During the Western Zhou period (c. 1046 – 771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military control over territories centered on the Wei River valley and North China Plain.

According to Chinese mythology, the Zhou lineage began when Jiang Yuan, a consort of the legendary Emperor Ku, miraculously conceived a child, Qi "the Abandoned One", after stepping into the divine footprint of Shangdi.

[8][9] Qi was a culture hero credited with surviving abandonment by his mother three times, and with greatly improving agriculture,[8] to the point where he was granted lordship over Tai, the surname Ji, and the title Houji "Lord of Millet", by the Emperor Shun.

[11] Ju's son Liu,[12] however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin,[c] which his descendants ruled for generations.

Jili's son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng (present-day Xi'an).

According to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language largely similar in vocabulary and syntax to that of the Shang;[14] a recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion.

[23][24][e] According to historian Li Feng, the term "Rong" during the Western Zhou period was likely used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural and ethnic "others".

[26] During the Western Zhou (1045–771 BC), King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Haojing.

Although Wu's early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power.

[27] Furthermore, he countered Zhou's crisis of legitimacy by expounding the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven while accommodating important Shang rituals at Wangcheng and Chengzhou.

[28] Over time, this decentralized system became strained as the familial relationships between the Zhou kings and the regional dynasties thinned over the generations.

[1] The Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC) was characterized by an accelerating collapse of royal authority, although the king's ritual importance enabled more than five additional centuries of rule.

Others followed, marking a turning point, as rulers did not even entertain the pretense of vassalage of the Zhou court, instead proclaiming themselves fully independent kingdoms.

The Eastern Zhou is also remembered as the golden age of Chinese philosophy: the Hundred Schools of Thought which flourished as rival lords patronized itinerant scholars is led by the example of Qi's Jixia Academy.

The Mohists for instance found little interest in their praise of meritocracy but much acceptance for their mastery of defensive siege warfare; much later, however, their arguments against nepotism were used in favor of establishing the imperial examination system.

Since rulers claimed that their authority came from heaven, the Zhou made great efforts to gain accurate knowledge of the stars and to perfect the astronomical system on which they based their calendar.

[34] Zhou legitimacy also arose indirectly from Shang material culture through the use of bronze ritual vessels, statues, ornaments, and weapons.

When the dynasty was established, the conquered land was divided into hereditary fiefs (諸侯, zhūhóu) that eventually became powerful in their own right.

[...] According to the Zou commentary, the son of heaven divided land among his feudal lords, his feudal lords divided the land among their dependent families and so forth down the pecking order to the officers who had their dependent kin and the commoners who "each had his apportioned relations and all had their graded precedence""[39] This type of unilineal descent-group later became the model of the Korean family through the influence of Neo-Confucianism, as Zhu Xi and others advocated its re-establishment in China.

Another was China's distinct class system, which lacked an organized clergy but saw Shang-descent yeomen become masters of ritual and ceremony, as well as astronomy, state affairs and ancient canons, known as ru (儒).

These hereditary classes were similar to Western knights in status and breeding, but unlike the European equivalent, they were expected to be something of a scholar instead of a warrior.

Some important manufacturing sectors during this period included bronze smelting, which was integral to making weapons and farming tools.

[43] China's first projects of hydraulic engineering were initiated during the Zhou dynasty, ultimately as a means to aid agricultural irrigation.

Sunshu Ao, the Chancellor of Wei who served King Zhuang of Chu, dammed a river to create an enormous irrigation reservoir in modern-day northern Anhui province.

[45][46] Recent archaeological finds demonstrate similarities between horse burials of the Shang and Zhou dynasties with the steppe populations in the west, such as the Saka and Wusun.

[47][48] Other possible cultural influences resulting from contact with these Iranic people of Central Asia in this period may include fighting styles, head-and-hooves burials, art motifs and myths.

[53] The Zhou wanted to increase the number of enlightenment seekers, mystics, and those who would be interested in learning about such things as a way to further distance their people from the Shang-era paradigm and local traditions.

While the system was initially a respected body of concrete regulations, the fragmentation of the Western Zhou period led the ritual to drift towards moralization and formalization in regard to:

Nobles of the Ji family proclaimed Duke Hui of Eastern Zhou as King Nan's successor after their capital, Chengzhou, fell to Qin forces in 256 BC.

During Confucius's lifetime in the Spring and Autumn period, Zhou kings had little power, and much administrative responsibility and de-facto political strength was wielded by rulers of smaller domains and local community leaders.