History of Ancient China

The earliest written record of China's past, and therefore the beginning of its history, dates from the Shang dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals - so-called oracle bones. However the earliest comprehensive history of China, the Historical Records written by Sima Qian, a renowned Chinese historiographer of the 2nd century BC, begins perhaps 1300 years earlier with an account of the Five Emperors. These rulers were legendary sage-kings and moral examplars, and one of them, the Yellow Emperor, is sometimes said to be the ancestor of all Chinese people. Following this period Sima Qian relates that a system of inherited rulership was established during the Xia dynasty, and that this model was perpetuated in the successor Shang and Zhou dynasties. It is during this period of the Three Dynasties (Chinese: 三代; pinyin: sandài) that the historical China begins to appear.

Sima Qian's account dates the founding of the Xia to some 4,000 years ago, but this date has not yet been corroborated. Some archaeologists connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, have been alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters, but such claims are unsupported. With no clear written records to match the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia remains poorly understood.

Archaeological findings provide evidence for the existence of the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1046 BC), and the archaeological evidence is divided into two sets. The first, from the earlier Shang period (ca. 1600 to 1300) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the six capitals of the Shang (ca. 1300-1046 BC).

Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed at the same time, just as the later Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.

By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou began to emerge in the Huanghe valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. Nevertheless, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period when regional feudal lords began to assert their power, absorb smaller powers, and vie for hegemony. The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded. After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States period. Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power.

Meanwhile, neighboring territories of these warring states were gradually annexed, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, and governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣), which had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and was very loosely a primitive prototype of the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi), forming the first Chinese empire under the Qin Dynasty.

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