1 Period, origin, material culture
About 1600 B.C. we come at last into the realm of history. Of the
Shang dynasty, which now followed, we have knowledge both from later
texts and from excavations and the documents they have brought to
light. The Shang civilization, an evident off-shoot of the Lung-shan
culture (Tai, Yao, and Tunguses), but also with elements of the Hsia
culture (with Tibetan and Mongol and/or Turkish elements), was beyond
doubt a high civilization. Of the origin of the Shang State we
have no details, nor do we know how the Hsia culture passed into the
Shang culture.
The central territory of the Shang realm lay in north-western Honan,
alongside the Shansi mountains and extending into the plains. It was a
peasant civilization with towns. One of these towns has been excavated.
It adjoined the site of the present town of Anyang, in the province of
Honan. The town, the Shang capital from c. 1300 to 1028 B.C.,
was probably surrounded by a mud wall, as were the settlements of the
Lung-shan people. In the centre was what evidently was the ruler's
palace. Round this were houses probably inhabited by artisans; for the
artisans formed a sort of intermediate class, as dependents of the
ruling class. From inscriptions we know that the Shang had, in addition
to their capital, at least two other large cities and many smaller
town-like settlements and villages. The rectangular houses were built
in a style still found in Chinese houses, except that their front did
not always face south as is now the general rule. The Shang buried
their kings in large, subterranean, cross-shaped tombs outside the
city, and many implements, animals and human sacrifices were buried
together with them. The custom of large burial mounds, which later
became typical of the Chou dynasty, did not yet exist.
The Shang had sculptures in stone, an art which later more or less
completely disappeared and which was resuscitated only in
post-Christian times under the influence of Indian Buddhism. Yet, Shang
culture cannot well be called a “megalithic” culture. Bronze implements
and especially bronze vessels were cast in the town. We even know the
trade marks of some famous bronze founders. The bronze weapons are
still similar to those from Siberia, and are often ornamented in the
so-called “animal style", which was used among all the nomad peoples
between the Ordos region and Siberia until the beginning of the
Christian era. On the other hand, the famous bronze vessels are more of
southern type, and reveal an advanced technique that has scarcely been
excelled since. There can be no doubt that the bronze vessels were used
for religious service and not for everyday life. For everyday use there
were earthenware vessels. Even in the middle of the first millennium
B.C., bronze was exceedingly dear, as we know from the records of
prices. China has always suffered from scarcity of metal. For that
reason metal was accumulated as capital, entailing a further rise in
prices; when prices had reached a sufficient height, the stocks were
thrown on the market and prices fell again. Later, when there was a
metal coinage, this cycle of inflation and deflation became still
clearer. The metal coinage was of its full nominal value, so that it
was possible to coin money by melting down bronze implements. As the
money in circulation was increased in this way, the value of the
currency fell. Then it paid to turn coin into metal implements. This
once more reduced the money in circulation and increased the value of
the remaining coinage. Thus through the whole course of Chinese history
the scarcity of metal and insufficiency of production of metal
continually produced extensive fluctuations of the stocks and the value
of metal, amounting virtually to an economic law in China. Consequently
metal implements were never universally in use, and vessels were always
of earthenware, with the further result of the early invention of
porcelain. Porcelain vessels have many of the qualities of metal ones,
but are cheaper.
The earthenware vessels used in this period are in many cases
already very near to porcelain: there was a pottery of a brilliant
white, lacking only the glaze which would have made it into porcelain.
Patterns were stamped on the surface, often resembling the patterns on
bronze articles. This ware was used only for formal, ceremonial
purposes. For daily use there was also a perfectly simple grey pottery.
Silk was already in use at this time. The invention of sericulture
must therefore have dated from very ancient times in China. It
undoubtedly originated in the south of China, and at first not only the
threads spun by the silkworm but those made by other caterpillars were
also used. The remains of silk fabrics that have been found show
already an advanced weaving technique. In addition to silk, various
plant fibres, such as hemp, were in use. Woollen fabrics do not seem to
have been yet used.
