From the middle of the 20th century, a group of scholars represented by the German philosopher Jaspers put forward the axial age theory of human civilization. They believe that the period from 800 BC to 200 BC was a historical stage of major breakthroughs in the spiritual field of human civilization, in which many human spiritual teachers, including Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, Socrates, Jeremiah and Shakyamuni, were born.
Early human civilization was far away from thousands of mountains and rivers, but there was a "resonance effect" at the economic, political and cultural levels, which was actually inseparable from the great changes in the social structure caused by the geopolitical environment of Eurasia and the economic development of various civilizations at that time. Although the land on Earth is widely distributed in all corners of the world, the places that can really bear the origin of human civilization are concentrated in the water-rich areas from 30° north latitude to 40° north latitude, and these civilized regions concentrated in Eurasia and North Africa have many similar or even identical geographical and climatic characteristics. That is to say, the reason why the resonance effect of civilization in the Axial Age appears is because these distant civilizations have undergone major changes in social structure because of similar factors, thus stimulating the explosion of cultural and ideological fields. So from the 8th century BC onwards, how did human civilization enter the era of great ideological and cultural bursts?
※ Diversification of urban settlement civilization models?※
Around 1200 BC, the Dorians invaded the Greek Peninsula in the south, and the Mycenaean civilization had long since disappeared, and the Greek Peninsula entered a chaotic and dark age. At this time, the Shang Dynasty was in the late stage of the wuding dynasty, but due to the overly harsh theocratic system of rule, the foreign service Fang state repeatedly rebelled against the merchants and fought wars, from the beginning of Wuding until the death of the Shang. Finally, in 1046 BC, the Battle of Muye, the king of Zhou Wu, established the Zhou Dynasty, overturned the theocratic rule of the Shang, and established a more universal concept of the Mandate of Heaven. In the concept of theocratic rule of the Shang Dynasty, the Shang clan was the monarch of the destiny of heaven, and the merchants often used foreign tribes plundered from foreign wars as sacrifices as sacrifices in order to sacrifice and pray for eternal protection of themselves, and Zhou changed this. In the Zhou Dynasty's concept of mandate of heaven, only the King of Zhou was blessed by heaven, called the "Son of Heaven", and in addition, the Son of Heaven not only administered justice for the Zhou people, but also for the whole world. Since then, a new idea of "divine right of kings" has replaced the previous Shang Dynasty concept of "divine grant of kingly power".
Since he wanted to uphold justice for all the people of the world, Zhou Tianzi had to take into account the interests of all ethnic groups in the world, so he wantonly divided the world during the period of King Wu of Zhou and King Cheng of Zhou. Just as the Zhou Dynasty was gradually perfecting the feudal system, King David unified the two states of Israel and Judea around 1000 BC and made the unified kingdom of Israel Jerusalem. However, just as the Shang Dynasty regarded its entire clan as a destined existence, the Jewish people of Judaism also regarded their entire clan as God's chosen people, so they also suffered a similar situation to the Shang. Even the powerful Shang dynasty was wiped out in the revolt of the surrounding ethnic groups, not to mention the Jews who occupied only a corner of Canaan, and the kingdom of Israel was eventually overthrown by the Assyrian Empire.
In the years when King Ji Fa and King David of Zhou Wu established their great achievements, the Greek peninsula, which was in the dark age (that is, the homeric era), formed a city-state system with Athens as the core, and Assyria (New Assyrian period), which later destroyed the kingdom of Israel, also embarked on the road to rise in the same period. By the end of the 8th century BC, Assyria had become a slave empire that spanned both Asia and Africa. At the same time, the ancient Greek city-states were formed, and the Greeks launched a large-scale colonization of the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea coast, and the Apennine Peninsula. As for the Zhou Dynasty, it was between the two, on the one hand, it had the same nominal xia co-lord "Zhou Tianzi" as the Assyrian Empire, and on the other hand, it had a princely hegemonic pattern similar to that of the Greek city-states. Three completely different modes of integration, with very different ways of dominating their respective geo-civilization plates, reflect the pluralistic characteristics of urban settlement civilization models.
