The History of China - #9 - W. Zhou 1: Heaven Does Not Make Propositions

Episode Date: January 12, 2014

The self-proclaimed Kung Wu of Zhou stands triumphant amid the smoking ruins of the Shang Dynasty... but though the war is over, victory is far from assured. With his premature death, his unready heir will prompt rebellion against the fledgling Zhou Dynasty - not only by the Shang remnant, but also his own uncles! To cement their hold on power, the Zhou will be forced to construct a new standard of legitimacy: The Mandate of Heaven. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War

and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts. Today's podcast is brought to you in part by Audible.com. By using the web address www.audibletrial.com slash China, you can receive a free audiobook download, along with a free 30-day trial of the service. With over 100,000 titles to choose from, for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player, Audible is the nation's leading seller and producer of spoken audio content. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 8. Evan Does Not Make Propositions

Last time, we chronicled the final days of the corrupted Shang Dynasty and the successful uprising of the Duke of Zhou, styling himself King Wu, leading to Zhou Xin's self-immolation as the rebel forces surrounded his capital, Yin. This week, we'll begin our look into the nominally longest dynasty in Chinese history, the Zhou. I say nominally because though there is roughly an 800-year period that had at least in name a Zhou king, we can, and in fact must, split that into subsections. First, the Western and Eastern Zhou periods, and then the Eastern Zhou must be further subdivided into what will be known as the Spring and Autumn period, and the Warring States period, respectively.

Trust me when I say that this is a super interesting time in Chinese history for a lot of reasons, but we'll cross those bridges when we get there. For now, we're focused on the shiny chrome exterior of the brand new Zhou Dynasty, under the sage leadership of King Wu. Now, with a change in dynasty comes the change of both political and ancestral capitals. Wu and his successors would make the effort to maintain Yin for quite a long time, but good taste and victor's spoils dictated that they relocate the capitals to their home turf, namely the twin cities on the river, Fengjing and Haojing,

collectively known as Feng Hao. You'll recall that Wu's father, the nominal King Wen, had moved the Duchy of Zhou's capital to the western bank of the Feng River, which provided a superior position to strike at the Shang capital. He called it Feng Jing. His son, in the post-victory afterglow, had constructed a second city on the eastern bank of the Feng and called it Haojing.

Now, you've probably noticed quite a lot of jings being flung around. So here's today's one-paragraph language lesson. The word jing means simply capital city. Thus, Fengjing was the capital on the Feng River, while Haojing meant the bright capital. Jing is also used in later capitals as well, and with about the same amount of imagination. The People's Republic of China's current capital is Beijing, or North Capital.

The PRC's predecessor state, the Republic of China, was based in Nanjing, or South Capital. But back to the Zhou Dynasty, the older Fengjing, for the time being, would serve as the Zhou Dynasty's ancestral capital. Across the river, the newer Haoxing would serve as the political capital and locus of power its own right, as well as being the eventual start point of the famous Silk Road. With his capitals duly established, King Wu set about implementing a plan of governance. His holdings were too vast to centrally administer, that much was certain, and so a solution needed to be constructed.

It came in the form of a system that would be called fengjian, which is largely, if not entirely, analogous to the medieval European feudal system. King Wu divided his territories into 16 zhuhou, or fiefs, and distributed them to his family and friends, with the highest positions given to his many younger brothers. The rulers of these states were granted large measures of autonomy in their own affairs, and the positions were hereditary, since Wu quickly realized that trying to directly administer such a large territory would prove impossible. As long as his underlings remained loyal to the throne, such a bureaucratic system would be preferable to centralized rule.

Within the nobility, there were five major titles created that one could hold below the throne. The highest position was gong, which can best be translated as duke. As in Europe, a duke was his territory's highest governor, answerable only to the king himself. Below him were his ho, or marquises. Incidentally, I am aware that the title marquis is pronounced in the UK as marquis, but since I took French in high school, I prefer the French pronunciation, so that's what I'll be going with. The position of marquis governed smaller districts within the territory, often along the borders. Just below the marquis was the position of beau, which can be translated as earl or count.

