Rise and Fall of the Zhou Dynasty : The Longest lasting of any in China's history

Hello friends, I am Suman Choudhury and you all are heartily welcome on the platform of Success Plus Academy. So friends, in today's video we are going to talk about the longest ruling dynasty in the history of China, which ruled the land of China for about 800 years. Whose name is Zhou Dynasty, we will read its history. We will know how did the Zhou Dynasty rise? How did it rule? What were its branches? What kind of geographical region was it where they ruled? How did they grow in economic perspective? What kind of development took place? How was the art architecture? How was the social structure? How was the political structure? And after that how did it decline? And what are their achievements and what is their legacy? So we will include all these aspects in the discussion here. Now friends, when it comes to the history of China, I recently started a series on the history of China. Then first of all I taught this video, in which I taught you the entire history of China, from the time when humans started living on the land of China, from the time we find its remains, how has the history of China been from there till now? Which civilizations existed here? Which cultures existed? Which dynasties ruled here? After that over the period of time China has changed. Today China is the second largest economy in the world and the third largest country in terms of area. It is also the second largest country in terms of population. So, the history of this country is very long, which we have read in this one video in two hours. But now we are reading in order that if we read the history of China in a Karmagot way, different dynasties, different civilizations, separately, then what do we get to see? So if we talk about the Stone Age, the remains of human beings living there from 17 lakh years ago or 20 lakh years ago are found in the Paleolithic period. In the Stone Age, we can see how they made a living there. So Homo erectus lived there. After that, there is a period up to 10,000 BC in which there is not much to know about human civilization. They used stone bridges. They used to do hunter-gathering. So these were all the things. They were a nomadic species. After that comes the Neolithic and Bronze period. In the Neolithic, they used stone tools but they started agriculture. They started domesticating animals. They started living together. They became social. So at that time some cultures developed. Some civilizations developed. So the Cradle of Civilizations or the Yellow River Valley Civilizations were the ones in which many cultures developed. We have also studied that. We have read it in this video as well as separately. So if you search the name of Success Plus Academy along with Yellow River Valley Civilization, you will get to know what the most ancient civilizations of Chinese history were like. After that, we are currently studying the Early Dynasty period. There were three dynasties in the Early Dynasty period. The first was the Zhao Dynasty or Xia Dynasty as it is called. Then comes the Shang Dynasty and then comes the Zhou Dynasty which we will study now. So, we have already read these two dynasties separately and earlier as well. After that comes the period of Imperial Dynasty. The period of Imperial China comes between 221 BC to 1912. In which many dynasties came. In which if we read the dynasties, then this dynasty was the Early Dynasties which we are studying now. After that, the period of China Dynasty from here to the period of Qing Dynasty is called the period of Imperial China. In this period, many dynasties ruled over China. Many emperors came here. Now what happens after this time? During the time of Qing Dynasty, a very big revolution takes place in 1912 and in that revolution, monarchy is abolished and a republic form of government is established. In the Republic of Government, the democratic people win. The democratic function and the nationalist function win. But this period was between 1912 and 1949. In this, the First World War also took place. The Second World War also took place. Japan also attacked China and a civil war also took place in China. So that civil war took place between whom? The Nationalist Democrats were on one side and the Communists were on the other side. So, in the end the Communists win and after the victory of the Communists, the People's Republic of China comes into existence and that country has been running since 1949. We see it in this form, the red China that you see today is called Communist China, People's Republic of China, or it has these names, Mainland China, these are its names, okay? And the nationalists remain confined to Taiwan only, which is called Republic of China or Taiwan, okay? So this is the China of your friends whose map you are looking at and I tell you one thing every time in the map that whenever you read about China or Pakistan, you will often find a map confusing. We know that this is the map of our country India. But when you use the map of China for study purposes, then many times this area will be shown as belonging to China. These people will say that this area in Arunachal belongs to China. Why? Because they claim that it belongs to them. Now the Aksai Chin region was illegally taken over by China after the 1962 war. Pakistan has occupied some part of Kashmir since 1947. Illegally, we call it Pak. So this is the map of India. But even though we accept this map, some part of this area has been occupied by China. Some part has been occupied by Pakistan. So you can see that map somewhere. Because when we look at the map, you will not find all the maps from the Indian perspective. Okay? So keep this in mind. Now this dynasty is like this. But it is pronounced like this. This dynasty was the dynasty that ruled between 1046 to 256 BC. You can see that the history of China is approximately 800 years or 790 years. This is the only dynasty of China that ruled for the longest period of time, which was 790 years in history. Now this is also divided into two parts. There were two periods. One was Western Zhou who ruled from 1046 to 771 BC. And then Eastern Zhou ruled from 771 to 256 BC. Now the dynasty was the same, but they changed the capital. The capital shifted from one place to another. And during the time of Western Zhou, the dynasty was a little strong. The