News Article

                The Duke of Zhou created a system in which he owns all the land and all the people are under his control, this system is called the Feudal System. This system is run like this, there is a king/emperor and he divided his Kingdom up into states. In each state there is a ruler or what they call lords and these lords run their own state but they are all under control by the Emperor. This event took place in 1016 BC, near the Beginning of the Zhou Dynasty in china were the Zhou Dynasty ruled, at this time it was the Western time period before the Duke’s expansion over the whole plain of the Yellow River. This event triggered because the Emperor felt as if he was losing power and was afraid that the lords would grow in power and stop listening to the king and establish the land as their own. This worried the Duke of Zhou so he decided to create the Feudal System so he could have all the power. Before this rule was made lords were slowly growing in power and so were their armies. So when the Duke made this rule he allowed them to own their own land but in exchange they had to follow certain duties made by the king that they had to follow.

Opinion Editoreal

Opinion Editorial rough draft

            There are many Flaws in the Zhou Dynasty that are easily fixable. The biggest flaw is the mandate of heaven which you guys strongly believe. I encourage your religious ways but I strongly question the logic of it, like how you believe that natural disasters are signs that your Ruler is failing his duties to keep the gods happy. Also how the people have the right to overthrow their ruler when they believe he is being evil and dishonest in which I agree on but not when natural disasters strike because he has absolutely no control over. The only thing the ruler could control would be finding solutions to make his dynasty safer when these disasters strike.  Another reason is, is that when a ruler is chosen he can claim he has been chosen from heavenly order to rule the dynasty and be a terrible ruler. Yes, you can over throw him but by then he has already done damage to the people and weaken the dynasty. A suggestion to make it better would be that you could work on preventing these natural disasters and stop blaming it on your ruler by making stronger houses, knowing when it’s the best time to plant crops, and building on high ground to prevent floods. Another suggestion would be to vote on who you think would be a worthy leader instead of always over throwing him because there was a natural disaster or a evil person. Also a Rulers job should be to make a dynasty more united and stronger as one and keeping the people happy instead of trying to keep the gods happy.

Zhou Dynasty Map

 This is a map of the Zhou Dynasty. (1100-771BC) The Western Zhou was the 1st time period of the Zhou Dynasty, Western Zhou (as exampled above) and the Eastern Zhou(bottom), each name referred to the location of the capital during each time period. The Western Zhou came before eastern Zhou time period. The Western Zhou shaded in brown later expanded and gained much more land across the whole plain of the Yellow river thanks to the Duke of Zhou (Huang Di, also known as the yellow lord) who expanded the Zhou dynasty in the Eastern time period. The yellow River which is not very well presented on this map, starts in the middle of China, China is the area in the dashed lines. The yellow river was located north western of the Zhou dynasty. As you see the Eastern Zhou was much bigger than the western due to expanding. The Eastern Zhou is shaded in brown and the dashes are the borders of China. The previous Dynasty, the Shang dynasty map was much similar to the Western Zhou map. They both had the same amount of land and looked much alike.

Interview with the Duke of Zhou

Me- Hello, great Duke of Zhou. I appreciate your time. Lets get started I woulden't like any of your time to go to waste.

Me- 1st off, I know you strongly expanded around the plain of the Yellow River. Can you explain the benefits of expanding around the Yellow River and how it helped your people?

Duke-Well, expanding our dynasty was my 1st goal when I became ruler. I wanted to claim the plain of the Yellow River for many reasons, 1st of all it gave my people a strong resource to rely on water, food, transportation. Also the land was very rich, which helped our farming succeed strongly. Expanding helped because I was able to give land to trusted alleys but in order to rule that piece of land they had certain duties from me that they had to follow.
Me-Why was the Zhou dynasty divided into two time periods periods, can you explain how that worked?
Duke-Well, the two time periods were split up, the Western and the Eastern. The western time period came 1st then after the Eastern. The time periods changed because of the changes of the Zhou capital, the capital was 1st in Hao then got moved to Luanyang which then changed the Western Zhou to the Eastern Zhou. This movement of Capitals was because our leader at the time was a very weak ruler, so the Zhou's stronger enemies found a chance to overthrow him and they did, which pushed them back and caused us to change capitals. That's when the move from Hao to Luanyang happened around 771 B.C.
Me- How did the feudal system work? Why did you create it?
Duke- The Feudal System worked very well and kept order throughout our Dynasty, it basically kept everyone in their place and kept everything organized. The system was based upon the concept that all the land belonged to me and everyone was under my control. The reason I made this system was that it prevented the people I gave land to (lords) from revolting, claiming land for their own, and disobeying me. This also worked in another way, I created an intricate system of mutual obligation between me, and my noblemen. This system started from me down, then went the lords, knights (government officials) who were controlled by the Lords, foot soldiers, farmers, and peasants. This system kept order throughout most of the Zhou Dynasty.
Me-I know your Dynasty invented the crossbow, what were the benefits of this mechanism? 
Duke- The crossbow was the one of the strongest weapon used by my soldiers and helped our people hunt animals and made the animal easier to kill. This mechanism was much stronger than the the normal bow and arrow and delivered much more accurate kills and was able to fire much more farther distances.
Me- Okay, last but not least, how did your dynasty lose power? Who's fault was it?
Duke-I wouldn't  blame anyone in particular to tell you the truth. It 1st started in 256 B.C when the Zhou dynasty 1st lost power and the Zhou king was killed and then was ruled by 7 states for about 35 years. When the king was killed that's when the dynasty lost power because the Dynasty lost order. After china had seven states for 35 years the Qin Dynasty finally took over officially ending the reign of the Zhou Dynasty.
 

