Edward L. Shaughnessy

Warring States Political History

The two and a half centuries commonly known as the age of the Warring States (481–221 B.C.) witnessed the creation of the major political institutions that defined early imperial China. The old league of cities ruled by the Zhou nobility was replaced by a system of territorial states built around unchallenged monarchs who commanded a large number of dependent officials. These in turn were employed to register and mobilize the individual peasant households, primarily for the sake of imposing universal military service. The mass peasant armies of the period entailed the emergence of military specialists who were masters of the theories and techniques of warfare. At the same time, the needs of diplomatic maneuver produced theorists of stratagem and persuasion who formulated new models of interstate relations. The Zhou world was also reinvented as a geographic entity, both through expansion to the south and the southwest and through new patterns of physical mobility that marked differences of status. However, the writings of this period present no tidy portrait of politics or institutions. Since written materials were still rare, difficult to produce, and not widely diffused, “books” tended to emerge, evolve, and survive as the legacy of groups who defined themselves through loyalty to a common master. Members of these groups sought patrons who took an interest in the wisdom or expertise that they claimed to offer. As a consequence, the writings that preserve information about the political history of the period are pragmatic and factional. They are devoted to the policies, philosophies, and actions of those who actively participated in creating the new states, and they defend these actions or philosophies as uniquely efficacious.

The Spring and Autumn Period

This chapter is an account of various transformations that took place during the Spring and Autumn period (770–481 B.C.). It covers the transition from a Zhou feudal system to a multistate system; from the expansion of the Zhou into the Yellow River drainage to the ancient China that spanned the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers and the highlands in the north and the west; from an economy based on manorial management to a market economy; and from a family-based society to one based upon great social mobility. The most significant development in this period was a major break through in the intellectual sphere, in which the moral values of Confucius provided an innovative reinterpretation of feudal ethics. This break through brought Chinese culture into a Jaspersian “Axial Age” of civilization. Thereafter, intellectuals served not only as officials in government but, of more profound impact, also as cultural carriers who interpreted the meaning of life and ideals of society. This new condition in the intellectual sphere continued beyond the Spring and Autumn period, remaining characteristic through out Chinese history. In other words, this break through initiated in the Spring and Autumn period would eventually lead China to develop a persistent, collective identity – Chinese civilization.

The Northern Frontier in Pre–Imperial China

The northern frontier of China has long been recognized as something more than a simple line separating natural zones, political entities, or ethnic groups. This frontier has been represented as the birthplace of independent cultures and the habitat of peoples whose lifestyle, economic activities, social customs, and religious beliefs became, from the Bronze Age onward, gradually but increasingly distant from the civilization of the Central Plain. This distinct cultural region, often called the “Northern Zone” of China, comprises the interlocking desert, steppe, and forest regions from Heilong jiang and Jilin in the east to Xinjiang in the west. The frontier between China and the north has also been envisaged as a bundle of routes and avenues of communications through which peoples, ideas, goods, and faiths flowed incessantly between West and East. In economic terms, it provided the Chinese with a source of foreign goods as well as a market for domestic production. The process by which the northern frontier acquired these qualifications was a long one. While its complexities cannot be captured in a single image, the Great Wall – this symbolic and material line that came into existence as a unified system of fortifications with the establishment of the Qin empire in 221 B.C. – can be seen as the culmination of a long process of cultural differentiation that embraces several aspects.

Sources of Western Zhou history : inscribed bronze vessels

The thousands of ritual bronze vessels discovered by Chinas archaeologists serve as the major documentary source for the Western Zhou dynasty (1045-771 B.C.). These vessels contain long inscriptions full of detail on subjects as diverse as the military history of the period, the bureaucratic structure of the royal court, and lawsuits among the gentry. Moreover, being cast in bronze, the inscriptions preserve exactly the contemporary script and language. Shaughnessy has written a meticulous and detailed work on the historiography and interpretation of these objects. By demonstrating how the inscriptions are read and interpreted, Shaughnessy makes accessible in English some of the most important evidence about life in ancient China.

China on the Eve of the Historical Period

This volume describes a history of ancient China, though the term China, as the name of a modern country, did not exist until recent times. The civilization that we have come to identify with present-day China began to be formed perhaps a few thousand years ago, but its geographic scope has undergone continuous change, at no other time coinciding with the present political borders. Therefore, it should be borne in mind that in this chapter the geographical stage here called China is more like a short-hand name for one part of East Asia, east of the Altai Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. This is an area where early hominids came to settle, as they did in the rest of Eurasia, furnishing the basic populations among which an agricultural way of life began some ten thousand years ago. It is only then that one begins to recognize with in this area a distinctive civilization later to be called Chinese. When we describe the beginnings of the area’s human history, we cannot describe it totally separately from the rest of the human world before 10,000 years ago. the palaeographic stage of east asia and its settlement by humans In 1859 Charles Darwin presented his theory of evolution by natural selection, immediately generating an impassioned debate on the “antiquity of man.” He called on evidence from stratigraphical and faunal correlations, and although in the subsequent century and a half scientists in a number of disciplines have accumulated a great deal of new information, even now only a sketchy and controversial story can be told.

