his reign as a golden age for the arts, while noting that most
Indians had good lives. He was succeeded by Kumāragupta
(r. ca. 415–455 c.e.), whose rule was weakened by a rebellion
in Malwa, in central India. Th e next Maharajadhiraja was
Skanda gupta (r. ca. 455–467 c.e.), who faced an invasion by
the Hunas, the Huns. During his father’s reign he had put
down the rebellion in Malwa, and as the Gupta ruler he drove
out the Hunas. He was succeeded by his nephew Budhagupta,
whose reign seems to have been brief. Th e Hunas returned
and defeated the Gupta army, ending the Gupta Empire.
CHINA’S LEGENDARY DYNASTY
Almost nothing is known about the politics of the region of
China before the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1500–ca. 1045 b.c.e.).
Ancient Chinese legends say that the fi rst Chinese king was
Hu a n gd i , a l s o c a l l e d t h e “ Ye l l ow E mp e r o r.” Huang means “au-
gust sovereign,” and di means “high god.” During the Shang
and Zhou dynasties, di would come to mean “divine ruler.”
Huangdi supposedly lived sometime between the 2900s and
2600s b.c.e., with 2698 b.c.e. sometimes being asserted as the
year he made himself king.
According to Chinese histories from the Han Dynasty
(202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), the fi rst Chinese dynasty was the Xia,
sa id to have been fou nded i n 2205 b.c.e. Th is dynasty has long
been thought to be a myth, but so was the Shang Dynasty un-
til the early 20th century, when archaeologists began fi nding
proof of its existence. In fact, one Han historian, Sima Qian
of the second century b.c.e., made a list of Shang rulers that
closely matches a list created by archaeologists from Shang
writings, and he made a list of Xia rulers, too, so perhaps an-
cient Xia just remains to be discovered.
CHINA’S SHANG DYNASTY
Since the 1910s archaeologists have found cities of the Shang
Dynasty and tombs of some of its rulers. Chinese legend says
it was founded in about 1700 b.c.e. by King Tang. Modern
archaeologists and historians are more comfortable with
the date 1500 b.c.e. for the founding of the Shang Dynasty
along the Yellow River, probably by a historical King Tang.
Th e Shang were warlike, and they conquered territories to the
north and west of the Yellow River.
By 1050 b.c.e. the Shang kingdom was remarkable. Th e
Shang conquerors had absorbed into their kingdom a variety
of diff erent ethnic groups who spoke several diff erent lan-
guages and had instilled in most of them the idea that they
were one people, living in a kingdom given to them by gods.
Th e cultural infl uence of the Shang reached south beyond
the Yangtze River, north into what is now Inner Mongolia,
west to the Qin Mountains, and east to the ocean. Th e Shang
Dynasty’s strong central government held the country to-
gether for centuries, but it began to weaken in the 1100s and
1000s b.c.e. because it could not keep track of its increasingly
far-fl ung territories, and its borders were constantly fl uctuat-
ing with the ebb and fl ow of barbarian invasions and Shang
counterattacks.
CHINA’S ZHOU DYNASTY
During the 1100s or 1000s b.c.e. the rulers of the province
of Zhou began calling themselves wangs, meaning “kings.”
Th ere is some doubt about exactly when the Zhou overthrew
the Shang Dynasty, with the earliest date being 1122 b.c.e.,
but the year was probably 1045 b.c.e. Th e Shang government
had fallen into disarray, with its kingdom’s provinces tending
to rule themselves. Although the Zhou were not as techno-
logically advanced as were the Shang, they had a better-dis-
ciplined military. King Wu of Zhou defeated the Shang army
and sacked the capital city of Anyang.
Historians divide the history of the Zhou Dynasty into
two periods: the Western Zhou, when the capital was in the
city of Xian in the Qin province, and the Eastern Zhou,
when the capital was in Luoyang in the province of Zhou,
to the east of Xian. Th e Western Zhou era lasted from 1027
to 771 or 770 b.c.e. Its fi rst monarch, King Wu, declared
that the Shang Dynasty’s divine energy had disappeared
and that he had been chosen by the gods to found a new
dynasty.
To later Chinese, the Western Zhou era was a golden age
because the Zhou government maintained the peace. Instead
of creating a strong central government, the Zhou monarchs
solved their problems with ruling a large nation by creating
a feudal system in which they appointed family members
and close friends to rule dozens of small provinces. No one
had a large enough province to have the manpower neces-
sary to overthrow the government, and the Zhou Dynasty
had a series of strong leaders who traveled the country with
their army. Th e army was so magnifi cent when it marched
that enemies were overawed by the sight of it.
During the 800s b.c.e. nomadic peoples from the west of
China raided the Qin province and threatened Xian. Th us, in
about 770 b.c.e. the Zhou king moved his capital east, away
from the threats from barbarians. Th is resulted in a great loss
of prestige for the king, and the rulers of provinces began ig-
noring the Zhou government. Th is began the Eastern Zhou,
which historians divide into two smaller periods: the Spring
and Autumn Era (722–481 b.c.e.) and the Warring States Era
(453 –221 b.c.e.). Th ese names were given because the fi rst pe-
riod is covered in an ancient history book called Spring and
Autumn Annals, and the other is covered in Th e Strategies of
the Warring States.
During the Eastern Zhou the king had almost no po-
litical power and ruled only a tiny territory. He did have im-
portant ceremonial signifi cance, and rulers of the provinces
consulted him as a matter of fulfi lling protocol. Th is protocol
may have annoyed the provincial rulers, but they held their
stations as rulers because they received the blessings of the
king, who ruled by divine right and passed that right to them.
To kill the king and be done with him would take away their
own justifi cations for being rulers. Meanwhile, the diff erent
provinces waged war against each other.empires and dynasties: Asia and the Pacific 403