Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Mandate of Heaven
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==History== === Transition between the Shang and the Zhou === The prosperous Shang dynasty saw its rule filled with multiple outstanding accomplishments. Notably, the dynasty lasted for a considerable time during which 31 kings ruled over an extended period of 17 generations. The rule of the Shang kings has been described as hegemonic. Royal authority flowed from the person of the king, enforced by his military. Neighbouring clans were allied through marriage and adopted into the Shang ancestral temple.{{sfnp|Li|2008|pp=26–27}} A poem about the last years of the Shang dynasty reads "Heaven sends down death and disorder; famine comes repeatedly."{{sfnp|Chittick|2003|p=174}} Paleoclimatic data show a long-term period of cooling in the northern hemisphere, which reached its maximum right around the fall of the Shang.{{sfnp|Hinsch|1988|p=139}} In 1059 BCE, two unusual celestial phenomena took place: in May, the densest [[conjunction (astronomy)|clustering]] in five hundred years' time of the five planets visible to the naked eye could be seen in the constellation of Cancer, and a few seasons later [[Comet Halley|Halley's Comet]] appeared.{{sfnp|Pankenier|1995|pp=123–124, 129}} One or more of these{{sfnp|Allan|2007|p=38}} was interpreted by the powerful [[Zhou Wen Wang|Lord of Zhou]] as a visible sign indicating supernatural approval.{{sfnp|Li|2008|pp=30–31}} Early records, such as the [[Chinese bronze inscriptions|inscription]] on the ''[[Da Yu ding]]'', employ language more descriptive than theoretical: "the great command in the sky" ({{lang-zh|labels=no|c=天有大令}}).{{sfnp|Allan|2007|p=39}}{{efn|The early word here for "command" ({{lang-zh|c=令|p=líng|labels=no}}) had either not yet diverged from the modern version ({{lang-zh|c=命|p=mìng|labels=no}}) or was written to express the same word.}} Although both the Shang and Zhou claimed divine ancestry,{{sfnp|Allan|2007|pp=13, 33}} the Zhou were the first to use the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to explain their right to assume rule and presumed that the only way to hold the mandate was to rule well in the eyes of Heaven. They also stated that the Shang came into power because the [[Xia dynasty|Xia]] had lost their mandate, which had then been bestowed upon the Shang, leading to the fall of the Xia and the rise of the Shang.{{sfnp|Zhao|2009}} The Xia gave precedent and legitimacy to the Zhou's own rebellion.{{sfnp|Pines|2008|p=3}} No Western Zhou bronze inscriptions mention the Xia, or any other dynasty preceding the Shang.{{sfnp|Allan|2007|p=40}} The Zhou believed that the Shang ruling house had become morally corrupt and that the Shang leaders' loss of virtue entitled their own house to take over.{{sfnp|Song|2019|pp=515–516}} The overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, they said, was in accordance with the mandate given by Heaven. Even at the time of the inauguration ritual of third-generation [[King Kang of Zhou]], the royal command read out to the new king explicitly stated the belief that Heaven had changed its mandate.{{sfnp|Shaughnessy|1989|p=54}} In the political theory of the Zhou, legitimate authority flowed directly from Heaven to their founding [[wikt:dynast|dynast]], [[King Wen of Zhou|King Wen]]. Although he did not live to see the [[Zhou conquest of Shang]], his legitimacy passed to his heirs.{{sfnp|Li|2008|pp=294–295}} Early on in the dynasty, there was some debate as to whether Heaven's mandate had fallen to the senior sons of King Wen's line, or to the house of Zhou as a group, as exemplified by an exchange surviving in the classic ''[[Book of Documents]]''.{{sfnp|Shaughnessy|1993|pp=58–59}} === Eastern Zhou === The Zhou dynasty was marked by early success and expansion until the death on campaign of King Kang's successor, [[King Zhao of Zhou]].{{sfnp|Li|2008|p=34}} During the ensuing centuries, central authority waned overall, driven by socioeconomic pressures. This culminated in a succession crisis which saw the aristocracy split between two competing candidates for a number of years. When the crisis resolved, the royal house retained only a tiny amount of land and no real military power. This marked the beginning of the [[Eastern Zhou]]. During the decline of the royal house, although real power was wrested from their grasp, their divine legitimacy was not brought into question, and even with the king reduced to something of a figurehead, his prestige remained supreme as Heaven's eldest son.