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From the victory of King Wu in 1046 BC to the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC, the short history of the Western Zhou Dynasty of 276 years (more than 500 years of the "Eight Hundred Years of the Zhou Dynasty" were Spring and Autumn Warring States), but it was a mature stage of the early Chinese state.
The great sage Confucius especially missed the Western Zhou Dynasty (probably in the Spring and Autumn Period, when the princes fought for hegemony, he was afraid and feared, and yearned for the stability of the previous dynasty), and once praised: "Melancholy and wenya!" I congratulated Zhou. ”
So what "legacy" does this history of the Western Zhou Dynasty leave for future generations?
The first and greatest "legacy" is to expand the influence of the Central Plains on the "Four Sides" and accelerate the integration of the Central Plains culture and the Four Directions culture through the division of vassals and feudal statehood.
In terms of their ruling areas, the princes of the Western Zhou Dynasty extended north to present-day Beijing and its northern regions (Yan), east to present-day Shandong (Qi, Lu, etc.), southeast to present-day Zhejiang (Wu, Yue, etc.), south to present-day Hubei (Chu, Hubei, etc.), and west to present-day Gansu (Qin).
At the same time, the princely states far away from the Wanggi region continued to communicate and integrate with the Rong, Yi, Man, Qiang and other tribes in the four directions through war, trade and other means.
Second, through the division of seals, it laid the foundation for the emergence of regional political and economic centers of the countries during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
After the Zhou people destroyed the merchants, they implemented large-scale sealing measures, sealing a large number of children with the same surname and relatives with different surnames to various parts of the four directions. These newly created princely states, such as Lu, Qi, Wei, Jin, Yan and other states, further complicated the composition of the population, including the Zhou people, the Yin remnants, and the local indigenous people, and the speed of ethnic integration accelerated.
In addition, the recipients also brought the institutional culture of the Western Zhou Dynasty from the Central Plains, combined with the local culture, and finally formed a number of regional political and cultural centers.
Third, the division of the Western Zhou Dynasty was based on the principle of "under the whole world, it is not the royal land; On the premise of "leading the land and the shores, it is not Wang Chen" as the premise, and the political tradition of "rule of large regions" has been formed in terms of concept.
Although the Zhou people ruled the world by "sharing" with the nobles, and the division eventually laid the foundation for the formation of the nations, there was always a cultural tradition of "large regions" based on the Zhou culture of the dynastic region. Even during the Warring States period, when the annexation war was most intense and turbulent, people clearly knew that the historical trend of "the world is set in one" was irreversible.
Chinese always like to say that "a long time must be divided, and a long time must be united", and there have indeed been several periods of division in history that are not short periods of time, and I always firmly believe that we will return to the state of "unity under heaven", and eventually return to the state of "unity of the world".
Fourth, even the "partition" itself has always been an option for future rulers to govern the country.
Although the Qin Dynasty adopted the rule model of "counties and counties" after unifying the world, in the following early Western Han Dynasty, it was still divided into princes, first princes with different surnames, and then princes with the same surname. Although since the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" in the Western Jin Dynasty, the successive dynasties have almost no longer adopted the method of substantively dividing the clan chamber into princes, but the form of giving the clan chamber fiefdom has been retained. Of course, the emperor constantly strengthened the methods of guarding against the clan family, and there were still endless cases of the clan coveting the imperial throne on the basis of fengyi.
Nevertheless, when politicians and scholars of the past reflected on the shortcomings of the emperor's centralization of power, they still thought of the advantages of the separation of powers, namely local decentralization and autonomy.
Fifth, the patriarchal law of the Western Zhou Dynasty left a deep impression on future generations.
Under the patriarchal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the father was both the sect prince and the honorable chief, and the righteousness of the prince was equal to the blood relatives of the father and son. The combination of blood clan groups and geopolitics was a major feature of Western Zhou politics and an important part of ancient Chinese political culture.
The patriarchal system gave birth to a social ethical system based on "family", the concepts of "loyalty" and "filial piety", the scholars' people were inspired by the ideal of "ruling the country and the world by the Qi family", ancestral halls, genealogy, Yitian, clan rights, patriarchal rights and husband's rights, etc., all of which are the "legacies" of the patriarchal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
These are some of the main aspects of the Western Zhou Dynasty's important influence on later generations.
The integration of the Central Plains culture and the four cultures, the formation of regional political and economic centers in various regions, the political tradition of "large regional rule", the political options of division and local autonomy, and the patriarchal system all occurred and advanced periodically in later dynasties, and finally formed the genetic characteristics of "traditional Chinese culture".
History is not repetitive, but it can be passed on and evolved.
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