Page 447 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

THE END OF AN ERA

1020-1000 B.C.

he Warrior King Wu was dead, and it seemed
as though all his conquests, and all the planning of his father be­
fore him, were to go for nothing. The dynasty of Chou appeared
to be ending before it was begun, and the next few months might

well see a Shang emperor again seated firmly on the dragon
throne of China.
The new king of the realms of Chou, King Ch’eng, was
only a child, but his empire, now falling to pieces, was not even as
old as he. It was a bare seven years since his father had led the
chariots of Chou and her allies eastward down the river and
captured the Great City of Shang—though the conquest had
been planned long before, as even the simplest Chou farmer
knew.
It was King Wen the Wise, father of King Wu, who had con­
ceived the plan, a quarter of a century ago, when he had suc­
ceeded to the throne of Chou. Chou was then an inconsiderable

kingdom, and from its capital at Feng the king ruled only the
farming villages of the Wei valley, from the foothills of the west­
ern mountains to the junction of the Wei with the Yellow River a
hundred miles east of the capital. The Chou kingdom was not
rich, for though in a good year the valley could give fair crops,
the rainfall was erratic and famine an ever-present fear. But the
people were hardy, and had learnt through long experience with
border skirmishes to use with effect the heavy four-horse chariots
that they had acquired from the nomads of the steppes and
deserts to their west.
But Chou, though poor, was independent, or liked to think