Language and Writing

No one needs to be persuaded that language plays a fundamental part in any society’s everyday activities and constitutes one of the most durable fibers in the tapestry of human history. Indeed, language is a defining feature of our species. The present chapter describes the structure, history, and setting of the Chinese language, as well as the first appearance and subsequent development of its script, over the millennium from 1200 B.C., the time of the earliest known written record of Chinese, down to the beginning of the imperial era, ca. 200 B.C. While this is primarily a linguistically slanted presentation, it is important to remain aware of the extent to which language history is intertwined with fundamental issues of cultural history in general. The historian may see in language history a rich record of the lives of real people played out in a real world setting and may find clues even to a people’s prehistory. These kinds of broad historical considerations depend on the narrower work of the linguist. For the linguist, language history is the sum of a painstakingly assembled collection of internal analyses of speech forms and phonetic formulas. The historical linguist is concerned with the evolution of sounds, words, and structures of language, and with linguistic affinities per se. The fact that the linguist’s work is accomplished with little reference to the associated nonlinguistic culture enables the linguist to make an especially valuable contribution to the overall historical study of a people by providing a body of evidence largely independent of the historian’s other sources.

The Art and Architecture of the Warring States Period

The Warring States period was an era of magnificent artistic creation and renewal in Chinese history. By the end of the Spring and Autumn period, changes within traditional ritual art and architecture had reached a critical point. Many new artistic and architectural forms, styles, and genres appeared during the following centuries and redefined the whole visual vista. In architecture, the city was reshaped and its internal structure reconfigured. Tall platforms and terrace pavilions won great favor from political patrons, replacing the deep, enclosed compound of a traditional temple or palace to determine the center of a city or palace town. With their monumental appearance and dazzling ornamentation, these architectural forms supplied powerful visual symbols much needed by the new elite. In art also, the reaction against ritual bronzes – the dominant artistic genre during the Shang and Western Zhou – continued. Although vessels and other equipment made for ceremonial usage never disappeared, the ritual occasions that they served had gone through fundamental transformations, becoming increasingly mundane. The commemorative inscription declined further. Ornate interlacing patterns or depictions of human events transformed a bronze vessel into a carrier of geometric decoration or pictorial representation. Monochrome vessels had gone out of fashion; lacquers and inlaid objects, both reflecting a fascination with fluent imagery and coloristic effects, enjoyed great popularity. Beautifully decorated mirrors, belt hooks, and other types of personal belongings became major showpieces. Lamps, screens, tables, and other objects of daily use were created as serious works of art; combining expensive materials, exquisite work manship, and exotic images, these objects best documented the desire for material possession and the taste for extravagance.

Recent Approaches to Oracle-Bone Periodization: A Review

The contribution of Qiu Xigui and Lin Yun to the debate over the proper dating of the Diviner Li-group inscriptions require a fundamental revision in oracle-bone periodization methodology. Starting with a review of Dong Zuobins reasons for placing the Li-group inscriptions in his period IV, this article proceeds to consider the new information provided by the Xiaotun nandi oracle-bone inscriptions excavated in 1973 and by the discovery of the Fu Hao tomb in 1975. Li Xueqins reason for dating the Diviner Li-group inscriptions as roughly contemporary with those of the Diviner Bin-group are summarized, followed by an account of the fuller discussions of Qiu and Lin. Qiu focuses in particular on the significant identity of personal names and specific events recorded in both inscription groups. The use of differing ancestral titles permits the division of the Li- and Bin-group inscriptions into different chronological segments and reveals that a significant percentage of the Diviner Bin-group inscriptions should be dated to the reign of Zu Geng. Lins epigraphic approach allows him to conclude that the Diviner Dui-group inscriptions are earlier than those of the Diviner Li-group; hence the Dui-group must also precede the Bin-group. The presence of different diviner groups operating contemporaneously and for only portions of a kings reign leads to the conclusion that Dong Zuobins periodization categories are now too vague. They should be replaced by the more precise categorization of diviner groups.

NEW EVIDENCE ON THE ZHOU CONQUEST

The inscription on the Li_ gui -£ij , a vessel unearthed in 1976 in Qishan county of Shaanxi province, by substantiating certain key as sertions of traditional Chinese historiography, has once again focused attention on King Wus conquest of the Shang and his consequent establishment of the Zhou dynasty. It is the expectation, and ever increasing reality, of discovering ancient records, usually in the form of bone or bronze inscriptions, that makes the study of early China so vibrant and open to new interpretations.

Zhouyuan Oracle-Bone Inscriptions: Entering the Research Stage?

In 1977, some 17,000 pieces of pyromantic turtle-shell, of which nearly 300 pieces were inscribed, were discovered at the site of the Zhou ancestral temple in Qishan, Shaanxi. Scholarship on this important inscriptional source has been hampered by the piecemeal nature of its publication. Now, Wang Yuxin, in his XiZhou jiagu tanlun , has brought together the information and conclusions of sixteen studies published through 1981. In addition, Wang has also presented his own research into the nature and periodization of these inscriptions. The author of this review article acknowledges Wangs contributions to the study of the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions, but finds fault not only with Wangs periodization but also with his assertion that a number of these inscriptions recording sacrifices to Shang ancestors manifest instead an exogamic relationship between the Shang and Zhou kings.