The Qifeng Era

Hou Ji was enfeoffed at Tai, and the Ji clan began the Zhou. Descendants of the Xia royal house and patriarchs of the western lands, they shared a common origin yet followed different paths, ruling separate parts of Huaxia.

The Ji clan of Zhou began with Hou Ji, who sowed the five grains and fostered farming and sericulture. After Bu Zuo lost his office, Gong Liu moved to Bin, and the Old Duke moved to Qi, their descendants accumulated virtue and benevolence over generations. The clan gradually flourished, keeping far from the bloody sacrifices of the Shang and quietly cultivating civil virtue as it established its power in western Qi.

By the time of Count of the West Chang, goodness and benevolence had won the people's hearts. King Wu Fa followed Heaven's will and the people's wishes, rose to glory at Muye, and ended the Shang sacrifices with a single campaign. King Cheng established the capital, and the Duke of Zhou instituted rites, creating ritual and music to pacify the realm and enfeoffing the nobility to strengthen the Zhou royal house. The Zhou flourished under Kings Zhao and Mu, then fell into disorder under Kings Li and Xuan, as royal authority crumbled and the royal domain shrank day by day.

The beacon fires began at Mount Li. The Quanrong invaded the royal domain, King You perished, and the Western Zhou fell. From Hou Ji's founding of the clan in the lands of Tai to King You's death at Xixi, this work records the Zhou clan's centuries-long journey of migration, concealment, rise, establishment of the dynasty, and decline.

This book uses the literary-chronicle form to write history, with sober narration that stays true to its subject. It shuns florid language and fabricated embellishments, using history as its foundation and literature as its framework. Following the format pioneered by The Spy's Shadow Stirs the Waves: The Biography of Nü Ai, it presents a complete history of the Ji clan of Zhou and the Western Zhou, recording the rise and fall of a dynasty across the lands of Qi and Feng.