The Zhou Dynasty, which enjoyed 790 years of chinese dynasties, was the longest-lived dynasty, but the Zhou Dynasty's rule was clearly divided into two parts: Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou. The move of the capital from Hojing (present-day Xi'an) to Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) by King Ping of Zhou in 770 BC was a landmark event in the demarcation of Western and Eastern Zhou. Prior to this, Zhou Tianzi had real power in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty after that, Zhou Tianzi actually became a marionette in the hands of princes. In the Analects, it is said that the Western Zhou Period was "The Lile Conquest came out of the Son of Heaven", but in the Eastern Zhou Period, it was "the Lile Conquest from the Princes".
Although the Zhou Dynasty continued for another 515 years after King Ping of Zhou moved the capital to Luoyi, in fact the royal family had been completely reduced to the role of playing soy sauce. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Chinese, Zuo Zhuan, Warring States Policy, History and other historical books, when writing the history of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, they all take the princely states as the main narrative line. On the surface, the King of Zhou Ping only moved the capital for a while, which caused Zhou Tianzi to be elevated by the princes, but in fact this is a typical inversion view of cause and effect: the relocation of the King of Zhou Ping is not the cause of the decline of the Zhou royal family, but the result of the decline of the Zhou royal family.
It is not because the King of Zhou Ping moved the capital for a while, which led to the result that Zhou Tianzi was elevated by the princes, but precisely because the objective reality of the decline of the Zhou royal family determined that the King of Zhou Ping had to move the capital. Before king Zhou Ping moved the capital, Zhou Tianzi had real power, but Zhou Tianzi's real power had always been constrained by the princes and nobles. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, Tianzi could convene princes to make alliances and arbitrate disputes, but even at that time, Zhou Tianzi could not directly interfere in the internal affairs of the princely states. Although in theory the land under the world belongs to the royal family, the royal family does not directly and effectively govern the land under the whole world.
The decline of the royal family and the rise of the princes are actually a long and complex process caused by quantitative changes. The relocation of the Zhou Ping King to the capital is just a landmark event in the development of this process to a critical point. Before the Zhou Ping king moved the capital, the decline of the royal family was already traceable: with the development of productive forces, more and more private land was developed. The emergence of land annexation has made more and more land the private property of the princes and nobles. The direct consequence of this was a sharp decline in the revenue of the Zhou royal family. The economic foundations that underpin the rule of the Zhou royal family were thus destroyed.
The economic base was destroyed while the army under the direct control of the royal family was in decline. When the Western Zhou Dynasty was founded, the royal family was strong in force and the princes were weak. At that time, the royal family's army had two or three thousand military vehicles, and the larger princely states such as Qi, Lu, and Song in the Spring and Autumn Period only had about one thousand military vehicles. The so-called "country of a thousand multiplications" was considered a big country in the Spring and Autumn Period. It can be seen from this that the overlords of the Spring and Autumn Period were still inferior in strength to the Wang Shi at the time of the founding of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, with the development of the times, the combat effectiveness of the Wang Division began to show a clear downward trend.
When King Wu was cutting down the Yin Shang army, there was a phenomenon that the army of slaves who had been temporarily recruited was about to defect. Therefore, the Zhou Dynasty felt that recruiting slaves as soldiers in the real environment of sharp contradictions between nobles and slaves was extremely risky. The armies of the Zhou royal family were all selected from the aristocratic class: ordinary soldiers were selected from the lowest rank of the noble class, so later generations called "soldiers" and "soldiers" together as "soldiers". The generals of the army were selected from among the nobles of higher ranks. Such an army was actually destined to be as inevitable as the Eight Banners of the Later Qing Dynasty.
The establishment of the Zhou Dynasty was achieved by overthrowing the Shang Dynasty by force. The royal army at the beginning of the founding of the country maintained the same martial style as the Eight Banners nobles at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. In the era of the Zhou Dynasty's strong military strength, the barbarians of the four sides surrendered one after another, so there was a rare situation of peace and tranquility. In the long-term situation of peace in the world, the army composed of nobles was keen to pursue the sound and color of dogs and horses. After a few generations, the combat effectiveness of such an army will become increasingly worrying. From the fourth monarch of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Zhou Zhao, his performance in foreign wars has been worse than that of a generation.