※ The balance of power order brings about an explosion of ideas?※
Around 800 BC, when Athens became the core of the Greek city-states, the Ganges Valley entered the post-Vedic era, and the beginning of the caste system and the division of the states caused a long period of unrest. At this time, the four core areas of civilization, including the Greek Peninsula, the Two Rivers-Nile Region, the Ganges River Basin, and Huaxia, all experienced chaos to varying degrees. In 776 BC, the first ancient Olympic Games were held in Greece in an attempt to ease the struggle between the different states. In the same year, Qin Xianggong moved the capital to Fengyi, opening the beginning of the Qin people's entry into Guanzhong, and in the following 772 BC, when Inu Rong entered the capital, he assisted the King of Zhou Ping in moving east. After that, Huaxia entered the Spring and Autumn Period, and the states of Qi, Jin, Chu, and Qi rose successively, and the princes competed for hegemony endlessly.
Under the balance of power order in which states are divided and the masses are balanced against each other, the whole society is plunged into violent turmoil, and the unenterprising will suffer the fate of decline and humiliation. Not only that, with the development of the economy and the progress of technology, the existing production relations and related policies have become obsolete, and in this context, the Guan Huan reform (Guan Zhong and Qi Huan Gong reform), the initial tax mu reform, the Solon reform, and the Laikugu reform have occurred one after another, and many ideological theories have emerged as a result. Also trapped in the fiery situation, the Ganges Valley is increasingly emerging with the Shamanist ideology, which varies, but they are consistent in opposing Vedic authority and Brahmanical spiritual domination, of which The founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni, is the representative of which.
Compared with the Aegean, Ganges, and Chinese civilizations, the two river basins and the Nile river basin, which were integrated by the Assyrian Empire, failed to erupt at the cultural and ideological level due to the lack of pressure of internal balance of power competition. Of course, Assyria's rule did not last long, and by the end of the 7th century BC, its territory was divided by the Medes, Neo-Babylon, and Egypt, which originated from the Factian Plateau of The Anatolian Plateau - The Armenian Plateau and the Southern Foothills - The Iranian Plateau, the Two Rivers Valley and the Nile Valley are three relatively separated geopolitical spaces. But it was precisely because the conquests of the Assyrian Empire further integrated West Asia and North Africa, strengthened the exchange of different geopolitical spaces in the region, and paved the way for the later expansion of the Persian Empire.
※The causes of the great changes in the social structure?※
The aforementioned Solonian reform and the Luguo Chu tax reform both occurred in 594 BC, and the deep reason behind it was that the development and progress of social productivity and production technology led to the irrationality of production relations and asset distribution models, which was manifested in the Central Plains as the ownership and taxation of private and public land under the well field system, while in the Greek commercial city-states were manifested as private output ownership and rich and poor debts. The reform of the initial tax mu in the State of Lu greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of peasants for farming, and at the same time increased fiscal revenue, which was imitated by all countries. The Solonian reforms of Athens to some extent eased the contradiction between the rich and the poor, promoted the development of industry and commerce, and became a benchmark for other city-states to emulate and the cornerstone of the two subsequent reforms in Athens.
In the Central Plains, with the collapse of the well field system, private land was recognized by the princes, and while the fiscal revenues of various countries increased, the power of the local Xun Guiqing clan also grew, and gradually caused constraints on many princely princes, including the Lu, Chu, Qi, and Jin states. The State of Jin, which had long dominated the State of Chu, repeatedly fought among themselves due to the internal system of six secretaries, and finally chose to marry the State of Chu in 537 BC, ending the century-old struggle for hegemony between Jin and Chu. In order to continue to restrain the State of Chu, the State of Jin began to seek to support the State of Wu in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while the State of Chu supported the State of Yue to counteract, and the Spring and Autumn Period entered the final stage of the Wu-Yue struggle for hegemony.