king was important. People respected the emperor. But during the time of Eastern Zhou, the period was a little up and down in which there is spring autumn period and warring state period in which basically some small kingdoms become economically strong. Due to being strong, they also rebel. In some places, people fight among themselves to grab power. And the power of the emperor of the dynasty keeps on decreasing over the period of time. There is a declining phase of the dynasty. But even then till 256 BC, they are in the ruling stage and they have the power of an emperor. Now this dynasty, your dynasty, the dynasty before this was the Shang dynasty, which ruled between 1600 and 1046. And the dynasty that comes after this, which is the dynasty of Imperial China, the first one is called Qin dynasty. That is the Qin dynasty, named after the same Qin dynasty. Now its name is Qien, but it is called Qin. And this Qin became the basis of the name. Today's China, which you call it or China, which is called China, is named after this Qin dynasty. Okay? Keep this in mind. So this was the map of the dynasty. This was the capital of the Western dynasty earlier and this was the capital of the Eastern dynasty. So this is the map of the dynasty. This is roughly the map. This was the capital once. Then this was the capital. So the capital of the East was there. So it was called Eastern dynasty and the capital of the West was there. So it came to be called Western dynasty. Now look at this map as well. This is the map of the Shang dynasty. This is also the map of the Shang dynasty. This is of the Xia dynasty as well as of the Zhu dynasty. The area that is visible in the middle of the green color in this, between this green line, was of the oldest dynasty of the history of China, the Xia Dynasty. Then after that, the map that you see mainly in red color, in deep red and in light red and pink, is your map of the Shang Dynasty. That is, just the map before your dynasty. Recently I have taught you the Shishong Dynasty. Even later, there comes a dynasty, what is its name? Where do you see that dynasty and that map? In this box, this region of yours, this dynasty has both Eastern and Western included in it, the capital of Eastern is here and the capital of Western is here. So this is what you have to keep in mind. Look at the map as well. This one in green color is the oldest dynasty, Xia Dynasty. This is Shang Dynasty and this one in yellow color which is visible from outside is your dynasty and here also you see China Dynasty. China Dynasty means the dynasty that came after China Dynasty, right? You have to see this from your geographical perspective. Now, from the time of Shang Dynasty, even from the concept of Xia Dynasty and from the time before when there was no dynasty order, we come to know one thing in the traditional history of China and in their mythical stories. There is a discussion about the concept of mandate of heaven. Now what was the concept of mandate of heaven? Basically, it is that a king gets this right at the behest of God. He gets the right to rule over the people of China. It means that a person gets the right to rule at the behest of God or at the behest of God There were some principles of this too that a person gets the right to rule. And because there is only one heaven, there is only one God. Their concept of one God does not mean one religion. The people of China were considered to be of the same kind of people, there is only one ethnic group, and there is basically only one world above in which there may be many gods, but there is only one heaven. Only one ruler can get the order from one heaven. Only one person can get the order to go and rule. Okay? Now this right to rule is not permanent. It cannot be permanent at all. This is a right in such a way that as long as the person is ruling according to God's will, in a divine manner, fulfilling his responsibilities properly, he has got the mandate of heaven. If he breaks those rules and regulations and starts ruling according to his own will, if he adopts the wrong way, wrong conduct, then he can snatch away the mandate of heaven. So this right, the right to rule, is given according to virtue. It is given on the basis of qualities. It is not that any person will get it on the basis of his family. Even if his qualities are good, he will get it. And it is also not that this right to rule can be given to any one dynasty. It will be given to people of only one family. It is not like that. Today it is with someone, tomorrow it can go to some other dynasty. So, in the earlier times of Chinese history, when the Yellow Emperor was a very ancient and the oldest emperor, in their traditional history, since their time, there was a concept of mandate of heaven that they have received orders from God. God has given us the right to rule over you people. So this concept was there even before and then during the time of Shang dynasty, it became very strong and then later the dynasty also accepted it and adopted it because this concept of mandate of heaven gives strength to a king. It provides strength and proof. Why? Because if the king is told that the king has got this right to rule by the will of God, then how much impact will it have on the people? There will be psychological pressure that no one will challenge the authority of the king, no one will rebel. However, this has not always been the case. Earlier also many people have protested, rebelled during the time of Shia dynasty as well as Shang dynasty and people say this and later challenge that you people are ruling wrongly, the right of mandate of heaven has been taken away from you. So things happen like this too. So many rulers have been disposed of in the name that the right of rule of mandate of heaven has been taken away from you. Therefore now a new dynasty will be established. So first Shia dynasty also ended in this way, then came Shang dynasty, then Shang dynasty also ended in this way. And then the reason for the existence of your dynasty was that they got the mandate of heaven. So in the western period, their rulers were strong. Even though they had decentralized their power, they had rights and they were militarily well occupied. They were well equipped. They had a very good military. Then in the eastern period, the authority had weakened. Basically, it had changed from mayor to