Визуальный самоучитель работы на ноутбуке. Алексей Знаменский

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      War followed, and since the rebellious brothers were governing territories in what had once been Shang’s central domains, the Zhou royal forces again swept east down the Yellow River, routing the enemy and not stopping this time until they reached the sea in Shandong province. An area of over 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) long by several hundred deep, in fact most of ‘the cradle’ that was north China, was now at Zhou disposal.

      The victors parcelled it out among their kinsmen and commanders in the form of subordinate fiefs, many of which would become hereditary. From this division of the spoils were born the territorial units that would develop into states under the later Zhou and, later still, would provide the dynasties of imperial China with a handy checklist from which to select a dynastic name. They included, to the north of the Yellow River, Yan (near modern Beijing) and Jin, which would disintegrate into Han, Wei and Zhao; also Qi and Lu in Shandong (the first conferred on King Wen’s Chiang ally, the second on the Duke of Zhou’s son); and numerous lesser entities such as Tang and Song (where a contrite Shang leader was reinstated).

      The history and geography of these states are not especially relevant at this point; but the way their names echo down through the centuries is notable. Most later dynasties would look back to the Zhou and to the states they had unwittingly created as a prime source of legitimisation. Besides appropriating their names – hence the later imperial dynasties of Jin, Wei, Tang, Song, etc. – great imperial houses might also claim descent from their ruling lineage or regional association with it. Either way, Zhou and its subordinate states came to embody an archaic authenticity out of all proportion to their achievements. Perceived as favoured exemplars, they conferred incontestable prestige and would be shamelessly exploited for it.

      Just one exception may be noted. Established by the Zhou a century later on the steppe-land borders of Gansu province, the horse-breeding fief called Qin would seldom attract endorsement from posterity’s dynastic giants. Though becoming a state, a kingdom and then an empire, Qin as a name would be little commandeered by others and, until the twentieth century, no orthodox Chinese ruler would care to be associated with it. Throughout most of history the royal Zhou so outranked the imperial Qin in heavenly kudos that they were often considered polar opposities. The Zhou, despite – or possibly because of – their tolerance of a ‘feudal’ federalism, were reckoned virtuous; and the Qin, with their aggressive centralism, were not. Only when patriotic nationalists revived the memory of Qin’s first ever unification of China, and when Marxists and Maoists discovered the revolutionary credentials of its despotic instigator – not to mention terracotta evidence of his awesome power – would Qin cease to be a dirty word.

      Following its comprehensive victory, the Zhou triumvirate headed by the Duke of Zhou founded an alternative capital near Luoyang in Henan province in what, to the Zhou, were then distant eastern regions. There, in c. 1035 BC after seven years as de facto regent, the wily Duke of Zhou stepped down from his management of affairs, declined to return to the ancestral capital in the west, and handed back the reins of power to the legitimate ruler, King Cheng. This act would be seen as one of magnificent abnegation and is that for which the Duke is most revered. Having steered the Zhou through their greatest crisis, presided over the creation of the kingdom, and largely formulated its heavenly rationale, the Duke could rather easily have usurped the throne. That he did not was convincing proof of superior virtue and would win him a reputation that almost eclipsed that of Kings Wen, Wu and Cheng. Historians without exception would exalt his memory and moralists would cherish his example; in The Analects, or ‘Sayings’, of Confucius the ageing philosopher is reported to have sighed: ‘How I have gone downhill! It has been such a long time since I dreamt of the Duke of Zhou.’⁶

      But whether the Duke really stepped aside, or whether he was pushed, is unclear. He may, it seems, have had a slightly different interpretation of the Heavenly Mandate to that of his fellow triumvirs. In another debate on the subject, he insists that the Mandate had passed from the Shang to ‘the Zhou people’, not just their king, and in particular to those Zhou people who, like himself, advised and instructed the king in the ways of virtue. This has been taken as a plea for a meritocracy – rule by those of proven ability and character – and it could imply greater empowerment of the bureaucracy and of enfeoffed officialdom. But it was not accepted by the Duke’s colleagues, who trumped it with a reference to divination. Since only the king could consult Heaven directly, only he could enjoy the Mandate. As the chosen son of the senior Zhou lineage, he already, in a sense, embodied ‘the Zhou people’. In the familial terms so dear to Confucianists he was both his people’s father and ‘Heaven’s Son’, a formulation that like the Mandate itself would be adopted by all subsequent rulers.

      Yet whether this uniquely privileged status should be seen as a charter for autocracy, or whether as a check to it, would continue to be debated – and still is. If Heaven’s Son was accountable only to Heaven, he could afford to ignore advice. If, however, the Mandate depended on the virtue with which it was exercised, he needed to be more circumspect. Virtue was assessed in terms of the welfare of the state and its people. ‘Heaven’s love for the people is very great [says a character in the third-century BC Zuozhuan]. Would it then allow one man to preside over them in an arrogant and wilful manner, indulging his excesses and casting aside the nature Heaven and Earth allotted them? Surely it would not!’⁷ Hence, were the ruler (after warnings in the form of portentous defeats, civil discontent or natural disasters) not to mend his ways, the Mandate would automatically slip from his grasp. It could then legitimately be claimed by someone else. Under such circumstances it could be construed not as a charter for absolutism but as an invitation to revolt. Whether or not that was his intention, the Duke of Zhou had opened a can-shaped ding of constitutional worms.

      King Cheng, delivered at last from his ducal uncle’s machinations, ruled uneventfully for over thirty years (c. 1035–c. 1003 BC). As his dying testament he left an admonition that would be long cherished and might usefully serve as an epitaph for the early Zhou: ‘Make pliable those distant and make capable those near. Pacify and encourage the many countries, large and small.’⁸ King Kang (r. c. 1003–c. 978 BC), Cheng’s son and a contemporary of the biblical King David, heeded the advice, and while more inclined to encouragement than pacification, presided over a vast and flourishing kingdom. It was not until the reigns of his son and grandson, Kings Zhao (r. c. 977–c. 957 BC) and Mu (r. c. 956–c. 918 BC), that Zhou authority would experience its first setbacks.

      Unfortunately for the historian, although avid diviners, the Zhou rarely troubled to inscribe their fire-cracked turtleshells with a written summary of ‘charge’ and response. But such information may have been recorded on less durable materials, for this was almost certainly the case with oracular communications conducted using a new and increasingly preferred medium. Kinder to turtles, the new medium involved a random disposition of sticks, which could be reused. The sticks were stalks of the yarrow plant or milfoil, and they were cast, perhaps like spillikins, six at a time, so that they fell to form hexagrams (six-sided figures) that the diviner then interpreted. Much lore, some art and some mathematics were involved; but it is safe to assume that the results were written down because the ‘reading’ of hexagrams provided the inspiration for ‘The Book of Changes’ (Zhou yi or Yijing, I-ching). This classic text, recorded in the ninth century BC, consists of verses that incorporate divinatory terms plus images that may have been those СКАЧАТЬ