Counts were usually of a similar status as a marquis, but their counties were typically limited to the interior of the state and needed less military authority. Beneath the counts were their zi, or viscounts, and the lowest rank of the nobility were the nan, or barons. The Fengjian feudal system, though it began merely within the nobility, would grow over time to include the peasantry as well. This hierarchical social class system came to be known as the Four Occupations. Immediately below the nobility proper was the Shi class. The Shi started out as pretty much analogous to the knightly or equestrian classes of Europe. As petty nobility, they had the right to use chariots and hold command in battles. As a symbol

of their authority, they would typically be equipped with the jian, double-edged swords, as opposed to the common soldier's spears or halberds. So too did their clothing indicate their elevated status. While the rest of the peasantry were restricted to wearing trousers and shirts of simple linen, the Shi class, like the nobility above them, were permitted to wear flowing, ornate silk robes. Over time, though, and as the military command structure slowly shifted from favoring birthright to favoring competence, the hereditary shi class shifted from being analogous to a knight more towards a scholarly and learned clergyman who was responsible for overseeing and conducting matters of ceremony and ritual. The gradually declawed lower nobility

will eventually produce the great thinkers of this age, including Confucius, Mencius, and Sun Tzu. Below the knightly Shi was a social class of Nong, or landed peasant farmer. In modern parlance, thinking of a peasant farmer as being the highest non-noble class might seem rather odd but the nobility of ancient china understood and respected the pivotal role of the farmers in their agrarian society as food producers they formed the backbone of society and just as important to the government officials as land, they formed the backbone of their tax base. The Nong were the people who produced a vital good, and as such they were highly respected. Below these landed farmers were the Gong, or artisan workers and skilled craftsmen.

Like the Nong, they provided a range of vital services to their society, from metalworking to masonry to pottery and beyond. However, unlike the farming class, the typically urbanized Gong typically held little to no property and no land whatsoever, rendering them far less of a tax base than their Nong counterparts, and thus deemed a tier lower in society. Trade practices were typically passed directly from the father to son, but highly skilled craftsmen could eventually amass enough independent wealth to hire on additional apprentices. Thus, small-scale enterprises could spring up and eventually coalesce into more powerful trade

guilds. The final class of the Fengjian system were the merchants and traders known as the Shang class. Now it should be noted that these Shang have no relation to the dynastic house of Shang, and in a language as homophontastic as Chinese, we'll be running into these near-identical pronunciations of very different words quite often. Consider yourself warned. The Shang merchant class, though still essential to society, was deemed the lowest of the four occupations because they did not actually produce anything, and made their living merely peddling the creations of others. That's right, there was no respect for the middleman. Scholarly and courtly attitudes toward the traitor class were quite dismissive, often referring to them as greedy,

parasitic, and lacking moral character. It sounds almost like there was a hint of jealousy in the leveling of such criticisms, and that's maybe correct. The nobility were strictly forbidden from engaging in personal profiteering outside of their official salaries, but it didn't take long for many nobles to figure out a clever, if highly hypocritical, workaround to such an inconvenient prohibition. By the time of the Song dynasty in the second century of CE, the nobility on a large scale would almost routinely hire intermediaries to handle their business interests anonymously. But despite this blatant hypocrisy, outward disdain toward the merchant class from the nobility would be remarkably persistent. In fact, it won't be until the Ming dynasty, some 2300 years from this point,

that the merchant class will really begin bleeding into officialdom. Of course, under King Wu's reign, this system was only in its nascent stage, and Wu would have precious little time to oversee its implementation beyond the initial phase. Because less than three years after deposing Zhou Xin and ending the Shang Dynasty, King Wu of Zhou would meet his demise, leaving the throne to his eldest son, Prince Ji Song, in 1042 BCE. Upon ascending to power, Prince Jisong took the regal name of King Cheng, which means capable. Now this may have been wishful thinking on his part, because there was very little faith among the nobility that he would be very capable at all. Chief among their doubts was the new king's disturbing youth,