ceremonial. They were simply considered to be the ruler of the dynasty, but the other rulers under him, who were states, decentralized states, had more power. So, in the eastern period, the importance of the king had diminished. Okay? Keep this in mind. During the eastern period, the king had become weak. Now, during the western period, the power was decentralized. What does decentralization mean? That a king has a big state, brother. This is his entire kingdom. This is an empire. Do whatever you want. It was divided into different parts, divided among noble families, among royal houses, that this man will rule it. This man will do this to this man. And all these people will ultimately respect the king-emperor and consider him their superior. Okay? So all of them were subordinate to the emperor. But when these people become powerful, will they obviously give respect to the king? Will they respect the king as much as he should get or will they not get the respect he thinks he will get? So they were getting it during the east-western period. The emperors were getting respect. But later it did not happen and these people started fighting among themselves. These small states started fighting among themselves because they became economically strong. That is called the spring and autumn period. Then they fought and changed into seven states. Meaning, earlier there were 20 states. Let's say they broke into small ones and then seven strong states were formed which were economically and militarily strong. They started fighting among themselves. So they started fighting. That period is called the warring state period. So the autumn and spring and autumn period ran from 742 to 476. Then between 476 to 260 BC or 221 BC, the boring state period ran. Now even though you see in this period that there were many wars, you see a lot of political instability. Political instability is visible. No single king had complete central power. Not much authority was accepted. But even in this period, a lot of development took place here. From a social point of view, philosophically, a lot of development took place here. Many philosophies developed here. Like Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Philogelism. We will read about them. Which are called the 100 schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. We will read about them. Just like we read the philosophy of the West. Ah, just like we read the philosophy of Greece. We will also read their philosophy. We will also read Indian philosophy and that series will start soon. Now the Eastern Kingdom had shifted its capital to Luoyang. Like the capital was earlier here in the West, it was in the modern city of Xi'an. Later this capital was shifted here to Luoyang. So the capital was on this side. Earlier the capital was on this side. And earlier there was Chinese feudalism here. Chinese feudalism had risen. There was development. There was decentralization. And by the time this period came those decentralized states, those small kingdoms started fighting among themselves. Which is called the Spring and Autumn Period. Then in the Spring and Autumn Period, fighting and quarreling, finally seven kingdoms were left which were powerful. Then those seven kingdoms were fighting among themselves and one day what happened was that a powerful kingdom won. Out of that, the one which is called Qin Kingdom and that became the Qing Empire, that is the next dynasty of China. So keep this in mind that in this period of Eastern Zhou, when the Emperor of Eastern Zhou became weak, many people assumed that the ruler has become weak and the mandate of heaven has been snatched away from him. Keep this in mind. Okay? After that comes the question of this thing of the Zhou Dynasty. How did it rise? Then how was it disposed of? So, we are reading that right now. I am giving you an overview. So, in the Warring States Period, then finally, when the Warring Stage Period ended, I just told you, this slide has come later that a kingdom named Qin or Qin emerged as the most superior and it ended the Zhou Dynasty and also ended the Warring Stage Period in United China, again. This is it. In this kingdom period, philosophical development, development of writing, development of metallurgy, changes in warfare, many things happened. Social change because it was a period of 800 years and civilization was rising and growing. Even though there was not much political stability, things were changing and evolution was taking place in society. This is an overview of the dynasty. Now let's talk about how it rose. How did the Shang Dynasty that existed earlier end and how did this dynasty rise? So, first of all, if you have read the dynasty, you have not read it, then you are reading it now. If you have read the Shang Dynasty, I had just taught you, then at that time I had told you that there are stories in it. One is a mythical story about how mythically the dynasty rose, who was what 13 generations before that. But if you look at it from a historical perspective, then you know that earlier there was the Xia Dynasty. Because of a turn ruler of the Xia Dynasty, the mandate of heaven went away from their hands. Then after the Xia Dynasty, there comes a leader of the Shang Dynasty whose name is Teng who is the first ruler of the Shang Dynasty. What did he do? He established a kingdom which was called the Shang Kingdom. It was called the period of the Shang Dynasty. He centralized the power. Stabilized it. He made China progress economically and culturally. He did a lot and he did a lot of work in the area around the Yellow River to improve harvesting in the fertile land. He brought about economic growth and also laid a basic foundation by building many urban centers. So basically they also had an agricultural surplus. So there was a period of prosperity during the Shang Dynasty. Which period can you say is the first one? The Golden Period came during the time of the Shang Dynasty. Then there were many golden periods in the times to come. Many situations like civil wars also came in the history of China. Warring stage periods also came. But there were good periods, periods of prosperity. In that, the region of Erligong and Anyiong had urban centers. Work was done in all these fields like art, architecture, culture, religion during the period of the Shang Dynasty. The Shang Dynasty was going on well. But what happens