The Formative Age 9
up to six feet tall) with round eyes, large noses, light skin, and light
(including blond and red) hair date from 2000 to 500 bce and clearly
indicate that Caucasian people lived in Central Asia even before the
Shang dynasty. The graves of these mummies, well preserved in the dry
desert air of the Tarim Basin, contain plaid textiles resembling those
of Celtic Europe. These people, unknown to the modern world even
twenty years ago, seem to have ridden horses and used horse-drawn
chariots.
They might help explain how the chariot came to China, as it
appears in the Shang archeological record suddenly in its fully devel-
oped form around 1200 bce. China’s fi rst wheeled vehicle, the chariot,
was introduced to the Shang polity from the Caucasus where it was
developed several centuries earlier. Domesticated horses probably came
to the Shang from the Mongolian steppe, and the military use of the
chariot required skilled artisans to build the chariot, and skilled horse
trainers and charioteers who were probably non-Chinese originally.
The chariot provided military leaders and archers with unprecedented
speed and mobility.
Around 1045 bce, a former Shang vassal from the west, the Zhou
people, invaded and conquered the Shang capital. The Zhou worshiped
tian, or Heaven (literally the sky) which refers not to a particular place
but to the whole cosmos as a benevolent force that helps right prevail in
human affairs. Portraying the last Shang kings as oppressive, immoral,
and irresponsible, Zhou scribes argued that Heaven therefore blessed
the Zhou conquest and bestowed on Zhou leaders the right to take over
Shang territories and rule in their place. This was the origin of the Man-
date of Heaven (tianming), the notion that Heaven aids a virtuous ruler
and grants him the right to rule over his people, a concept still popular
in Chinese political culture today.
There is far more written documentation on the Zhou period than
on any earlier era. Zhou texts credit three men in particular with the
military and political success of the early Zhou state: King Wen, King
Wu, and the Duke of Zhou. They praise King Wen (the Cultured King)
for his blueprint for the Zhou conquest and for creating the Zhou ideal
of the compassionate ruler concerned for the people’s welfare. They
laud King Wu (the Martial King) for presiding over the defeat of the
Shang forces and establishing Zhou power in the Yellow River valley.
And they praise the Duke of Zhou, the brother of King Wu, for taking
over as regent for his young nephew, King Cheng, when King Wu died
prematurely. While the Duke of Zhou was suppressing several rebel-
lions against Zhou rule, he spelled out for the fi rst time the idea of the