which made everyone quite nervous that he would be too weak to effectively rule. In what can arguably be seen as an affirmation of the young king's political inability to control his vassals, his eldest uncle, Jidan, the Duke of Zhou, swept into the capital and relieved his overmatched nephew by becoming regent to the king, thus directly administering the kingdom in Cheng's name. But whether this was just a blatant power grab, or a legitimate attempt to shore up

his nephew's shaky power base, the Duke of Zhou's self-appointed promotion to the regency seemed to have done little to assuage the Zhou nobility's fear, and to some extent may have stirred up the proverbial hornet's nest even more. Partisans of the former Shang dynasty, though they had been largely pardoned for their complicity, hadn't given up the ghost of restoring the Shang to power. This movement was headed by the eldest son of the late King Zou Xin, Prince Wugeng of Shang. On their own, the Shang remnant stood no chance against the superior might of the Zhou, and dared not act. However, within the Zhou nobility itself, Cheng's ineffective rule and the Duke of Zhou's contentious power grab

had earned the ire of several other dukes. This enmity would come to a head only five years into Cheng's reign, when three of the king's uncles, known as the Three Guards, joined their forces with the Shang remnant and began a rebellion against King Cheng and their regent brother. The three guards were Ji Guan, Ji Du, and Ji Huo, who are usually remembered as Xu Guan, Zhu Shu, and Shu Huo, with the character shu meaning uncle.

In spite of their sizable combined forces, the Duke of Zhou wasted little time in crushing their rebellion and capturing all four of its leaders. Uncle Guan, likely the mastermind of the whole ordeal, was executed for his treachery and to serve as an abject lesson that King Cheng and the Duke of Zhou were not about to tolerate such behavior, even from family. Uncle Xu was stripped of title and position, and lived out the rest of his life as a mere commoner. Likewise, Uncle Du was stripped of his position, exiled, and his former realm of Cai dissolved. Though this would turn out to be temporary, as Cheng would ultimately recreate the duchy and appoint Du's son, Ji Hu, as its duke.

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Come, visit ancient Egypt and experience a legendary culture. It isn't exactly clear what fate befell the scion of Shang, Wu Geng. Though, given the severity with which the Duke of Zhou was willing to punish his own brothers it is likely the prince of shang swiftly, I mean King Cheng, of course. Still, this show of instability had cast the Zhou dynasty itself into doubt, and lent credence to the continued propaganda from Shang diehards

insisting that the House of Zhou was an illegal and illegitimate usurper, and that only the line of Shang, descended from the god of heaven Shangdi himself, could legitimately rule the Hua Xia empire. This was not a detail the Zhou could afford to simply ignore, as up until King Wu's successful rebellion, the sole job qualification for king had been being descended from that

heavenly line. And while the Zhou were indeed a cadet house of the ancient emperor Ku, that was a fairly weak counterclaim. If the dynasty of Zhou was going to survive and put to bed this ongoing talk of Shang legitimacy once and for all, they needed to think of an alternate explanation of legitimacy and how in the world a line of kings appointed by heaven itself could possibly cease to have that authority. The solution put forth by the Duke of Zhou came to be known as the Mandate of Heaven.