The Shang were agriculturists, but their implements were still
rather primitive. There was no real plough yet; hoes and hoe-like
implements were used, and the grain, mainly different kinds of millet
and some wheat, was harvested with sickles. The materials, from which
these implements were made, were mainly wood and stone; bronze was
still too expensive to be utilized by the ordinary farmer. As a great
number of vessels for wine in many different forms have been excavated,
we can assume that wine, made from special kinds of millet, was a
popular drink.
The Shang state had its centre in northern Honan, north of the
Yellow river. At various times, different towns were made into the
capital city; Yin-ch'ue, their last capital and the only one which has
been excavated, was their sixth capital. We do not know why the
capitals were removed to new locations; it is possible that floods were
one of the main reasons. The area under more or less organized Shang
control comprised towards the end of the dynasty the present provinces
of Honan, western Shantung, southern Hopei, central and south Shansi,
east Shensi, parts of Kiangsu and Anhui. We can only roughly estimate
the size of the population of the Shang state. Late texts say that at
the time of the annihilation of the dynasty, some 3.1 million free men
and 1.1 million serfs were captured by the conquerors; this would
indicate a population of at least some 4-5 millions. This seems a
possible number, if we consider that an inscription of the tenth
century B.C. which reports about an ordinary war against a small and
unimportant western neighbour, speaks of 13,081 free men and 4,812
serfs taken as prisoners.
Inscriptions mention many neighbours of the Shang with whom they
were in more or less continuous state of war. Many of these neighbours
can now be identified. We know that Shansi at that time was inhabited
by Ch'iang tribes, belonging to the Tibetan culture, as well as by Ti
tribes, belonging to the northern culture, and by Hsien-yuen and other
tribes, belonging to the north-western culture; the centre of the
Ch'iang tribes was more in the south-west of Shansi and in Shensi. Some
of these tribes definitely once formed a part of the earlier Hsia
state. The identification of the eastern neighbours of the Shang
presents more difficulties. We might regard them as representatives of
the Tai and Yao cultures.
2 Writing and Religion
Not only the material but also the intellectual level attained in
the Shang period was very high. We meet for the first time with
writing—much later than in the Middle East and in India. Chinese
scholars have succeeded in deciphering some of the documents
discovered, so that we are able to learn a great deal from them. The
writing is a rudimentary form of the present-day Chinese script, and
like it a pictorial writing, but also makes use, as today, of many
phonetic signs. There were, however, a good many characters that no
longer exist, and many now used are absent. There were already more
than 3,000 characters in use of which some 1,000 can now be read.
(Today newspapers use some 3,000 characters; scholars have command of
up to 8,000; the whole of Chinese literature, ancient and modern,
comprises some 50,000 characters.) With these 3,000 characters the
Chinese of the Shang period were able to express themselves well.
The still existing fragments of writing of this period are found
almost exclusively on tortoiseshells or on other bony surfaces, and
they represent oracles. As early as in the Lung-shan culture there was
divination by means of “oracle bones", at first without written
characters. In the earliest period any bones of animals (especially
shoulder-bones) were used; later only tortoiseshell. For the purpose of
the oracle a depression was burnt in the shell so that cracks were
formed on the other side, and the future was foretold from their
direction. Subsequently particular questions were scratched on the
shells, and the answers to them; these are the documents that have come
down to us. In Anyang tens of thousands of these oracle bones with
inscriptions have been found. The custom of asking the oracle and of
writing the answers on the bones spread over the borders of the Shang
state and continued in some areas after the end of the dynasty.
The bronze vessels of later times often bear long inscriptions, but
those of the Shang period have only very brief texts. On the other
hand, they are ornamented with pictures, as yet largely unintelligible,
of countless deities, especially in the shape of animals or
birds—pictures that demand interpretation. The principal form on these
bronzes is that of the so-called T'ao-t'ieh, a hybrid with the head of
a water-buffalo and tiger's teeth.