By the time of king Ping's grandfather, King Xuan of Zhou, during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou, the royal family had to rely on the conscription of the princes' armies in foreign wars to barely survive. In fact, before King Zhou Ping sat on the throne, the economic and military pillars of the royal family had long been in trouble. King Zhou Ping's father, King You of Zhou, realized that the growing power of the princes would pose a challenge to the king's power, so he tried to weaken the power of the princes by replacing the daughter of The Prince of Shen as empress by appointing a commoner-born concubine, and as a result, The Prince of Shen joined forces with other princes and foreign enemies InuYasha to kill King Zhou You at Mount Li.
King Ping of Zhou himself ascended to the throne with the support of local princes after the Lishan Disaster, so he could only further cede power to local princes. This is the so-called "take people short hands, eat people soft mouth" . By the time King Zhou Ping succeeded to the throne, the royal family had completely lost control of the Guanzhong region: on the one hand, King Zhou Ping was unable to resist the Inuyasha who were eyeing Guanzhong; on the other hand, perennial wars had turned the Guanzhong Plain from a rich land into a remnant of mountains and water. The most important thing is that at that time, the Guanzhong Plain had been substantially divided up by the princes of the Ji surname, so the King of Zhou Ping had almost no living space there.
It was in this situation that King Ping of Zhou had to move east to Luoyi. Please note that King Ping of Zhou did not want to move the capital himself, but the reality forced him to move the capital. King Zhou Ping was actually very enterprising at the beginning of the capital: he wanted to restore the prestige of the royal family, but there were two reasons that restricted his development. First of all, King Ping of Zhou was given the throne only after he had killed his father and queen with the support of the princes. This in itself doomed him to lack prestige in front of the princes, not to mention that King Zhou Ping himself was a mediocre man who could not do either wen or martial arts.
In that year, King You of Zhou deposed the mother of King Ping of Zhou in order to make him queen, and also deposed king of Zhou Ping as crown prince. King Ping of Zhou actually won the throne later by cooperating with Shen Hou and other princes. Therefore, as soon as King Zhou Ping came to power, he was saddled with the original sin of killing his father. Since King Ping of Zhou was supported and supported by the princes, his dependence on the princes was far greater than that of the princes. At the time of King Zhou You's death, the Zhou royal family actually no longer had the strength to dominate the world, but at that time, none of the princes in the world was strong enough to dominate the world.
Therefore, after the death of King Zhou You, a huge power vacuum was formed in the land of Huaxia: the princes of all sides went their own way, but none of them had the strength to become the co-lords of the world. In a state of equal strength, they had to push out King Zhouping, a symbol of the royal family, as the nominal co-lord, but in fact, the princes only regarded King Zhouping as a mascot manipulated at will. The problem is that king Zhou Ping is not the only one who can represent the Zhou royal family. In fact, at that time, there were some princes who did not intend to establish the King of Zhou Ping.
King Ping of Zhou, as the eldest son of King You of Zhou, was originally the most qualified to inherit the throne of the Son of Heaven according to the patriarchal system, but his behavior of cooperating with Marquis Shen and confronting his father was actually an act of rebellion in the eyes of some princes. After the death of King Zhou You, King Ping of Zhou succeeded to the throne with the support of a group of princes led by Shen Hou, but another group of princes led by Yu Guo chose to support King Zhou You's younger brother Ji Yuchen. At this time, there were two heavenly sons in the world, the King of Zhou Ping and the King of Zhou (Ji Yuchen). Both sides call themselves orthodox and call the other a puppet regime.
According to the Warring States Bamboo Jane, now in Tsinghua University, the first to ascend to the throne of the Son of Heaven after the Lishan Disaster was King Zhou, who was supported by the kingdoms of Yu and other princely states. At that time, the Zhou Dynasty was supported by more princely states, while the Zhou Ping regime was only supported by a few princes such as Shen Hou. Nine years later, there was a fierce conflict between the King of Zhou and the local princes. At this time, the two important princely states of Zheng Guo and Jin Guo switched from the camp of the King of Zhou to the camp of the King of Zhou Ping. After these two princely states rebelled against the water, the northwest of the Xingyang-Xinmi-Xinzheng-Changge-Chencheng line around the Luoyang Plain became the sphere of influence of the King of Zhou Ping.