later? The rulers of the Shang Dynasty also become dictatorial and start following their own will. If they start following their own will, the mandate of heaven will be lost. So, this happened to them as well. The Xian people were experts in many fields. In making jewelry, metallurgy, etc. They also made a calendar. They also invented the innovation of writings of oracle bones. They also made music and musical instruments. They also practiced ancestor worship. The concept of T.A.W.Z.M was prevalent since their time. They also developed the religious concept of mandate of heaven a lot. They used to make silk, trade silk. They used to do all these things. So, everything was going well during the time of Shang Dynasty. But what happened later Shang? The last emperor of the Shang Dynasty, his name was also now the name of the dynasty that came after the Shang Dynasty and the emperor of that dynasty, the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, was also called Qin or Jin. So, this ruler was a tyrant. People did not like him. By the time he came, the mandate of heaven, that is, the mandate to rule from heaven, was snatched from him. And after that, there is a person here who is from a place named Qin. What can you say? There is a small province inside the kingdom. Now, this has come to your mind many times. The first dynasty that we are reading about is the dynasty. The last ruler of the Shang Dynasty that existed before this is also the one from where the man who challenged the last ruler comes. So, basically, it is that a person named Wen challenges this person named Jin and then his son, Wen's son's name is Wu. King Wu overthrows the power of Shang. He removes this Shang ruler from here, disposes him and establishes the dynasty in 1046 BCE. Okay? He ruled for 3-4 years between 1046 and 1043. But he established the kingdom by ending the Shang Dynasty. So the dynasty starts from here in 1046. Now what did King Wu do? He established the central government. He established it on both sides of the Fen River. So he declared it as a government named Fenghou. What happened after his death was that his son and earlier his brother Dan, who was a duke of a place named Ka, came into control. They basically formed their own government. After that, his younger son Chen ruled between 1042 and 1021. So for some time, this duke of Zhou established his dynasty and ruled here. So you can see this area of Ka. He established the kingdom here. So this is the period of Western Zhou Dynasty. Now the Duke of Zhou is a legendary character. Legendary character in Chinese history means there are many legends about him. There are many stories. We do not find historical evidence about him but we get to know a lot in his legendary stories. It is known about him that he was a poet warrior. He had written a famous book called Aikeng. Aikeng is considered to be the oldest book in the history of China. So he had written a book called Aikeng in which many divinations have been written. It is basically a religious book in which it has been told that there are many beliefs about God. About his will, about the mandate of heaven, about concepts, about all these things have been written in this book called Aikeng. Then it is believed that this Duke of Zhou, who was a legendary character here, respectfully renounced his position. He renounced his power, his throne, basically, and brought his son Wu to power. Okay? He was his son. Who is this first Duke of Zhou that I am talking about? He is Wen. I am talking about the Duke of Wen. He was a legendary woe. Now he had written this book. Okay? Look at this, there is a translation of it and there are many things about it. What was the earliest civilization of Kai China like? What were their philosophical angles and all this? This was it. Okay? Now there is another thing that when the kingdom was established, the dynasty came into existence, it is not that all the people will accept their rule easily. Many people will oppose their policies and if they oppose, then basically they will have to give something to them or fight with them. Such things will happen. So there was such a big centralized government and a very large area of the empire, of the kingdom, so it was very difficult to maintain the large territory that they had conquered. So that is why what they did was to decentralize the entire kingdom. Basically, many small kingdoms were formed under one king, who would ultimately consider the king as one. They would consider him as their most important ruler, they would remain loyal to him. But the rest of the royal family, the generals, the family members, the nobles, were given permission to form small states so that they could rule different areas. Okay? You will have autonomy. You have a lot of people and you will be able to rule as per your wish. But who is the ultimate ruler of this entire empire? The emperor. So this is called the policy of Fengjian. Fengjian means the policy of establishment has been decentralized somehow. It has been stylized. A new type of government has been formed here. Okay? So in this also the king was at the top. The emperor who was its ruler was the most important. Then after the royal house there were noble houses of different places in which there were different courts, there were nobles, there were government officials. Then under this came the peasants, those peasants who had landlords and who had more. Below them were farmers who did farming. Then came artisans, merchants, slaves. So in this way you can say that the pyramid of social hierarchy is formed in that era. It was the same during the Shang dynasty. It was the same during the Jin dynasty. If you look from top to bottom, you will see the king, nobles, agents, peasants, labor, peasants, all of them here. Okay? So here, look at these peasants, the peasants are shown here. It is shown below. So basically you can see both the peasants, landlords and farmers. One is those who have land and the other is those who do farming on the land on rent. So this is how the system was running. This was a type of feudalism. Like feudalism was also there in Europe. I have already taught you about European feudalism. In European history, in world history, you will find in the playlist what type of feudalism was there in Europe. How did it rise? How did it change over the period of time? So the period of Western