The Shang period had a religion with many nature deities, especially
deities of fertility. There was no systematized pantheon, different
deities being revered in each locality, often under the most varied
names. These various deities were, however, similar in character, and
later it occurred often that many of them were combined by the priests
into a single god. The composite deities thus formed were officially
worshipped. Their primeval forms lived on, however, especially in the
villages, many centuries longer than the Shang dynasty. The sacrifices
associated with them became popular festivals, and so these gods or
their successors were saved from oblivion; some of them have lived on
in popular religion to the present day. The supreme god of the official
worship was called Shang Ti; he was a god of vegetation who guided all
growth and birth and was later conceived as a forefather of the races
of mankind. The earth was represented as a mother goddess, who bore the
plants and animals procreated by Shang Ti. In some parts of the Shang
realm the two were conceived as a married couple who later were parted
by one of their children. The husband went to heaven, and the rain is
the male seed that creates life on earth. In other regions it was
supposed that in the beginning of the world there was a world-egg, out
of which a primeval god came, whose body was represented by the earth:
his hair formed the plants, and his limbs the mountains and valleys.
Every considerable mountain was also itself a god and, similarly, the
river god, the thunder god, cloud, lightning, and wind gods, and many
others were worshipped.
In order to promote the fertility of the earth, it was believed that
sacrifices must be offered to the gods. Consequently, in the Shang
realm and the regions surrounding it there were many sorts of human
sacrifices; often the victims were prisoners of war. One gains the
impression that many wars were conducted not as wars of conquest but
only for the purpose of capturing prisoners, although the area under
Shang control gradually increased towards the west and the south-east,
a fact demonstrating the interest in conquest. In some regions men
lurked in the spring for people from other villages; they slew them,
sacrificed them to the earth, and distributed portions of the flesh of
the sacrifice to the various owners of fields, who buried them. At a
later time all human sacrifices were prohibited, but we have reports
down to the eleventh century A.D., and even later, that such sacrifices
were offered secretly in certain regions of central China. In other
regions a great boat festival was held in the spring, to which many
crews came crowded in long narrow boats. At least one of the boats had
to capsize; the people who were thus drowned were a sacrifice to the
deities of fertility. This festival has maintained its fundamental
character to this day, in spite of various changes. The same is true of
other festivals, customs, and conceptions, vestiges of which are
contained at least in folklore.
In addition to the nature deities which were implored to give
fertility, to send rain, or to prevent floods and storms, the Shang
also worshipped deceased rulers and even dead ministers as a kind of
intermediaries between man and the highest deity, Shang Ti. This
practice may be regarded as the forerunner of “ancestral worship” which
became so typical of later China.
3 Transition to feudalism
At the head of the Shang state was a king, posthumously called a
“Ti", the same word as in the name of the supreme god. We have found on
bones the names of all the rulers of this dynasty and even some of
their pre-dynastic ancestors. These names can be brought into agreement
with lists of rulers found in the ancient Chinese literature. The ruler
seems to have been a high priest, too; and around him were many other
priests. We know some of them now so well from the inscriptions that
their biographies could be written. The king seems to have had some
kind of bureaucracy. There were “ch'en", officials who served the ruler
personally, as well as scribes and military officials. The basic army
organization was in units of one hundred men which were combined as
“right", “left” and “central” units into an army of 300 men. But it
seems that the central power did not extend very far. In the more
distant parts of the realm were more or less independent lords, who
recognized the ruler only as their supreme lord and religious leader.
We may describe this as an early, loose form of the feudal system,
although the main element of real feudalism was still absent. The main
obligations of these lords were to send tributes of grain, to
participate with their soldiers in the wars, to send tortoise shells to
the capital to be used there for oracles, and to send occasionally
cattle and horses. There were some thirty such dependent states.
