborate on it). The outer area belongs to the outer service fangguo area, and there is also a tribute system with the Central Dynasty, but it is not so close.
This is the characteristic of the wide-area kingship embodied in the Erlitou culture, which is too clear.
Let's look at the resource control situation shown by the Erlitou site as a capital city (limited by space, we have talked about the characteristics of other capital cities before, and I will not repeat them here)
As can be seen from the picture above, copper, salt, turquoise, white pottery, lacquer wood, which were controlled by the Central Dynasty, came from all directions, and the official handicraft workshops at the Erlitou site were processed and produced a large number of ceremonial artifacts representing the dynasty's rule. These ceremonial vessels were firmly controlled by the Central Dynasty, so we did not see the existence of bronze ceremonial vessels in the Yueshi culture or other cultures, but there was no shortage of various bronze ornaments and weapons. This was the control of the rulers of the dynasty over the right to speak, which was inherited by the later Shang Zhou Dynasty in many ways.
The reason why the Xia people gradually moved the center of the kingdom from the Dengfeng area south of the Song Mountains to Xinzhan and finally landed in the Erlitou of the Iloilo Basin was due to many reasons, and the change in the center of gravity of defense and the change of environment should be the main reason. As seen by environmental archaeology, in the late Longshan period, the confluence of the Iloilo River moved west to the west of today's Erlitou site, so that a large area of alluvial plains appeared here, and the Luoyang Basin, which was rich in water and soil, was very suitable for human settlement. Here is the north of the Yellow River, the west of the Qinling Mountains Yumai Bears Ears Mountain, the south of the Songshan LuoHe, the east and west sides of the passage is easy to defend and difficult to attack, the danger of mountains and rivers formed a huge area without the need to build a city. In a corner of the Luoyang Basin alone, more than 200 Erlitou archaeological sites have been found, and the lushness here is evident.
The source of wisdom for the ancients to choose the capital is indeed unimaginable to us, and the view of the world under the heavens has since been fully formed, and with the pursuit of this cosmology of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the word "Zhong" has become the root of the Chinese word, and it is not difficult to understand.