civilization was also a period of feudalism. The nobles kept on gaining power. Now the first generation of these nobles remained loyal to the king. They remained loyal. What happened in the next generation was that the king also changed and the families of the noble houses here also changed. These people were also becoming powerful. They were becoming economically self-dependent. They no longer needed the king or any side kingdom. They were gradually becoming independent in themselves. They also wanted to be independent and were becoming so a little bit. So they established their own legal systems in their kingdoms. They created their own tax code, their own currency, their own militias. Then first of all, they used to provide this homage and tax to the king, who was the ruler of the kingdom. But over the period of time, their behavior changed. In the beginning, they all used to say that, yes, brother, the emperor has got the mandate of heaven. So since he has got the mandate of heaven, we will obey him. But over the period of time, their view changed in that matter. The king also thought in this period, brother, I am the joke emperor. He thought that to protect my importance, I will have to strengthen this concept of the mandate of heaven that brother, I am the supreme ruler. I am the emperor, yours. And if you do not obey me, then it will be your mistake because I have received orders from above. I have received orders from heaven to rule over you and you have not received any orders. You are ruling under me. So in this way, an attempt was made to strengthen this concept. But this attempt was not very successful. If we talk about the times to come, it was successful in the initial times. In the beginning, it was successful in such a way that when it was decentralized, the royal houses were also happy that they also had power. They also had autonomy and the king thought that okay, my era empire is a whole kingdom, I will not be able to handle it alone. So all these people were helping me. But with time, things changed. In the beginning, they had a lot of crops. There was agricultural surplus. There was prosperity. It was growing economically. The concept of the entire kingdom mandate of heaven had also become strong. And the wealthy government had become a wealthy society in China at that time. And this was the time when if you look at the history of China, the upper class and the lower class were working together for the greater common region, for the greater common good. Why? Because everyone felt that everything was going well for us. Politics was going on separately and everything was going well in the society like economic work etc. After this, things change in the future. When do they change? When these people start accepting their words and refuse to accept them. That means the next generation comes and these nobles make their own currency and want to see themselves independent. They do not want to pay any kind of tax or any kind of owner to the king. The situation changes when the situation arises where the king is refused to give any kind of respect or to accept him as superior. Now, in this period, many other things change. Like, in China, writing was refined further. Literature developed in many ways. Like, earlier during the Shang dynasty, you only get the oracle bone. Oracle bone scriptures are available. What happened in that was that for religious purposes, writing was done on the bones of a turtle or an oak. Some other oracles or some kind of science, those rituals were done to know the intentions of God. But later that script developed. People started writing it in its form. They started writing books. They started writing poetry. Different types of literature developed, which is called the period of five classes of Chinese literature. This was the period between the 11th and 7th centuries. During this time, many poems were written. For example, Xinjing was a very important book. It was basically poetry. It was sung in the court. It is believed that all types of social classes and their behavior, their compassion were encouraged in it. It was said that every person plays his own role. Everyone has got a mandate to play his own role. He has got an order, just like the king has got the order to rule from the mandate of heaven. In the same way, all of you people have your own responsibilities, and everyone is also fulfilling their responsibilities. So this is how the society was running. So basically, what are you saying? There is a period of prosperity in the period of Western zone. But what will happen when the period of Eastern zone comes? What will these independent states do? They will declare themselves independent. So the concept of five classics and four books includes book of poetry, book of history book of reads, book of changes which is called Christian, Spring and Autumn Annals, Doctrine of Man, Great Learning, Mencius, Anacletes, etc. Different philosophical angles are also found in them. Different types of concepts are also found. One gets to know about the history of China. One also gets to know about their philosophical history of that time. One also gets to know about religious history. Okay? It is the time of prosperity and relative peace however could not last. As I told you earlier that this good time was on its way to its end. It was on the verge of ending. It is said that time passes, be it good or bad. When the good ends, the bad begins and when the bad ends one day, the good begins. Okay? So the same thing happened here. The decentralized structure of the Western Kingdom was becoming a good reason for prosperity. Now that decentralized rule was becoming the reason for the end of these kingdoms. Why? Because all these regional lords, which were regional kingdoms, small states were becoming powerful. Now they did not need a king. Now these people did not listen to the king's command. Slowly, generations kept changing one after the other and when the generation kept changing, then there is a king, he said that you rule, I am the king above you. Isn't it yours? Now this emperor had said this to one person, but his third generation came. They said, which king? You are running our kingdom? We don't need you. You take care of yourself, we will take care of ourselves. So in this way, there were many small kingdoms that became powerful. And in 71 BC, 771 BC, the king of the