empires and dynasties: Asia and the Pacific his reign as a golden age for the arts, while noting that most Indians had good lives He was succeeded by Kumāragupta (r ca 415–455 c.e.), whose rule was weakened by a rebellion in Malwa, in central India The next Maharajadhiraja was Skandagupta (r ca 455–467 c.e.), who faced an invasion by the Hunas, the Huns During his father’s reign he had put down the rebellion in Malwa, and as the Gupta ruler he drove out the Hunas He was succeeded by his nephew Budhagupta, whose reign seems to have been brief The Hunas returned and defeated the Gupta army, ending the Gupta Empire CHINA’S LEGENDARY DYNASTY Almost nothing is known about the politics of the region of China before the Shang Dynasty (ca 1500–ca 1045 b.c.e.) Ancient Chinese legends say that the first Chinese king was Huangdi, also called the “Yellow Emperor.” Huang means “august sovereign,” and di means “high god.” During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, di would come to mean “divine ruler.” Huangdi supposedly lived sometime between the 2900s and 2600s b.c.e., with 2698 b.c.e sometimes being asserted as the year he made himself king According to Chinese histories from the Han Dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), the first Chinese dynasty was the Xia, said to have been founded in 2205 b.c.e This dynasty has long been thought to be a myth, but so was the Shang Dynasty until the early 20th century, when archaeologists began finding proof of its existence In fact, one Han historian, Sima Qian of the second century b.c.e., made a list of Shang rulers that closely matches a list created by archaeologists from Shang writings, and he made a list of Xia rulers, too, so perhaps ancient Xia just remains to be discovered CHINA’S SHANG DYNASTY Since the 1910s archaeologists have found cities of the Shang Dynasty and tombs of some of its rulers Chinese legend says it was founded in about 1700 b.c.e by King Tang Modern archaeologists and historians are more comfortable with the date 1500 b.c.e for the founding of the Shang Dynasty along the Yellow River, probably by a historical King Tang The Shang were warlike, and they conquered territories to the north and west of the Yellow River By 1050 b.c.e the Shang kingdom was remarkable The Shang conquerors had absorbed into their kingdom a variety of different ethnic groups who spoke several different languages and had instilled in most of them the idea that they were one people, living in a kingdom given to them by gods The cultural influence of the Shang reached south beyond the Yangtze River, north into what is now Inner Mongolia, west to the Qin Mountains, and east to the ocean The Shang Dynasty’s strong central government held the country together for centuries, but it began to weaken in the 1100s and 1000s b.c.e because it could not keep track of its increasingly far-flung territories, and its borders were constantly fluctuating with the ebb and flow of barbarian invasions and Shang counterattacks 403 CHINA’S ZHOU DYNASTY During the 1100s or 1000s b.c.e the rulers of the province of Zhou began calling themselves wangs, meaning “kings.” There is some doubt about exactly when the Zhou overthrew the Shang Dynasty, with the earliest date being 1122 b.c.e., but the year was probably 1045 b.c.e The Shang government had fallen into disarray, with its kingdom’s provinces tending to rule themselves Although the Zhou were not as technologically advanced as were the Shang, they had a better-disciplined military King Wu of Zhou defeated the Shang army and sacked the capital city of Anyang Historians divide the history of the Zhou Dynasty into two periods: the Western Zhou, when the capital was in the city of Xian in the Qin province, and the Eastern Zhou, when the capital was in Luoyang in the province of Zhou, to the east of Xian The Western Zhou era lasted from 1027 to 771 or 770 b.c.e Its fi rst monarch, King Wu, declared that the Shang Dynasty’s divine energy had disappeared and that he had been chosen by the gods to found a new dynasty To later Chinese, the Western Zhou era was a golden age because the Zhou government maintained the peace Instead of creating a strong central government, the Zhou monarchs solved their problems with ruling a large nation by creating a feudal system in which they appointed family members and close friends to rule dozens of small provinces No one had a large enough province to have the manpower necessary to overthrow the government, and the Zhou Dynasty had a series of strong leaders who traveled the country with their army The army was so magnificent when it marched that enemies were overawed by the sight of it During the 800s b.c.e nomadic peoples from the west of China raided the Qin province and threatened Xian Thus, in about 770 b.c.e the Zhou king moved his capital east, away from the threats from barbarians This resulted in a great loss of prestige for the king, and the rulers of provinces began ignoring the Zhou government This began the Eastern Zhou, which historians divide into two smaller periods: the Spring and Autumn Era (722–481 b.c.e.) and the Warring States Era (453–221 b.c.e.) These names were given because the first period is covered in an ancient history book called Spring and Autumn Annals, and the other is covered in The Strategies of the Warring States During the Eastern Zhou the king had almost no political power and ruled only a tiny territory He did have important ceremonial significance, and rulers of the provinces consulted him as a matter of fulfi lling protocol This protocol may have annoyed the provincial rulers, but they held their stations as rulers because they received the blessings of the king, who ruled by divine right and passed that right to them To kill the king and be done with him would take away their own justifications for being rulers Meanwhile, the different provinces waged war against each other