In the recently released TV series "Great Qin Fu", there is a Western Zhou Kingdom and an Eastern Zhou Kingdom. We know that the Zhou Dynasty was divided into Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou, so at the end of the Warring States period, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was almost over, so how could a Western Zhou kingdom emerge again? In fact, this Western Zhou is not the Western Zhou, and this Eastern Zhou is not the Eastern Zhou. They were not the Zhou Dynasty of Zhou Tianzi, but the princely states established by the princes. The book "Warring States Policy" we all know is a work that records the Zhongheng family in the Warring States period, the first two chapters of which are the "Eastern Zhou Strategy" and "Western Zhou Strategy" that introduce the Eastern and Western Zhou Dynasties, then the Seven Heroes of the Warring States, and finally the Song, Wei, and Zhongshan, and the main countries of the Warring States are all together.
So, how did these two countries come about, and what story happened, we have to start with the famous Zhou Gongdan.
The Zhou Dynasty got its name from the birthplace of Qishan Zhouyuan, and later King Wu of Zhou established the Western Zhou, and his younger brother Dan was divided here, so it was also called Zhou Gongdan, and today there are ruins of Zhou Gong Temple in Qishan, Shaanxi. That is to say, at that time, there was a Zhou Dynasty and a Zhou Principality at the same time. However, the Duke of Zhou was also divided into the state of Lu in present-day Qufu, Shandong. Therefore, the State of Lu was inherited by his eldest son, and the State of Zhou was inherited by his second son. Later, when King Li of Zhou came, the people of zhou rioted and expelled king Li, and the "Records of History" said that at that time, it was ruled by Zhou Dinggong and Zhao Mu Gong, which was called "republican administration", and Zhou Dinggong was the king of the Zhou state at that time.
After the fall of Western Zhou, the Duke of Zhou followed Zhou Tianzi and moved east to the eastern capital Luoyi, and The Duke of Zhou also got a fief nearby. Although Zhou Tianzi was already in a slump at that time, these Qing doctors at the bottom were still fighting very fiercely. In 579 BC, Zhou Gongchu lost a political struggle and fled to the Jin dynasty. The fiefdom of the Zhou Kingdom was taken back by Zhou Tianzi, and the Zhou Kingdom was destroyed. Later, until 440 BC, King Kao of Zhou unsealed his brother to the royal city, claiming to restore the sacrifice to the Duke of Zhou, after all, the Duke of Zhou was also a founding minister of the Zhou Dynasty, and he could not be allowed to break the incense. Jie was known as the Duke of Zhou Huan, and his son was called the Duke of Zhou Wei.
Duke Wei of Zhou was a prominent monarch during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, and he ascended the throne in 415 BC. At that time, aristocratic politics was shaky, and The cloth was on the stage of history. Zhou Weigong decisively promoted a number of civilian sages, including the earliest counselor Ning Yue mentioned in the "Treatise on Passing the Qin". The strength of the Zhou Kingdom developed rapidly, and at that time, there were many small states like the Zhou Kingdom in the Luoyi area, which served as the Qing Dafu of Zhou Tianzi on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were also hereditary monarchs. However, the Duke of Zhou Wei annexed them all, unifying the Luoyi region into the State of Zhou, and even Zhou Tianzi had no territory and could only rely on the Duke of Zhou Wei to survive.
Duke Wei of Zhou reigned for forty-eight years and died in 367 BC. After his death, the two Warring States Seven Heroes, Marquis Chenghou of Zhao and Marquis Yi of Han, who had long been eyeing the tiger, took advantage of the fire and robbery to send troops to support Duke Wei's young son Gen to compete with the crown prince for the throne. As a result, Prince Zigen took the throne at Wangcheng (王城, in present-day Luoyang, Henan) in the western part of the Zhou Dynasty, and was called the Duke of Zhou Hui, and the younger son took the throne at Gong (present-day Gongyi, Henan) in the eastern part of the Zhou Kingdom, also known as the Duke of Zhou. Both sides shouted that they were orthodox, and at that time, in order to distinguish, people called the Zhou kingdom of the dynasty the Western Zhou Kingdom, which also traced back to huan gong and Wei gong; the zhou state of the root was called the eastern zhou state. This is how the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou kingdoms of the Warring States period came about.
Because the Luoyi where Tianzi is located is occupied by the Eastern Zhou Kingdom, the Eastern Zhou State has the amulet of Zhou Tianzi, and the Western Zhou Kingdom also has a sacrifice to the Zhou Gong, so there will be no disaster of national subjugation in a short period of time, but it is not easy to survive and develop in the cracks between the great powers. Later, during the reign of Zhao Wenjun, the heir of Duke Hui of Eastern Zhou, he appointed the counselor Du He to join lianheng. Duch's proposition was that there was no need to bribe the princes, but to focus on making friends with potential celebrities. Among them were Zhang Yi, who was "angry and the princes were afraid", and Jing Cui, a Chu stateman, and later Zhang Yi served as the Xiangguo of the Qin State, and Jing Cui served as the Pillar State of the Chu State (equivalent to the Vice Minister), all of which ensured the safety of the Eastern Zhou State.