Western Dynasty was killed by an alliance of tribesmen and a similar alliance. So what did these vast states that the king had created become now? They had become independent. Now there is the Western Dynasty and the Eastern Dynasty. So what did the Joy Dynasty do now that the next king of the dynasty thought that let's And from here the name of the dynasty became Eastern Dynasty. So here also the dynasty was the same, Joy Dynasty. Here also the dynasty was there, only the capital had changed. Earlier they used to rule from here, now they started ruling from here and the name changed. From Western to Eastern and the name changed not just by changing the capital, the era also changed. Till here at least the king was important. He had an aura. He had a name, Mandate of Heaven. People believed in it. But by the time we reached here, the concept of Mandate of Heaven also got weak. The importance of the king had reduced. The king was left as a king only in name. He no longer had any power. Now even though you can see this huge kingdom. You can see the empire but the emperor of the empire does not have much value. His empire is scattered. It is chaotic. These people are living in a violent period. And many small kingdoms were formed here. Look, many small kingdoms were formed. These are many names. I may not be pronouncing it correctly. Obviously I don't even know Chinese. So these small kingdoms were formed. And all these small kingdoms thought that now we will run our own kingdoms and wanted to expand our empire by fighting with the neighboring kingdoms. They also wanted to expand their kingdom. What did everyone want to do? They wanted to grab power. No one cared much about the concept of Mandate of Heaven. However, the concept of Mandate of Heaven was still there for the people and the people believed in it. So somewhere in the beginning. All these kingdoms felt that whoever is an emperor is still an emperor and will be accepted. But we do not need to believe much in his words. Okay? Even though this era was chaotic. There were political ups and downs in this era. Political stability was not there. But still literacy, artistic and philosophical work happened here and a lot of philosophical work was done. Many schools of thoughts emerged. Which is called 100 schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. And this was the period called Spring and Autumn period in which Eastern Jin still had some power. He had the courtesy. He had the status of an emperor. He had the Mandate of Heaven. But he did not have power. And these small kingdoms were occupying the power. Jin was thinking that I will not obey the king. I will win over Qin. I will defeat him and then this will become my empire. Then Qin was thinking that I will defeat him and I will defeat him and this part will become mine. Yan was thinking that this whole part will become mine. Why should I think of the king? What difference do I care about the king and what difference does it make? These things were going on in the Spring and Autumn period. But they were just thinking. It was beyond their control. They used to fight among themselves. There was no result of the wars. Continuously, many battles took place between 770 and 481 BC. So, nobody was getting much advantage in the battlefield. But finally, after many battles, there were such changes in warfare that only 7 states remained. All the other states got absorbed in those 7 states and it is called the Warring States period. Basically, initially, there were so many kingdoms in which you might be seeing 20 kingdoms. Some 20 to 25 kingdoms later remained 7. After the battles, finally, the small kingdoms lost and 7 kingdoms remained. Zhao Yan, Qi Yan, Han, Pai, Qin, Chu, Yi remain. In that too, later on, this Qin will emerge as the most powerful and will defeat everyone. So, since when was this Warring States period going on? It went on from 400 to 475 BC to 200 to 221 BC. Until the Qin dynasty came into existence and its rise. During this time, the philosophers and scholars wanted that somehow these fights among themselves should end and some person should come to power and unify China. Somebody should win somehow. China is getting united even though it is separate. They are fighting among themselves. At least someone will win. Whether that winner is Chu, Qin, Han or Qin, someone should win. If someone wins, then all these 7 states will unite. If they unite, then at least the whole of China will benefit. The whole of China will move forward and grow prosperously. So, some books were written for this. Some people gave their philosophical ideas. One of them was Shanzhu, who wrote a book called The Art of War. Shanzhu wrote this book around 500 BC. In this, he told that he told many techniques that how one can protect himself and defeat the other. And he did not take the side of any one empire or one kingdom. He wanted one kingdom to win. He said that one should win. No matter who wins, but let them win. And this is violence. It should end. So later there was another pacifist philosopher named Modi Mo or Maus Maus. He also went to different states and shared his philosophical ideas and his knowledge with those kings of those small kingdoms and told how you can win in this battle. How you can strengthen yourself and defeat the opponent and unite the whole of China. So basically these philosophers of that era were different types of people of that era. They had different personalities. Some wanted that prosperity should be maintained by any means, social brotherhood should be maintained, harmony should be maintained. For example, people like Confucius did not want to go towards political ideology. They believed that it is very important to maintain harmony among people. The Lords of Tu believed that it is very important for a person to maintain harmony with nature. So they followed a different concept and belonged to different people. There were some people like Maho, who used to say that brother, if I make one person strong, teach him the art of war, then at least all the others will lose and one will win. The one who wins the battle and fights strongly, then warfare will end and then peace will come. And what will happen after peace comes is that the entire empire will become one, will be united. These things were going on. So most of the kingdoms did not listen to them much. Nothing much