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It could be The Hobbit, or if you'd rather something else, history, sci-fi, biographies, mysteries, Audible has more than 100,000 selections to choose from. To download your free audiobook today, go to audibletrial.com slash china. Again, that's audibletrial.com slash china for your free audiobook. Here, we come to the real meat of today's episode, because it's difficult to overstate the importance or far-reaching effects of the Mandate of Heaven doctrine. Put into practice more than 3,000 years ago, it remains to this day a concept of fundamental importance to China and much of Confucian Asia. At its most reductive, it can be at least partially understood as the Chinese iteration

of the divine right of kings, but this really glosses over the important subtleties of what would become one of Asia's most important social contracts. Divine right, as practiced by European monarchs, could not even jokingly be referred to as a social contract. It decreed that both the institution of monarchy and the monarch himself held absolute authority over their kingdom by the will of god himself and held it unconditionally thus at least conceptually there was no circumstance under which a sacrilegious and illegitimate act. But, while the Chinese mandate of heaven did indeed espouse a godly right to rule, it was fundamentally a conditional right, dependent on the virtuous and just behavior of the monarch. The sitting king, or eventually emperor,

was indeed the one and only son of heaven, and granted such a right to rule from heaven itself. But that which was given could also be revoked. The classic Book of Poetry elaborates, Before the sovereigns of the Shang dynasty had lost the hearts of the people, they could appear before God. Take warning from the house of Shang. The Great Decree is not easily preserved. By gaining the people, the kingdom is gained, and by losing the people, the kingdom is lost.

In the announcement to Kong, it is said, The decree, indeed, may not always rest on us. That is, goodness obtains the decree, and the want of goodness loses it. Much later, the first disciple of Confucius, Mencius, was recorded as having a dialogue with his student, Wanzang, and elaborated when asked whether a king could give up his right to rule. No, replied Mencius, the sovereign cannot give the throne to another. Yes, replied Wan Zhang, but King Xun had the throne.

Who gave it to him? Heaven gave it to him, was the answer. Wan Zhang inquired further. Did heaven confer its appointment on him with specific injunctions? Master Mencius replied, No, heaven does not make propositions. It simply showed its will by his personal conduct and his conduct of affairs. It caused the king to preside over sacrifices and the conduct of affairs.

The spirits were pleased and the people reposed under him. Thus the people accepted him. Heaven gave the throne to him. The people gave the throne to him. In other words, the leader of a rebellion fundamentally could not take the throne from a corrupt king. Rather, the people came to recognize the virtuous qualities of the would-be leader, and so the divine mandate to rule would come to him. Kingship could not be fought for or argued for in debate rather one could but humbly accept the overwhelmingly clear appointment of heaven as it became obvious through the popular will And should a king prove himself unvirtuous or tyrannical, their right to rule could and would be revoked spectacularly. Both the Shang and the Xia before them had been overwhelmed by the popular uprisings against their declines into cruelty.

The Shang had been so offensive to heaven that the weather itself had turned against their continued rule. Poverty, drought, and natural disasters, all of these indicated that heaven had grown dissatisfied with the earthly king. But the final nail in the coffin was, by necessity, the physical removal from power by the people. If a rebellion was successful, then it was retroactively obvious that the king had lost heaven's blessing to rule, and had backed a more fit candidate. But should any such rebellion be effectively suppressed, well, tough luck.

Your rebel army just went against the will of heaven itself. A key point to this theory is that heaven chose its would-be king not by blood or ancestry, but by his ability to rule effectively and justly. As such, it did not necessarily distinguish between those of ancient nobility or those of peasant ancestry. This will later be put into practice with the eventual establishment of the Han and Ming dynasties, respectively, both of which were founded by peasants who had been raised to lordhood. Nor was the mandate restricted to the Han Chinese themselves. Even foreigners could potentially come to legitimate power, should heaven will it so. Again, we'll eventually see the mandate used to justify just such an occupation during the

Yuan dynasty established by Kublai Khan and his overthrow of the Song state in the 13th century. Under the rule of the mandate of heaven, there could only ever be one legitimate ruler of the kingdom, and any other contenders for power were thus relegated to illegitimacy, illegality, or subordination to the throne. Conceptually, the Mandate has proved amazingly enduring, so much so that while no longer officially espoused, in practice it still provides the core of dominant political philosophy of both mainland China and Taiwan. The mandate of heaven lives on in what is today called the One China Principle, which asserts that there has been and only ever can be one legitimate ruling body of the inalterably unified Chinese state. In fact, one of my all-time favorite pieces of international policy is the 1992 consensus between the Republic of China in Taipei and the People's Republic of

