Eastern Zhou
second half of the Chinese Zhou dynasty (770 BCE–256 BCE)
The Eastern Zhou (; c. 770–256 BC) is a period in Chinese history comprising the latter half of the Zhou dynasty, following the Western Zhou era and the royal court's relocation eastward from Fenghao to Chengzhou (near present-day Luoyang). The Eastern Zhou was characterised by the weakened authority of the Ji family, the Zhou royal house. It is subdivided into two parts: the Spring and Autumn period (c. 770 – c. 481 or 476 BC), during which the ancient aristocracy still held power in a large number of separate polities, and the Warring States period (c. 481 or 476 – 221 BC), which saw the consolidation of territory and escalation of interstate warfare and administrative sophistication.
History
Establishment
According to traditional historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian, the Zhou capital was moved from Haojing (Chang'an District in Xi'an) to Chengzhou (Luoyang) in 770 BC. With the death of King You, the last king of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Crown Prince Yijiu was proclaimed the new king by the nobles from the states of Zheng, Lü, Qin and the Marquess of Shen. He became King Ping. In the second year of his reign, he moved the capital east to Luoyi as Quanrong people invaded Haojing, spelling the end of the Western Zhou dynasty.
The recently discovered Xinian Manuscript has challenged this view. Of the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, it says:
Instead of King Ping being immediately accepted by the regional lords after his father's death, the Xinian claims that his uncle Yuchen was crowned as King Hui at Xie (somewhere in the state of Guo). After he was killed in 750 BC, there was no officially recognized king of Zhou for 9 more years, until marquis Wen of Jin brought Ping from Shao'e to the Royal Capital (almost certainly referring to Haojing) and enthroned him. Only three years after that in 738 BC did he move to Chengzhou.
The public source identifies “Eastern Zhou” as second half of the Chinese Zhou dynasty (770 BCE–256 BCE). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eastern, Zhou and second.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q307066. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eastern Zhou” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.