From the perspective of the new era, comment on the rise of the Western Zhou

According to the "History of Zhou Benji", his mother Jiang Yan stepped on the footprints of giants and abandoned them after a sense of abandonment. Because he abandoned jiahuo, Emperor Yao appointed him a farmer and enfeoffed him in Tai (邰, in present-day Wugong County, Shaanxi Province). And according to the records in the Book of Poetry, Lu Song and The Palace of the People's Republic of China, it can be confirmed that Hou Ji came from the Xia clan.

According to modern archaeologists, the underground cultural relics found in the Jingwei River Valley and the excavated pottery relics also belong to the faience culture system, which is the early sphere of influence of the Zhou people. It can be seen that whether from ancient historical legends or underground ruins, it can be proved that the Zhou people belong to the Xia branch, so historians call the Zhou people the Western Xia, which is based on the above two points.

However, the Zhou people originated in the West, and according to the "Records of History", from the time of their distant ancestor Bu Cave (Descendants of Hou Ji), that is, "running between Rong Di", until gong Liu, they lived next to the Qiang and other tribes for a long time. Therefore, the Zhou people may have married the Qiang and other ethnic groups in the early stage of development (see Luo Xianglin's "History of the Chinese Nation: The Composition of the Chinese National System").

During the reign of King Wu, he repeatedly called himself the "Master of the Western Soil", and Mencius also stated: "King Wen of Xiyi". The above content can also be circumstantial evidence of the relationship between the Zhou and Qiang and other ethnic groups.

According to the Records of History, the Zhou people began to "establish a state in Feng County ( present-day Ying County , Shaanxi Province ) " after Gong Liu and began to engage in agricultural cultivation , so the population of the Zhou people increased rapidly , and animal husbandry and handicrafts also developed rapidly, which is the so-called "Zhou Dao xing from this beginning".

Thereafter, the Zhou people lived in Qidi until the 9th Emperor's reign (1327 BC, the 26th year of the 19th Emperor Xiaoyi of the Shang Dynasty), who, under the oppression of Rong Di, left the land and migrated to the Qixia region (present-day Qishan County, Shaanxi Province). After the Zhou people migrated to Qi'an to settle down, under the leadership of Gu Gong's father, the Zhou people began to abandon the Rong Di customs and instead built cities, houses and other buildings to completely settle down. It can be seen that for a long time before this, at the level of cultural life, Zhou Ren and Rong Di were almost the same.

The area around Qishan is the most fertile area in the ancient Weihe River Valley, which is very suitable for cultivation. Therefore, after the Zhou people moved here, agriculture developed particularly rapidly, and handicraft industry also developed rapidly. There is a record of this in the tenth chapter of the "Gong Liu" chapter of the "Poetry Daya Shengmin", that is, it reflects the progress of production technology of the Zhou people at that time.

From the father of the ancient gong to the king of Wen through the Ji calendar (the father of the young son of The Younger Son King Wen) to the King of Wen, when the Zhou clan's power developed and grew, it was equivalent to the period of Emperor Wuyi of Yin, Emperor Yi to Emperor Huan. During this period, the Population of the Zhou Clan grew rapidly, the economy gradually prospered, and the strength of the clan was also growing, so the Zhou Clan expanded many times since the Seasonal Calendar Period, such as the record of "Kou Zhou" in the oracle bones unearthed from the Yin Ruins, which is basically the event that occurred during this period.