Late Zhou ChangesSummarized

1
Late Zhou Changes--Summarized

• The rise of si ministerial families further
  decline of aristocracy.
• A few states adopted county administration
  (Chu, later Qin) with districts under the direct
  control of the king through appointee.
• The si scholar-officials increased their role and
  ministerial families lessened theirs in Late
  Zhou.
• Economic competition that began in the Middle
  Zhou increased.
• Coinage was introduced, notably of gold, silver,
  etc., especially in Chu other stated adopted its
  use.
• Iron, first mined for its own sake in Middle Zhou
  by in Wu, became widespread as high carbon
  cast iron steel is almost as early.
• Iron transformed agricultural, economic and
  military sectors and increased inter-state
  competition, albeit over several centuries.
• There was a drastic reorganization of city
  architecture the ceremonial center with outlying
  workshops and cemetery became an urban,
  double-walled enclave for protection from
  neighboring states and tribal neighbors.
• Late Zhou saw the rise of infantry armies and
  mounted cavalry, further eroding the authority
  and role of the old aristocracy.
• There was increasing hostility from powerful
  groups on the northern frontiers.
• The legacy of Confucius a real-world philosophy
  of regulating inter-personal relations for the
  good of the state (filial piety, proper
  sacrifice) (next slide).

2
Confucius Philosophy on Government and Rule

• Confucius (Kung fu-tzu, Kongzi) lived in the
  Middle Zhou (551-479 B.C.) and was from a family
  of minor aristocrats. He left his minor post at
  the Lu court to be political advisor to several
  states.
• His philosophy was one of moral politics and just
  rule (e.g., harking back to the legend of the
  founding of Zhou) and it came at a time when
  hereditary power and authority were being
  challenged by men such as him.
• He is said to advise moderation and harmony in
  all things good government is based on analogy
  of the familyauthoritarian and hierarchical
  performing proper rituals was revived from Three
  Dynasties that he considered the Golden Age of
  China.
• He believed that human nature is good therefore,
  loyalty, reciprocity, dutifulness, filial and
  fraternal affection, courtesy, friendship and
  good faith were at the heart of moral leadership
  (moral failure of the king was grounds for his
  overthrow).
• His focus was on men of merit (merit, knowledge
  and understanding of his teachings underlie the
  later bureaucratic examination system.

3
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Confucianism
• Confucianism consists of writings about
  maintaining good orderan ethical system--in
  human society through the preservation of past
  values.
• It talks about restoring the way of the
  ancients--the moral values that are idealized in
  the past--and maintaining the elaborate structure
  of rituals in which those values were expressed.
  
• Filial piety was a virtue humankind fully
  realized itself in the perfect fulfillment of
  ones roles as subject, father, son friend,
  husband, etc.
• Confucius is silent on matters of religion
  (except to say, one should venerate only ones
  own ancestors). Hence, the irony that Han adopted
  Confucianism as an official cult, built temples
  and made sacrifices to Confucius own ancestral
  tablet. (This veneration has continued although
  during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s
  Legalism was elevated and Confucianism
  downgraded).
• Neo-Confucianism in Song times reaffirmed the
  classic one branch advocated for reform and
  promoted the moral responsibilities of the
  bureaucracyit was inherently conservative and
  paternalistically authoritarian.

4
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Mohism
• Its founder Mo Ti or Mo-tzu, 551-479 BC, was of
  humble origin and his doctrine had adherents for
  only a few hundred yearshe proposed novel
  doctrines and innovation of new ideas.
• The central principal was an equal concern for
  the benefit of all, without favor to oneself or
  ones own kinthis, like Christianity, is highly
  offensive to Confucians who placed family
  loyalties first.
• Mohism rejected aggression, saying state
  offensive wars were the same as crimes of
  violence, rejected useless luxuries, and rejected
  court extravagance.
• Mohists supported the rise of the scholar
  officials, the si, recommended promotion to
  office purely on merit, and, unlike Confucians,
  perceived Heaven as a personal power that loves
  good and hates evil.
• Later Mohists ignored or repudiated such current
  explanatory concepts as Yin and Yang, etc.