happened, there was no result. Then there was a Qin Qin who was a statesman named Shengen who listened to Sun Tzu's ideology and believed in it and said that there should be a total warfare. There should be a complete battle. All the states should fight each other. The winner will be Alexander. The winner will rule. So his ultimate goal was that basically whoever wins among all the people will become the ruler. So this philosophy of Sheng was adopted by the ruler of Qin dynasty, Yanxin of Qin kingdom and he established a brutal campaign carnage. He fought wars with all the states and eventually won the war and declared himself Sheng Hongdi. Sheng Hongdi means the emperor and is given the title of the first Chinese emperor. However, the title of Shang Xi Shi Hongdi was taken by a ruler named Yellow Emperor much earlier. He is considered to be the first emperor of China. But from here the ruler of this Qin dynasty again assumed the title of Chinese emperor or from here a new era begins which is called the era of imperial China which is the era of Qin dynasty. So this Qin dynasty defeated all these kingdoms and united China. When? These wars were going on since 260 BC or even before that and ended completely in 221 BC. And Qin dynasty comes into existence. And as soon as Qin dynasty came into existence, it said that now neither the kingdom nor the emperor will survive. Everyone's mandate of heaven will end and all the kingdoms will also end. Now which new dynasty will come? Qin dynasty. Now we will read the history of Qin dynasty in the next video but every kingdom and empire also had some contribution. They also have some legacy. If we talk about it, they had done a lot of work. The kingdom made many advancements in the field of agriculture. It played a major role in strengthening various irrigation techniques, dam building programs and the infrastructure of the Grand Canal. In the history of China, the Great Grand Canal was a very big canal. It was a very big economic zone which was formed by the confluence of different rivers. Some canals were built by connecting different rivers. In which the structure of canals was built to strengthen agriculture and irrigation. This is one of the biggest canals in the world which was built by many empires together. These canals were built during the period of many dynasties. Like the canal, the Great Grand Canal was also built for a very long time. Similarly, the Great Wall of China was also built for a very long time. So different dynasties played their respective roles in it and also played a role in trade and commerce. They contributed to the trade of silk with Europe through the ancient silk route. If we talk about warfare, their role in warfare is that they started using cavalry and carriers. They gave a lot of importance to intelligence on a large scale. Fighting on horses and using horses in warfare was a very big, very big event in history. Using horses in warfare, in ancient times, when horses started being used in warfare, it was a big event and it was started on a large scale in the history of China by the dynasty. And the importance of horses was also very high in their lives. When a master, a great warrior died, his horse was sacrificed with him. It was considered for spiritual or religious purposes. So, if we talk about an old dog Duke, Duke Jingyev, when he died, about 600 horses were sacrificed with him and when his tomb was excavated, skeletons of 600 horses were also found here, which shows how important horse sacrifice was for them. For them, the ritual was that after death so many horses were buried with him. Obviously, with animals, so this was cruelty, it was a bad thing. But for them, this was basically a symbol of what can we call it. It was a way of giving respect to that master. Okay? So they did a lot of work in warfare. After that, they also divided the army into units. Different units were deployed at different places in different directions, so that it is not that the army stays here. When there was a war here, this army also ran here, even when the war is going on here, the same army is running away, no, they formed a group here, they formed a group here, they formed a group here, they formed different army units in all the four directions. They used to manage things according to their own convenience. Apart from that, they also did a lot of work in metallurgy work. So the weapons that were made for a good war also got strengthened and improved during their time. There is a history of 800 years. Obviously, a lot had changed in 800 years. Many weapons had become advanced and better. A very major contribution is the philosophy of their era, in which the role of this dynasty is not that much. The philosophers of that era, the citizens of that era have a role in which 100 schools of thoughts developed. In the spring and autumn period, when it was a period of political ups and downs and people were fighting among themselves. Socially, the society was also seen breaking apart. So many philosophers gave their own ideas. Some said that it is very important to maintain social harmony. Some said that it is very important to maintain harmony with nature. So Confucius gave his concepts. Lao Tzu gave different concepts. Heifji gave the concept of legalism. He gave such a concept that punish. It is the right of the king to punish anyone who opposes him. Establish a proper powerful central rule. He established the policy of legalism. Heifji will teach them one by one. We have already studied Confucianism and Taoism. Apart from that, there are many philosophical schools of thoughts about which we will study. So there was Confucius. There was Mozi. There was Mencius. These are many people. Some said something. Some said something else. Some supported the war. That fight the war. There should be a great total war and at least China should be united. Someone said that there is no benefit from such a big war, such a big destruction. If people remain socially united, then it does not matter if there is political ups and downs or turmoil. Politics means instability. Social stability is very important. So different philosophers had different ideas. They were prevalent in this era. There were some sophists in this era. For example, there was a sophist named Saint. In the same era, there were some hedonist philosophers. Meaning those who talk about pleasure. Like