After Solon's reforms, the Greek commercial and trade city-states headed by Athens further expanded and established a very complete industrial and commercial system throughout the Aegean region and the Black Sea and the Apennine Peninsula. Later, Lydia rose to prominence in the coastal plains of the western Asia Minor Peninsula and in the low mountainous regions of the Anatolian Plateau in central and eastern Asia, and surrendered to the Greek Ionian city-states on the western side. However, Lydia did not ask the conquered to change their way of life, but only required these Greek city-states to pay tribute on a regular basis, so there was no fierce conflict between the two sides. Later, the Persian Empire rose, conquered the entire Peninsula of Asia Minor, and forced the Greek city-states on the west side of the peninsula to change their way of life, seriously harming the interests of the Greeks under the Aegean trading system, and eventually launched the Ionian Rebellion at the instigation of Athens, which became the direct trigger of the Persian-Greek War.
The reason why the Persian Empire forced the Greek city-states on the west side of Asia Minor to change their way of life was because, as the first monarch in human history to cross the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, Darius I adopted a series of reform measures to consolidate Persian rule and absolute monarchy. If these Greek city-states continued the economic model of maritime trade and aristocratic co-governance, it would undermine the progress of Darius's reforms and affect the monarchical authority of the "King of Kings". Although the internal economic development of the Persian Empire was extremely uneven, the Iranian plateau in the east and Central Asia were relatively backward, and the two river basins, the Nile River and Asia Minor in the west were economically developed and were important tax towns for the empire, but the political system was hugely different, and only one place on the coastal city-states on the west side of Asia Minor could receive external assistance. In the Persian-Greek War, although the Persian side had a large number of people and strong financial resources, its internal geopolitical plate was seriously separated, the naval foundation was weak, and the logistics needed to be supplied across the sea, so it was ultimately defeated by the Greek coalition army, which was familiar with the terrain and strong navy.
In 481 BC, The Qi State Secretary's Grand Master Tian Shi killed the Duke of Qi Jian and was "the government of Qi". Decades later, Zhao, Wei, and Han, as the Liuqing family within the Jin Dynasty, destroyed the Zhi clan, ending the history of mutual inversion and dividing up the Jin State, and the Jin State Ducal Office survived in name only. In 480 BC, the Athenian naval victory in the Battle of Salamis changed from attack to defense and declined. However, in the decades that followed, the Athenian-led Delosian League and the Spartan-centered Peloponnesian League fought the Peloponnesian War over the greek hegemony, the "shang ben" and the "agricultural base", the despotism and the ancient democracy. Eventually, due to the problems of public opinion, institutional rigidity, and excessive oppression of allies, Athens was forced to surrender to Sparta in 404 BC, the Delian League was dissolved, and Sparta became the Greek hegemon. The following year, the three families of Zhao, Wei, and Han were officially recognized by Zhou Tianzi, and the Central Plains began to enter the Warring States era, which was characterized by land annexation.
In summary, due to differences in geographical location, natural environment and other factors, the civilization areas of different geographical plates have had completely different integration models since the 8th century BC, but they have strengthened the economic development of the region. Among them, the Chinese civilization in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Greek civilization in the classical era, and the late Vedic era all had a balance of power order in which there were many states, and the fierce struggle for hegemony caused a wave of reform and the emergence of many schools of thought. Combined with its own geographical, economic and cultural factors, Huaxia carried out the initial tax reform to encourage farming, Athens carried out the Solon reform to promote the development of industry and commerce, and Persia carried out the Darius reform to consolidate its rule, and thus further deepened the great changes in the social structure.
Therefore, the reason why human civilization will have an axial era of concentrated outbreaks of ideological schools and the characteristics of "civilization resonance" is that it is necessary to find answers from multiple levels such as geography, economy, and politics. In a similar geographical environment, as the economic development of urban settled civilization (including farming and commerce) reaches a certain stage, it is inevitable to solve the mismatch between policies and economic structure through reform, which in turn promotes a new round of development of social civilization.