5
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Yin-Yang School
• Early Chinese thought is primarily moral and
  political however, this Late Zhou school used
  cosmology as a theoretical basis for both the
  political and moral order and for explaining and
  predicting the rise and fall of dynasties (it was
  incorporated whole into later Taoism and
  Confucianism).
• Yin-Yang expresses the cosmological schemes
  current far earlier only among diviners,
  astronomers and physicians, for example.
• Concepts are the pair Yin and Yang and the Five
  Agencies (elements)both are conceived as
  energetic fluids in the cosmos.
• Yin is female, low, earth, dark, cold Yang is
  male, high, heaven, light, hot.
• The Five Agencies, earth, wood, metal, fire and
  water, activate all groups of five such as the
  Five Colors (yellow, green, white, red and
  blackcolors on the altar of heaven in Shang
  capitals), and they take turns, each conquered by
  the next, in sequences like the rise and fall of
  dynasties.
• Zhou reigned by fire with the color red the
  coming dynasty would rule under the color
  blackindeed, Qin did choose black as its color.
• The appeal of Yin-Yang to later rationalist
  Confucians was in cosmic and earthly harmony,
  unity, etc.

6
Zhou Philosophical Schools of Governance

• Legalism
• Several state officials offered concepts of
  practical statecraft, scorning the moralism of
  Confucians and Mohiststhe concept of law was
  often central.
• One emphasized techniques of ruling (outcomes)
  others stressed law or power.
• Han Fei placed law first but recognized merit and
  power as important as well. Whether moral or
  not, what is important is the functioning of
  sound institutions.
• In the world of the past when land was plentiful,
  morality was sufficient to harmonize interests
  but in times of competition for resources moral
  constraints become ineffective.
• The ruler has his place in this social order and
  acts without regard for his own
  preferencespunish all who break the law, whether
  they be noble or peasant.
• The Legalist state is a machine for making war in
  which each occupation is judged by whether or not
  it contributes to the strength of the state (up
  with farmer and soldier down with scholar of the
  classics, merchants and hermits).
• Confucians and others hated Legalism but found
  their writings on practical statecraft useful.
• The recent Cultural Revolution extolled Legalism
  and the excesses of Emperor Qin (whose failure
  historiographers credited to following Legalism).

7
Zhou Philosophical Schools

• Taoism
• This tradition focuses on topics Confucians
  deliberately ignored but because it questions
  Confucian values it is sometimes placed in
  opposition Confucians opposed its occult focus.
• The most all-inclusive concept is the Way which
  means sole unseen reality lying behind
  appearances.
• Taoism involves the pursuit of immortality
  (originally, a transient being with a physical
  undying existence).
• Breathing exercises, use of elixirs brewed by
  alchemists, meditation, etc., were at times part
  of the tradition later Taoism borrowed from
  Buddhism and folk religion.
• Ritual was the main means Taoist priests earned
  their livingconducting rites of penitence,
  etc.ritually distinct from folk shamans is the
  burning written memorials to reach the spirits.
• Lao-tzu (one of a number of writers) after the
  fact became the Taoist sage said to be a rival of
  Confucius. He supposedly went west at the end of
  his life.
• Later in Han and after, some saw Buddhism as
  borne of his teachingshe was Buddha or taught
  Buddha--an assertion that was eliminated from
  Taoist texts by royal decree only in 1281 AD.

8
Cosmology and the City in Late Zhou States

• Late Zhou cites were more compact than Xia, Shang
  and Early Zhou, necessitated by increased
  hostilities in the regiontrue urban settlement
  developed.
• Underpinning urban form was a complex of ideas
  that saw parallelism between heaven and
  earththis translated into a symbolic center as
  part of the overall of space emphasis on
  cardinal compass directions proper siting of the
  city via geomancy, a form of divination, and
  altering terrain (landscaping).
• Symbolism of the center refers to the place an
  official calculated as the place where earth and
  sky meet, where the four seasons merge, where
  wind and rain are gathered in, and where ying and
  yang are in harmony.
• Here kings literally raised their palaces on
  platforms that they might scrupulously sacrifice
  to the upper and lower spirits, and from there
  govern as the central pivot.
• Zhou constructed an altar to the God of Soil in
  the capital, faced with colors appropriate to the
  cardinal directions eastCerulean (blue)
  Dragon, bursting vegetation of spring southRed
  Phoenix, fire of summer westWhite Tiger of
  autumn harvest northblack, facing the realm of
  darkness yellow capped the altar, yellow for
  Shang Ti on high (cover the altar and
  symbolically extinguish the kings reign).
• Main gates, palace and house doors, preferably
  face south in this scheme.

9
Idealized City form in China

• Illustrations from Wheatley 412, 415