Overthrow, natural disasters, and famine were taken as a sign that the ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

How would the Chinese people know that a ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven. The people knew when their ruler lost the Mandate of Heaven when bad things started to happen such as towns were being robbed, floods, famines, and invasions happened.

In 1046 BCE, King Wu of Zhou defeated the Shang and established the Zhou Dynasty. King Wu said that Di Xin had lost the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. It was believed that natural disasters, famines, and astrological signs were signals that the emperor and the dynasty were losing the Mandate of Heaven.

According to this doctrine, heaven (天, Tian) – which embodies the natural order and will of the universe – bestows the mandate on a just ruler of China, the “Son of Heaven”. If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy, and had lost the mandate.

The mandate of Heaven was something invented by The Zhou Dinasty to justify them overthrowing the Shang Dinasty, under the saying that they were sent by heaven and that there could only be one true ruler of China, and it is used ever since to justify the mandate of the ruler or emperor at the time ever since, saying …

The primary cause for the collapse of the Zhou dynasty was the implementation of the fengjian system, where the royal family would strengthen their authority over the other states by installing relatives as lords in the regions.

The Feudalism system They used a form of government called feudalism to keep China stable. In feudalism, the king starts out with all of the land. He then sells large portions of his land to people called lords in exchange for soldiers when the king is attacked. The lord gets farmers for peasants to work the land.

Confucius

Such a system, however, was replaced by a prefecture–county system after the first emperor of China unified the country in 221 BC. Feudalism ceased to be a major polity after that. In ancient China, feudalism was regarded as a political polity.

In ancient China, feudalism divided society into three different categories: emperors, nobles, and commoners, with commoners making up the vast majority of the population. The hierarchy of ancient China had an order for everyone, from emperor to slave.

Over the next two centuries the feudal-familial system gradually declined and disappeared. China under the Han emperor Wudi (c. 100 bce) and (inset) at the end of the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn) Period (c. 500 bce).

How did feudalism in China fail in the end to fulfill its original purpose? Instead of protecting the lords, feudalism caused peasants to revolt. c. Feudalism caused a gap between rich and poor, and this led to unrest.

The Silk Road was important because it helped to generate trade and commerce between a number of different kingdoms and empires. This helped for ideas, culture, inventions, and unique products to spread across much of the settled world.

The spread of papermaking was also influenced by the route. This production method spread from China through much of central Asia as a direct result of the route itself. Architecture, town planning, as well as music and art from many different cultures were transported along the Silk Road.

the Silk Road Legacy The greatest value of the Silk Road was the exchange of culture. Art, religion, philosophy, technology, language, science, architecture, and every other element of civilization was exchanged along these routes, carried with the commercial goods the merchants traded from country to country.

Keeping Silk a Secret Silk became a prized export for the Chinese. Nobles and kings of foreign lands desired silk and would pay high prices for the cloth. The emperors of China wanted to keep the process for making silk a secret. Anyone caught telling the secret or taking silkworms out of China was put to death.

The Silk Roads contributed a lot to the Black Plague. Bandits and thievery were a big problem as well. Bandits would raid merchant caravans and outposts, and often murdered the merchants as well, which made traveling the Silk Roads alone very dangerous.

Everyone (East and West) benefited from the Silk Road. It opened up trade, communication, different ideas, culture, and religion to the entire world.

Dangerous animals Scorpions, black widow spiders and venomous snakes all live in desert areas throughout the Silk Road region.