there are people like Charvag. Similarly, there were philosophers like Yongzhu here. There were some political philosophers and political philosophers as well. There were some philosophers like Yangon, like Mencius, who modified the work of Confucius and later on, there were some who modified the work of the old philosophers and added more to it. You can say that they were his followers. So, the legalism of Hian Fizi, who gave the concept of legalism. This philosophy was adopted by the Qin dynasty later on because it was a philosophy that supported brutal war. It supported brutal rule. It supported tyranny. For example, Machiavelli's philosophy was there. I have taught you about Machiavelli in the West. He was a philosopher of the 15th and 16th centuries. What he said was that he wrote a book called The Prince. He said that it is the duty of a king to keep his subjects with love as well as by scaring them. But it is his duty to keep them more by scaring them if the subjects do not agree with love. Between fear and love, one should always choose fear. So this person also had the same kind of philosophy. I will teach it to you separately. It was not exactly like that. There were many things. So, in that era, he said that how should we punish people? How should we establish a powerful central authority? So the Qin dynasty adopted the philosophy of legalism and rejected the words of other philosophers and burnt their works. As if it is a song and not that if someone talks about love, his book should be burnt. Isn't it? So that is the thing. So they only supported brutality. Qin dynasty is the dynasty that came before. So whatever the poet talks about, what is that song, I am forgetting right now. So, whatever poet has in his imagination, whether it is life or a love song, you should reject that poet today. So, those who talked about life, talked about social harmony, they burnt their works. The Qin dynasty that came after the dynasty, but still their work survived. Today we read Taoism of many people, we also read Confucianism and when Confucianism and Taoism had become part of the blood of the people of China, it was impossible to erase it in that era. He also contributed a lot in the field of music and during the dynasty's time, people who used to believe in the field of music believed that music and dance are very important in life and that this importance is not only for entertainment purposes but also for spiritual purposes. Many of their philosophers also supported the importance of music. Confucius said that music cultivates a good character in a person. Dance music was very important. Along with dance music, there was also a dance form with every music composition. Like these people used to call music as ritual li and music and dance, they used to call ritual as li and music and dance as yu. So these were collectively called li yu. So rituals were seen so closely connected with music and dance that any ritual cannot be complete without music and dance. So when so much importance is given to music, then transformations will definitely come in the field of music. Many musical instruments were also made. Many inventions took place. Many musical compositions were made by them at that time. Although there was no recording system at that time so that we have the recordings and we can say that they had created this type of music. But such things come to light that music was very important for them. After that, a lot of work was done in the field of literature in that period. Also in writings because literature had not started at the time of the earlier Shang Dynasty. Only writings had started in that period. Literature started in this period because of the old method. If I talk about the script, earlier there was some script of this type which was oral bone script in which there was this type of script. They developed this script. Not only did they develop the script, but the name of this script is Zhang Duan. Using this script, they wrote many books, wrote many classical works, out of which there are 4 books and 5 classics. So he wrote many books like Book of Rites, Doctrine of Means, Analytes of Confucianism, Manichaean, and Aeschylus in which we get to know about the history of China, its philosophy, religion, music and the dynasties of that era. So these books were written, out of which many books were burnt by the later Chinese dynasties. But despite that, we still get a lot of work. If we talk about his legacy, if only the philosophical development that happened in his era, like Confucianism and Taoism, had taken place in his era, then also this era can be considered successful in itself. There was so much philosophical development, but apart from this, he did a lot of work. Like, he decentralized the power and gave ownership to his people. He gave importance to every social structure, every social class. In his poetry, we come to know that he valued every social class. There were songs for them. There was respect and respect for them. What did they do to the nobles and the wealthy? They respected them and gave them small kingdoms. So these were all the things. However, this turned against them. Later, decentralization became a burden for them. But they did it. They divided the power. Now, even though there was no complete political unity in this period, there was chaos in the later period. But despite this, if a dynasty continues to have influence somewhere for 800 years and its emperor is considered an emperor, considered an emperor, and has the mandate of heaven, then it means that they have contributed a lot. So this is a very big legacy of theirs. In all these years, socially, the people of China prospered a lot as a civilization and they worked on many things. But finally, they fell during the time of the Chinese dynasty. One day, the Chinese dynasty also ended and then the Chinese dynasty came. The dynasty also ended. Then other dynasties came. So all these things happened. The Shang dynasty was here. Look, the Shang dynasty is visible. The dynasty that came after the Shang dynasty, which we just talked about, after which came the Qing dynasty. They ruled for a very short time between 221 and 206 BC. And then after Qin came high, he ruled for some time and so on. And after that came more dynasties, which we will read about in the coming time. 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