Eastern Zhou

The later period of the Zhou dynasty in ancient China, conventionally dated from 770 to 256 BCE and centered at Luoyang. It encompasses the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Spring and Autumn period: The first major period of the Eastern Zhou, conventionally dated from 770 to 476 BCE. Its era saw regional lords eclipse the Zhou king while competing states remained within a shared political order.
Western Zhou: The first period of the Zhou dynasty, ending when the royal court moved east in 770 BCE. Its stronger royal order provides the clearest comparison with Eastern Zhou political fragmentation.
Confucius: A Chinese teacher and thinker, traditionally dated to 551–479 BCE, whose teachings became the foundation of Confucianism. He lived during the Spring and Autumn period and sought ethical order amid political disorder.
Confucianism: A philosophical and ethical tradition rooted in the teachings attributed to Confucius and his followers. It developed amid Eastern Zhou debates over ethical government, social roles, and political order.
Warring States period: The final major period of the Eastern Zhou, conventionally dated from 475 to 221 BCE. Its increasingly centralized states fought for supremacy after the older Zhou order fractured.
Mandate of Heaven: The doctrine that Heaven grants rulers authority while withdrawing it from unjust or ineffective dynasties. Zhou rulers used this doctrine to legitimize their dynasty even as their practical power diminished.
Laozi: A traditional Chinese sage associated with the foundational text of Daoism, the Daodejing. His attributed teachings emerged from the intellectual world conventionally associated with the Zhou era.
Daoism: A Chinese philosophical and religious tradition centered on the Dao and living in accordance with its way. Its early philosophical texts belong to the same era of competing answers to disorder.
Zhou king: The hereditary monarch of the Zhou dynasty, whose authority depended increasingly on recognition by regional rulers. Eastern Zhou kings retained ritual prestige but lost much of their ability to command the states.
Luoyang: A city in central China that served as the Eastern Zhou capital. The royal court’s eastward relocation to Luoyang marks the conventional beginning of this period.

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