Unit IX zhous come to power
I. Pretext exercises
Ex. 1. Make sure you know how to pronounce the following proper names:
Ex. 2. Practice the pronunciation of the following words:
environment, secular, sought, scriptures, rebellion, throughout, miserable, launch, heir, plough (plow AmE), quarrels, dozen, warfare, area.
Ex. 3. Guess the meaning of the following words:
institutionalized, authoritarian, priesthood, ascendancy, to ignore, warring, iron-working, cultivation, prestige.
Ex. 4. Look at the title of the text and trace the origin of the country and the period described in it.
Ex. 5. Before reading the text answer the following questions:
Can you recollect any names of China's prominent political figures of the past?
What periods of China's history have already been mentioned?
What events took place in the Near East, Egypt and India circa 1050 ВС?
II. Text IX zhous come to power
The Chinese divide history into dynasties rather than centuries, as is done in the West. Each dynasty has its own unique characteristics. Certain dynasties enhanced China, promoting the farming that gave the country its wealth. Inventors abounded in this environment, as did the sages of China who grappled with life's problems.
Unlike other world societies of that age, the Chinese sought harmony on secular rather than religious terms, so that China never produced an institutionalized religion with scriptures or the priesthood until the arrival of Buddhism. In political terms the Chinese were quite willing to accept authoritarian government as long as it offered stability.
The end of the Shang period came about 1050 ВС when a chieftain in the region of the Wei Valley, to the west of the Yellow River's great bend, challenged the Shang for control of the state at a time when a rebellion of slaves was in progress. His dynasty is known as the Zhou.
The Zhou moved the capital to Qangan, now Xian, where it remained throughout the period of their ascendancy. Their palace, the Luminous Hall, was renowned throughout the Chinese world. However, because the Chinese built in wood rather than stone, little remains of early Chinese buildings.
During the Zhou period the wealth of the country continued to grow as agricultural production expanded. Rents paid in kind by peasants kept the upper classes comfortable and peasants miserable. When the emperors prepared to launch a campaign against their enemies, they expected the nobility to provide detachments of troops. The problem was to keep the loyalty of the great landowners, for often the interests of the nobles and the emperor were not the same. The aristocrats built their own palaces, walled them, and ignored their duties to the emperor.
In 771 ВС an invading army killed Zhou emperor, and his son and heir was forced to flee to the east. Here he set up a new capital at Luoyang and a new Eastern Zhou dynastic period started. Once broken, the power of the emperors could not be regained, with the result that dozens of small principalities sprang up across the Chinese countryside. These principalities were at war with each other so often that Chinese historians call this period the Time of the Warring States.
Iron-working began in China about this time. This new technology made possible a change in the way that farming was done. Iron plows became common and allowed large numbers of people to move into the forests of the Yangtze Valley. With their axes the peasants cleared the trees from the land that was now placed under cultivation. As the northern Chinese assimilated the people of the Yangtze, they advanced a common Chinese civilization over a much broader area.
Warfare became more deadly as a result of iron weapons. The chariot was abandoned as individual horsemen, covered with iron armor, made up a mounted cavalry. During the Eastern Zhou period warfare over land and prestige was common, for the emperors were too weak to prevent quarrels among their vassals.
Notes
Pinyin is a system of writing the Chinese language in the Roman Alphabet. It is used in Western newspapers and other public documents. The word appeared in 1963 from the Chinese 'spell sound'. The system was originally introduced in China in 1958 and gradually adopted in the West in the mid-1970s. Pinyin replaces the earlier Wade system introduced in the mid-19th century. It is supposed to recreate more accurately the sound of spoken Chinese and has radically altered many common words, e.g. Beijing for Peking
Mao Zedong for Mao Tsetung