The last Shang ruler, a despot according…

The last Shang ruler, a despot according to standard Chinese accounts, is overthrown by a chieftain of a frontier tribe called Zhou, which had settled in the Wei Valley in modern Shaanxi Province.

The Zhou dynasty has its capital at Hao, near the city of Xi'an, or Chang'an, as it is known in its heyday in the imperial period.

Sharing the language and culture of the Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization, gradually sinicize, that is, extend Shang culture through much of China Proper north of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River).

The Zhou dynasty will last longer than any other, from 1027 to 221 BCE.

It is philosophers of this period who first enunciate the doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" (tianming), the notion that the ruler (the "son of heaven") governs by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had lost the mandate.

The doctrine explains and justifies the demise of the two earlier dynasties and at the same time supports the legitimacy of present and future rulers.