China in Beijing. To paraphrase the main point of the document, it concludes that both the PRC and ROC agree in principle with there only and always being one indivisible state of China, which includes the entirety of the mainland as well as the entirety of Taiwan and its associated islands. It goes on to assert that both parties also agree to disagree over what exactly that means in practice thus both can continue to assert their legitimacy both can continue to claim sovereignty and both can continue to enjoy the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, though, one might look at the element of populism inherent in the Mandate of Heaven and conclude that it might be a destabilizing force for the monarchy. If the authority of heaven is ultimately expressed through the people themselves, after all, that starts to sound a little bit like mob rule. But as the forthcoming three millennia of monarchy attests,

it was actually a powerful stabilizing force for dynastic rule. By investing the people themselves with a final resort, well, only resort, in fact, to instigate a legitimate regime change, it heavily incentivized the sitting monarch to behave himself and govern based on what is best for the populace, rather than simply his whims. After all, if the king managed to irk so much of the population that they were willing to rise up against him en masse, well, he deserved his fate. As such, the Duke of Zhou's philosophy asserted that the Shang and the Xia before them both had been the legitimate sole rulers of the empire, but both had fundamentally

lost that right to rule through their own actions. Thus, the Zhou dynasty now legitimately held power because they had been divinely appointed to have it when the Shang had proved unworthy, and they would retain that mandate as long as they reigned in such a way that the people benefited. So, rebellions quelled and legitimacy firmly retconned into place, the Duke of Zhou turned his attention to other, more immediately practical affairs. Though Feng Hao continued to be a valuable site from which to govern, there were a few issues that needed to be taken care of. For one, the nine tripod cauldrons, immensely heavy as they were, still remained in yin.

King Wu had put them on public display there before his demise, but that had further incensed the remnants of Shang, who felt the cauldrons too ceremonially important to be some mere display item. Further, having the king on hand tended to make him feel as though he ought to have a part in the important decisions of state, quite annoying to a regent with more important things to do than run every little thing by his nephew. So to kill these two birds with a single stone, the Duke of Zhou ordered the construction of a new Zhou holy ancestral capital,

some 235 miles to the east of Fenghao. This new city would be called Luoyang, whose name meant that it sat on the sunny side of the lower river in Henan. The new holy city would be constructed according to exact geomantic principles, which are better known as the principles of feng shui. At the time, the site was considered to be the exact geographic center of the Middle Kingdom, making it a ritualistically important site. Those Shang loyalists who had so whined about the misuse of the tripod cauldrons would now be invited to accompany them to Luoyang. The Duke of Zhou then informed King Cheng of the cauldron's new city and their ritualistic

importance to the kingdom. As the king was, of course, the highest spiritual authority in the land, it was of absolute importance that his royal highness also make his residence in Luoyang so that he could oversee these geomantic rituals and offer the appropriate sacrifices to the spirits. King Cheng agreed and departed at once to oversee this important affair, leaving the Duke of Zhou in Feng Hao to exercise his de facto control over the Zhou Kingdom in relative peace and quiet. This would remain the situation for the remainder of Cheng's reign, up until his death in 1021 BCE. Cheng was largely the figurehead and spiritual leader,

while his uncle was more the governor of the corporeal affairs of the land, including the endless expansionism and resultant battles. Next time, we'll pick up with the reign of Cheng's eldest son, Prince Ji Zhao, who will take the regal name of, no, I'm not making this up, King Kong of Zhao. Living in China, mailing items back to the U.S. can be quite a hassle sometimes. But you don't have to be living an ocean away to dread the idea of going to the post office. The lines, the jostling, it's a real bother.

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