In fact, King Ping of Zhou did not get the approval of most of the princes before he received the support of Zheng and Jin. It was with the support of Zheng and Jin that King Ping of Zhou was able to move east to Luoyi to establish the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. From the very beginning, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty faced the embarrassing situation of two kings standing side by side and not recognizing each other: the king of Zhou Ping was born into a large sect, and the king of Zhou was one level higher in the generations. After Zheng and Jin rebelled against the water, the advantages of King Ping of Zhou became increasingly obvious; on the other hand, the most powerful supporter of King Zhou was the State of Zhou. Although Yu Guo was old enough, his strength was far inferior to that of Zheng and Jin.
In 750 BC, the King of Jin killed King Zhou. The era of two kings standing side by side thus ended. King Ping of Zhou, after surviving a political storm, decided to erase all information related to King Zhou. It was a small matter for King Zhou Ping in the local area, but if he laughed at the future generations, it would be a big thing. King Zhou Ping did not want his descendants to continue to discuss the fact that he was not in the right place. In order to put an end to the excuse, King Ping of Zhou ordered all the princes to destroy all historical records about the period when the two kings were established together. Duke Hui of Lu, who was reigning at the time of the State of Lu, resolutely carried out the king's orders.
As a result, the history of the Lu Huigong dynasty was not recorded in later generations. In our present history books the Middle Eastern Zhou is divided into The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States. Among them, the Spring and Autumn Period is named after the Spring and Autumn Period, one of the Five Confucian Classics of the Lu State Official's Revision chronicle of the state. The book "Spring and Autumn" was written from the year of Lu Yin (722 BC), but King Ping of Zhou sat on the throne in 722 BC. In other words, from the death of King Zhou You, king Ping of Zhou succeeded to the throne to the year of Lu Yin, there was no trace of ink in the middle of the history of about half a century.
This is unique in Chinese history. Why hasn't the historian recorded what happened in the past fifty years? It was because King Ping of Zhou ordered the destruction of all historical records of the period when the two kings were established. However, not all princely states carried out the orders of King Ping of Zhou. In fact, there are still some historical materials about the zhou ping king and the zhou and the king of zhou standing side by side. However, after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, there was a more thorough burning of books to burn the historical materials of the princes and nations. After this, the historical materials related to the King of Zhou were basically lost.
In fact, for a considerable period of time, the world did not know that there was such a person as King Zhou in history. Fortunately, the Jin state regarded the suppression of the King of Zhou as one of his major achievements and recorded it in detail. After the fall of the Jin state, its historical chronicle survived the State of Wei; the State of Chu, which had never been at odds with the royal family, also retained a historical record of the period when the two kings were established together. Wei and Chu buried some history books as burial items, so they were able to escape the large-scale book burning campaign of the Qin Dynasty. During the Western Jin Dynasty, a tomb robber stole a batch of bamboo from a Wei tomb in the Warring States period.
This batch of bamboo janes, which were later named the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", supplemented the previous "Records of History" and other historical materials. In July 2008, Tsinghua University collected a batch of bamboo jane excavated from the tombs of the Chu state in the Warring States period. The Bamboo Book Chronicle from the Wei tomb and the Qinghua Jian from the Chu tomb have finally been able to restore the half century of Chinese history that lacks written records. During this half-century, King Ping of Zhou and King Yi of Zhou had to further delegate power to the princely states in order to win the support of the princes in the process of competing for power.
It may be precisely because King Zhou Ping gave up more power that he lured Zheng and Jin to rebel against the water. King Zhou Ping, with the support of the princes, eventually defeated King Zhou, but when this political storm passed, King Zhou Ping found it impossible to regain power from the princes. King Zhou Ping himself was not a wise monarch, so he simply went with the flow in the face of this situation. During the reign of King Zhou Ping, the royal family's territory, income, and military strength were further reduced. Although the princes still nominally revered Zhou Tianzi as the co-lord of the world, in fact the strength of the royal family was not even comparable to that of a second-class princely state.