However, The Eastern Zhou Dynasty Zhaowenjun still had a headache, because the Western Zhou State was upstream of the Eastern Zhou Kingdom, controlling the water source and preventing the Eastern Zhou State from growing rice. A young man in the Eastern Zhou Kingdom proposed to send an envoy to the Western Zhou Kingdom. He saw the Western Zhou Gong and said, "Your plan is a bit excessive! If you don't release water, you are making the Eastern Zhou rich! They all grow wheat now. If you really want to harm them, why don't you put water and let them plant rice at once; wait until they plant rice and stop the water supply immediately, so that they are not going to submit to you? The Western Zhou Gong felt that the idea was good, and he obeyed. This two-headed young man was Su Qin, who later became famous.
It can be said that the Eastern and Western Zhou Kingdoms are groping for ways to survive in such adversities, not only recruiting famous people such as Ning Yue and Duhe from foreign countries, but also sending talents such as Zhang Yi and Su Qin to foreign countries, and also producing very powerful Zonghengjia themselves. For example, Zhou Zhi, the son of Emperor Zhaowenjun of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, wandered among the princes at that time and made many efforts to protect the Eastern Zhou state, and his influence at that time was no less than that of Su Qin. There are 21 stories about him in the Warring States Policy. However, when Tai Shi Gong wrote the "Records of History", he mistook his identity and misunderstood him as the son of Duke Wu of Western Zhou. Until the Discovery of the Northern Han Jian "Zhou Xun", it proved that Zhou was most of the Eastern Zhou people.
Although the dream of the Western Zhou Gong was not realized, there was a little unexpected surprise later. It turned out that at that time, king Zhou Zhao of Zhou Tianzi came from Eastern Zhou to Western Zhou, and the Western Zhou Kingdom also took in Zhou Tianzi. Of course, king Zhao of Zhou also had no power in the Western Zhou Kingdom and relied on the Duke of Western Zhou to survive. Later generations even have legends that the King of Zhou Zhao borrowed money from people and could not afford to pay it back, so he hid on a high platform to hide from the creditor, which is the origin of the idiom "high debt". Later, as the Qin state slowly grew, the east and west weeks also fell to the Qin state one after another. But in this way, it could not please the other princely states. King Xiang of Chu even made a promise to perish for two weeks and replace Zhou Tianzi himself.
In 256 BC, the Qin state failed to attack the Zhao state of Handan, and the famous general Bai Qi also committed suicide and died. The Duke Wu of Western Zhou decided to take advantage of this to rebel against Qin, so he secretly united with the princes and agreed to attack the Qin state in the Yique alliance. Unexpectedly, the princes had not yet come, but the Qin State had learned about it in advance. So King Zhaoxiang of Qin sent his generals to attack Western Zhou, and Duke Wu of Western Zhou had no choice but to go to atone for his sins and surrender to Qin, and in the same year, both The Duke wu of Western Zhou and the king of Zhou, who reigned for fifty-nine years, died, possibly executed or committed suicide in shame. The Zizhi Tongjian records that it was king Zhao of Zhou who atone for his sins and surrendered to Qin, which was caused by Sima Guangzun's concept of the Son of Heaven, and in fact it was the Duke Wu of Western Zhou who really conspired with Qin.
The death of King Zhao of Zhou represents the end of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The Western Zhou people, who were unwilling to surrender to Qin, had to flee east to the Eastern Zhou kingdom. Eastern Zhou Sijun had no choice but to conspire with Qin. Of course, this is something that qin does not want to see. In 249 BC, the newly enthroned King Xiang of Qinzhuang sent Xiangguo Lü Buwei to lead troops to attack the Eastern Zhou state, killing the Eastern Zhou sijun, and the Eastern Zhou state was destroyed. These two small princely states also had some influence in the Warring States period, but there were relatively few historical records, and the Western Zhou Kingdom, the Eastern Zhou Kingdom and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty were often referred to as "Zhou", which brought inconvenience to scholars' research, and the popularity was naturally smaller.
In summary, the State of Zhou was established in 440 BC, and by the death of Duke Wei of Zhou in 367 BC, it was divided into Western Zhou Huigong and Eastern Zhou Huigong, and the Western Zhou Huigong was passed down to The Western Zhou WuGong in 256 BC, and the Zhou Dynasty also perished in the same year; the Eastern Zhou Huigong passed on the Eastern Zhou Zhaowenjun to the Eastern Zhou Sijun in 249 BC, and the history of the Eastern and Western Zhou Dynasties officially ended.
bibliography:
Lü Wenyu: The Caiyi System of the Zhou Dynasty (Revised Edition), Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2006.
Yang Kuan: History of the Warring States, Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2016.
Yang Kuan: Chronicle of the Warring States Historical Materials, Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2016.
Zhang Yuanshan, "The Secret History of the Western Zhou Kingdom and the Eastern Zhou Kingdom" (Part 1), Social Science Forum, No. 12, 2013.
Zhang Yuanshan, "The Secret History of the Western Zhou Kingdom and the Eastern Zhou Kingdom" (Part 2), Social Science Forum, No. 12, 2013.
The author is Lin Wu Gongzi, a writer of literature and history, specializing in the history of the pre-Qin, Qin, and Han dynasties, mythological and youkai. He is the author of today's headlines, Wukong Q&A, Baidu Encyclopedia Ta said signed author, surging history, NetEase history, full history columnist, published "Pre-Qin Ancient Guozhi", "Pre-Qin Ancient Guozhi Wu Yue Chunqiu", "Shanhai Jing Complete Painting Collection", "Phantom: Ancient Chinese Gods zhizhi different atlas" physical books four kinds, works scattered in "National Humanistic History", "Beijing Evening News", "Together in the Boat" and other newspapers and magazines and self-media. Thanks for reading, welcome to pay attention!