{{sfnp|Pines|2004|p=23}} However, there is epigraphic evidence that, in private, the rulers of the state of [[Qin (state)|Qin]] (which would go on to conquer everyone else and become the first dynasty of the imperial era) held that their ancestors had received Heaven's mandate. As early as the 600s BCE, multiple inscriptions attest to this idea.{{sfnp|Pines|2006|pp=18–21}} It is unclear whether the Qin rulers meant they believed they had celestial approval to replace the Zhou kings, whether they believed themselves the appointed heirs of the Zhou should the royal line come to an end,{{sfnp|Pines|2006|p=19}} or whether their receipt of Heaven's mandate was construed as issuing through the Zhou king to give them legitimate authority over their own lands.{{sfnp|Pines|2004|p=16}} === Qin and Han dynasties === When the Zhou dynasty did come to an end, Qin absorbed the remainder of their lands, [[Qin's wars of unification|as well as those of all their competitors]]. The Mandate of Heaven did not play a direct part in their public relations, going unmentioned in all surviving material.{{sfnp|Pines|2008|p=22}} The [[Qin dynasty]] was not long-lived: after the death of first emperor [[Qin Shihuang]], <!-- pleonasm noted --> widespread revolts by prisoners, peasants, unhappy soldiers, ambitious minor officials, and remnants of the recently defeated aristocracy rapidly downfell the central government.{{sfnp|Dull|1983|pp=313–317}} The ensuing [[Chu–Han contention]] ended with the success of [[Liu Bang]] and establishment of the [[Han dynasty]]. Surviving historical documents from the Han dynasty paint the preceding Qin in a deeply unfavourable light, emphasising tyrannical policies, the incompetence of the second emperor, and giving an account of illegitimate birth for the first emperor.{{sfnp|Sørensen|2010|p=15}}{{sfnp|Goldin|2000|pp=78–79}} In this portrayal, it is clear the Qin had lost the Mandate, if they had ever possessed it to begin with. It was an uncomfortable fact that Han founder Liu Bang rose to power from a background outside the aristocracy, and achieved victory through military accomplishments. To accommodate this, Liu Bang was ascribed a magical birth, and later a divine ancestry.{{sfnp|Wang|2001|p=20}}{{sfnp|Nylan|2007|p=72}} When [[Wang Mang]] took power at the end of the [[western Han]], he used the acceptance of the theory of Heaven's Mandate to his advantage. Auspicious unusual events were said to portend Heaven's choosing a new heir, so Wang fabricated omens indicating that Heaven had changed its mandate, and that it had chosen him.{{sfnp|Sukhu|2006|p=120}} Following the restoration of the Han house to power, the Mandate of Heaven stood on uncertain grounds. Some theorists decoupled judgements of virtue from the mandate, seeing it primarily as inherited through ancestry, while others abandoned the concept altogether in favour of [[five phases]] theories.{{sfnp|Sukhu|2006|p=133}} === Era of disunity === The final Han emperor abdicated to the powerful minister {{nowrap|[[Cao Pi]]}} in {{nowrap|CE 220,}} and in this transfer of power the idea of Heaven's mandate played a large role. The court prognosticator Xu Zhi ([[:zh:許芝|許芝]]) enumerated in a lengthy memorandum the signs he had located in divinatory and historical texts showing that Cao Pi's [[Cao Wei|Wei]] should succeed the Han.{{sfnp|Chen and Pei|loc=vol. 2, pp. 63–64}} A sequence of written statements by various officials followed, culminating in [[Emperor Xian of Han]]'s formal announcement of abdication and Cao Pi's accession.{{sfnp|Chen and Pei|loc=vol. 2, pp. 62–75}} The announcement of abdication explicitly mentioned that the mandate of Heaven was not permanent, and no one argued that the virtue of the house of Han had not been in decline for some time.{{sfnp|Chen and Pei|loc=vol. 2, pp. 62, 66–68}} In the eyes of these authors, Heaven's mandate followed virtue.