Ancient Chinese states

Ancient Chinese states (traditional Chinese: 諸侯國; simplified Chinese: 诸侯国; pinyin: Zhūhóu guó) were dynastic polities of China within and without the Zhou cultural sphere prior to Qin's wars of unification. They ranged in size from large estates, to city-states to much vaster territories with multiple population centers. Many of these submitted to royal authority, but many did not—even those that shared the same culture and ancestral temple surname as the ruling house. Prior to the Zhou conquest of Shang, these ancient states were already extant as units of the preceding Shang dynasty, Predynastic Zhou or polities of other cultural groups. Once the Zhou had established themselves, they made grants of land and relative local autonomy to kinfolk in return for military support and tributes, under a system known as fengjian.

The rulers of the states were collectively the zhuhou (諸侯; 诸侯; zhūhóu; 'many lords'). Over the course of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE), the ties of family between the states attenuated, the power of the central government waned, and the states grew more autonomous. Some regional rulers granted subunits of their own territory to ministerial lineages who eventually eclipsed them in power and in some cases usurped them. Over time, the smaller polities were absorbed by the larger ones, either by force or willing submission, until only one remained: Qin (秦), which unified the realm in 221 BCE and became China's first imperial dynasty.

The Zhou dynasty grew out of a predynastic polity with its own existing power structure, primarily organized as a set of culturally affiliated kinship groups. The defining characteristics of a noble were their ancestral temple surname (姓; xìng), their lineage line within that ancestral surname, and seniority within that lineage line.

Shortly after the Zhou conquest of Shang (1046 or 1045 BCE), the immediate goal of the nascent dynasty was to consolidate its power over its newly expanded geographical range, especially in light of the Rebellion of the Three Guards following the death of the conquering King Wu of Zhou. To this end, royal relatives were granted lands outside the old Zhou homeland, and given relatively sovereign authority over those spaces.

The Zhou government thus had multiple dimensions of relationship with different sorts of powerful men. The lineage elders of the old homelands were related to the royal house mostly through the pre-existing kinship structure, and not all were politically subservient. The regional lords were established to provide a screen to the royal lands and exert control over culturally distinct polities and were mostly defined by that responsibility, but this was also embedded in the kinship groups. Some few high government ministers had special, non-hereditary titles of nobility. Lastly, there were the leaders of polities outside the Zhou cultural sphere.

Fang States (⽅) refer to the various tribes and states during the Shang dynasty in ancient China. Today, scholars' understanding of these states primarily comes from oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the late Shang dynasty Yinxu. In these inscriptions, these tribal states are often referred to as name + "方". In modern style Chinese the term can be duplicated to Fang Guo (⽅國).

Following the overthrow of the Shang dynasty in 1046 BCE, the early kings made hereditary land grants to various relatives and descendants. Along with the land and title came a responsibility to support the Zhou king during an emergency and to pay ritual homage to the Zhou ancestors. In the Yellow River valley, of the earliest vassal states, the state of Cai (蔡) was founded following a grant of land by the conquering King Wu of Zhou to a younger brother. Other states established at this time included Cao (曹), Yan (燕), Jin (晉), and Chen (陳). The state of Song (宋) was permitted to be retained by the nobility of the defeated Shang dynasty, in what would become a custom known as Er Wang San Ke. In the Zhou heartland of the Wei River valley, most existing polities submitted to Zhou overlordship, although the state of Yu (虞) did not, since their rulers belonged to a more senior branch of the lineage group than the Zhou kings. The rulers of the state of Guo (虢) also belonged to a different branch lineage, but they submitted to royal authority. The relation of the polities in the old Zhou heartland to the royal court was informed by the preexisting kinship structures amongst them, whereas the relationship between the newly established regional states and the royal court was more directly political.

On the periphery, the states of Yan, Qi (齊), and Jin in the north and northeast had more room to expand and grew into large states. In the southwest the non-Zhou state of Chu (楚) demanded attention. In the southeast, the Zhou confederation was bordered by the peoples of Wu (吳) and Yue (越). These polities and cultural outgroups in the Yangtze River valley were not fully incorporated into a centralised political domain until the imperial era. Around the borders of the Central States (中國) lived "barbarians", fenced off from the Zhou heartlands by their enfeoffed regional lords. Apart from their responsibilities to the throne, the regional lords were responsible for their families, their people, and the altars of soil and grain outside their cities, where annual sacrifices were performed.