Zhou's Invention

In the 4th century B.C the crossbow (which originated from the bow and arrow) was invented in China during the Zhou (Joe) dynasty. This was an important invention of the time period because it gave soldiers  and hunters a good, efficient,strong,accurate weapon that was able to take down a target from long distances.This invention enabled people to easily reload quicker by a basic pulley system and also allowed them to strike down animals or enemies from long distances (much longer than the original bow and arrow) and the arrow was released by a trigger mechanism.
      The crossbow was created by a group of specialized workers and first used in war against enemies of the Zhou. Prior to the invention, people mainly used the bow and arrow which was effective but did not have the benefits the crossbow had like interchangeable parts, so if a piece of the crossbow broke you would be able to get that same piece to fix it unlike the bow and arrow which was all one piece besides the rope. Also before the invention of the crossbow war was mostly hand to hand combat, yes there was the bow and arrow but was not as effective in range, accuracy, or damage. Hunting was also another challenge before the crossbow because usually animals were hunted by the bow and arrow which isn't bad but for big animals very rarely did one arrow take them down. Also another reason is that the bow and arrow wasn't able to shoot as far and as accurately as the crossbow and it was hard to get close to animals without scaring them away.
     The crossbow has really changed people's lives in Ancient China in many ways. For example  it gave soldiers much stronger weapons which fired with much more precise accuracy than the bow and arrow, fired much farther and much faster, was easily reloadable, and had exchangeable parts in case a part broke. This weapon not only helped the Zhou army but its people too. It helped the Zhou people because it gave them a better weapon to hunt with and they were able to fire from longer distances to kill their prey. The crossbow strongly benefited the Zhou armies and their people. Also the crossbow is still even evolving today and helping hunters of this day and age.

 -The crossbow the Zhou soldiers used

-Soldier with a crossbow

Religion/Culture

Religion and Culture were a huge part in the Zhou Dynasty. The Zoe Dynasty used the Mandate of Heaven. This was a system that gave the king power to rule as long as he satisfied the gods and his people, if he did not, the people had the right to overthrow him and establish a new leader that was worthy enough to take that position. The Zhou strongly believed in this, and put a lot of trust in their leader and expectations. They believed that the king was chosen by godly order and that his main job as a king was to keep the gods happy. Signs that the gods weren't happy were droughts, bad storms, natural disasters were signs from the gods that the ruler was failing his duties as a king their for people usually overthrew the king. According to Chinaknowledge.com, "The religion of the Zhou was quiet different from the Shang religion. While the Shang kings saw the universe filled with real ghosts and spirits of good and evil, the Zhou religion was much more abstract transcendental." The Zhou's way was ran by daoisim, the way if everyone does the right thing and follows their heart their doesnt have to be harsh consequences. Daoism was also know also known as the "way". Follow your heart and do whats right and nothing can be wrong.

 

Additional Option, Fun Facts

`-The Zhou Dynasty lasted 800 years, LONGEST DYNASTY EVER IN CHINA HISTORY!!!
-Zhou gave China its most enduring traditions
- The 1st king of the Zhou died 6 years after after defeating the Shang army
-After the 1st King died his brother took his place as the Duke of Zhou because the 1st King's son was only a infant
-HAD OVER 25 EMPERORS!!
-Zhou Dynasty invented glass
-Zhou dynasty lost power in 256 B.C when the Qin Dynasty took over