Although we do not know much about the general population, we know that
the rulers had a patrilinear system of inheritance. After the death of
the ruler his brothers followed him on the throne, the older brothers
first. After the death of all brothers, the sons of older or younger
brothers became rulers. No preference was shown to the son of the
oldest brother, and no preference between sons of main or of secondary
wives is recognizable. Thus, the Shang patrilinear system was much less
extreme than the later system. Moreover, the deceased wives of the
rulers played a great role in the cult, another element which later
disappeared. From these facts and from the general structure of Shang
religion it has been concluded that there was a strong matrilinear
strain in Shang culture. Although this cannot be proved, it seems quite
plausible because we know of matrilinear societies in the South of
China at later times.
About the middle of the Shang period there occurred interesting
changes, probably under the influence of nomad peoples from the
north-west.
In religion there appears some evidence of star-worship. The deities
seem to have been conceived as a kind of celestial court of Shang Ti,
as his “officials”. In the field of material culture, horse-breeding
becomes more and more evident. Some authors believe that the art of
riding was already known in late Shang times, although it was certainly
not yet so highly developed that cavalry units could be used in war.
With horse-breeding the two-wheeled light war chariot makes its
appearance. The wheel was already known in earlier times in the form of
the potter's wheel. Recent excavations have brought to light burials in
which up to eighteen chariots with two or four horses were found
together with the owners of the chariots. The cart is not a Chinese
invention but came from the north, possibly from Turkish peoples. It
has been contended that it was connected with the war chariot of the
Near East: shortly before the Shang period there had been vast
upheavals in western Asia, mainly in connection with the expansion of
peoples who spoke Indo-European languages (Hittites, etc.) and who
became successful through the use of quick, light, two-wheeled
war-chariots. It is possible, but cannot be proved, that the
war-chariot spread through Central Asia in connection with the spread
of such Indo-European-speaking groups or by the intermediary of Turkish
tribes. We have some reasons to believe that the first
Indo-European-speaking groups arrived in the Far East in the middle of
the second millennium B.C. Some authors even connect the Hsia with
these groups. In any case, the maximal distribution of these people
seems to have been to the western borders of the Shang state. As in
Western Asia, a Shang-time chariot was manned by three men: the warrior
who was a nobleman, his driver, and his servant who handed him arrows
or other weapons when needed. There developed a quite close
relationship between the nobleman and his chariot-driver. The chariot
was a valuable object, manufactured by specialists; horses were always
expensive and rare in China, and in many periods of Chinese history
horses were directly imported from nomadic tribes in the North or West.
Thus, the possessors of vehicles formed a privileged class in the Shang
realm; they became a sort of nobility, and the social organization
began to move in the direction of feudalism. One of the main sports of
the noblemen in this period, in addition to warfare, was hunting. The
Shang had their special hunting grounds south of the mountains which
surround Shansi province, along the slopes of the T'ai-hang mountain
range, and south to the shores of the Yellow river. Here, there were
still forests and swamps in Shang time, and boars, deer, buffaloes and
other animals, as well as occasional rhinoceros and elephants, were
hunted. None of these wild animals was used as a sacrifice; all
sacrificial animals, such as cattle, pigs, etc., were domesticated
animals.
Below the nobility we find large numbers of dependent people; modern
Chinese scholars call them frequently “slaves” and speak of a “slave
society”. There is no doubt that at least some farmers were “free
farmers”; others were what we might call “serfs”: families in
hereditary group dependence upon some noble families and working on
land which the noble families regarded as theirs. Families of artisans
and craftsmen also were hereditary servants of noble families—a type
of social organization which has its parallels in ancient Japan and in
later India and other parts of the world. There were also real slaves:
persons who were the personal property of noblemen. The independent
states around the Shang state also had serfs. When the Shang captured
neighbouring states, they resettled the captured foreign aristocracy by
attaching them as a group to their own noblemen. The captured serfs
remained under their masters and shared their fate. The same system was
later practiced by the Chou after their conquest of the Shang state.
The conquests of late Shang added more territory to the realm than
could be coped with by the primitive communications of the time. When
the last ruler of Shang made his big war which lasted 260 days against
the tribes in the south-east, rebellions broke out which lead to the
end of the dynasty, about 1028 B.C. according to the new chronology
(1122 B.C. old chronology).