{{sfnp|Farmer|2001|pp=51–52}} While the idea that [[Cao Wei]] was Heaven's legitimate successor predominated for several centuries, the alternate theory that Heaven's mandate instead fell to the rival state of [[Shu Han]] was first articulated by [[Xi Zuochi]] in the 300s,{{sfnp|Chittick|1998|p=48}} and was universally accepted by the much later [[Song dynasty]].{{sfnp|Yong|1782|loc=vol. 45, p. 17}} The last Wei emperor abdicated in turn to the [[Western Jin]]. This dynasty soon lost control of northern China to non-Han ethnic groups, and in the literature of the southern dynasties that followed there began to appear an object called the [[Heirloom Seal of the Realm|State-Transmitting Seal]]. This magical talisman was the physical manifestation of Heaven's mandate, tied up in the fortunes of ruling families, allowing the exiled southern aristocracy to retain their sense of cultural superiority and maintain the validity of Heaven's mandate in the face of counterfactual political reality.{{sfnp|Rogers|1968|pp=61–62}} === Five Dynasties period === {{Main|Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period}} During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, there was no dominant Chinese dynasty that ruled all of China. This created a problem for the Song dynasty that followed, as they wanted to legitimize their rule by establishing a clear transmission of the Mandate from the Tang through to the Song. The scholar-official [[Xue Juzheng]] compiled the ''[[Old History of the Five Dynasties]]'' (五代史) during the 960s and 970s, after the Song dynasty had taken northern [[China]] from the last of the [[Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period|Five Dynasties]], the [[Later Zhou]]. A major purpose of the book was to establish justification for the transference of the Mandate of Heaven through these five dynasties and thus to the Song dynasty. He argued that these dynasties met certain vital criteria to be considered as having attained the Mandate of Heaven despite never having ruled all of China. One is that they all ruled the traditional Chinese heartland. However, there were certain other areas where these dynasties all clearly fell short. The brutal behavior of [[Zhu Wen]] and his [[Later Liang (Five Dynasties)|Later Liang]] was a source of considerable embarrassment, and thus there was pressure to exclude them from the Mandate. The following three dynasties, the [[Later Tang]], [[Later Jin (Five Dynasties)|Later Jin]], and [[Later Han (Five Dynasties)|Later Han]] were all non-Han Chinese dynasties with rulers from the [[Shatuo]] ethnic minority. Additionally, none of them were able to defeat the powerful states to the south and unify the entire Chinese realm. However, [[Xue Juzheng]] concluded that the Mandate had indeed passed through each of the Five Dynasties, and thus onto the Song Dynasty when it conquered the last of those dynasties.{{sfnp|Mote|1999|pp=8–10}} The Mandate of Heaven was thought to emanate from the Dao, especially in the [[Song dynasty]].<ref name=":33">{{Cite book |last=Harl |first=Kenneth W. |title=Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization |publisher=[[Hanover Square Press]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-335-42927-8 |location=United States |page=272 |author-link=Kenneth W. Harl}}</ref> === Qing dynasty === {{main|Transition from Ming to Qing}} The [[Qing dynasty]] was established by the [[Manchus]] who conquered the [[China proper]]. [[Nurhaci]], who was regarded the founding father of the Qing dynasty, was originally a [[vassal]]age to the [[Ming dynasty]] and later rebelled against the Ming with the [[Seven Grievances]]. But according to the Qing rulers it was the [[Late Ming peasant rebellions|peasant rebels]] led by [[Li Zicheng]] who overthrew the Ming, and so the Qing were not responsible for the destruction of the Ming dynasty. Instead, the Qing argued, they had obtained the Mandate of Heaven by defeating the many rebels and bandits that the Ming had failed to control and restoring stability to the empire.{{sfnp|Mote|1999|p=819}} Just as stability was a sign of Heaven's favor, difficulties were a sign of Heaven's displeasure. Thus, emperors in the Qing and earlier dynasties often interpreted natural disasters during their reigns as reasons to reflect on their failures to act and govern correctly.{{sfnp |Mote|1999|p=637}}
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)