#3 - Xia 1: The Xia, China's First Dynasty

Episode 3 - Xia 1: The Xia, China's First Dynasty

Last week we concluded China’s prehistoric origins mythos known as the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period, concluding with Yu the Great’s mastery over the flooding rivers of China and subsequent promotion to imperial heir.  Today, we begin into the first dynastic period of China, the Xia.

While I say we’ve made it through the mythological period of Chinese history – I’m afraid I’m going to immediately need to backpedal on the statement: we’re not out of the woods yet.  As we’ll be going over it today, the Xia dynasty is still largely a fictionalized accounting of a pre-literate society.  Before we launch into the story itself, then, we ought to take a bit of a longer look at what we mean when we talk about the Xia… both in terms of pure historiographical evidence, but also in terms of what it means in a cultural sense.  Historian Kwang-Chih Chang writes in the Cambridge History of Ancient China, “[…] was [there] indeed a ‘Xia dynasty’ at the head of Chinese history?  In a traditional Chinese historiography, this could not be questioned, because the sequence of the Three August Ones, the Five Emperors, and the Three Dynasties lay at the root of every educated Chinese person’s idea of the beginning of Chinese history.”  That only actually began to change starting in the 1920s, when a somewhat “renegade” segment of Chinese historians began to – gasp – question the historical basis of these ancient supposed histories.  This infact led to the formation of an organization which called itself the rather scandalous name, Yigu Pai, meaning “The School of Doubting Antiquity.”  Their very first target, in fact, was the subject of our story today: Yu the Great, whom they proceeded to tear down as a work of absolute mythological fiction.  For a while, there was even a sub-school within the Doubting Antiquarians that pressed the idea that the whole story of the Xia and Shang were pure flights of fantasy, and completely a-historical.

Unlike the 3 Sovereigns and Five Emperors period, however, there are distinct archaeological findings consistent with this period that show distinct urbanization, bronze tools and weapons, tombs suggesting ritual burial practices, and even large palaces uncovered in western Henan province.  This ancient culture is known as the Erlitou Civilization – and there are strong indications that these may have been the people on whom the story of the Xia Dynasty would later be based.  Both the period of the Erlitou – radiocarbon dated as existing between 2100 and 1800 BCE – and its location in China – centered in the Yellow River Valley – are consistent with the accounts of the Xia Dynasty.  Moreover, as Chang puts it, “since the genealogy of the Shang dynasty given in the Shiji has been essentially validated by the newly discovered oracle-bone inscriptions, there would seem to be good reason to accept its genealogy of the Xia dynasty as well.”  

Nevertheless, in spite of the basic acceptance of the premise of the Xia, the traditional idea of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou being sequential – as in one after the other, after the other – is increasingly viewed as inappropriate.  A wide consensus has been reached that, in all likelihood, the three ancient dynasties were to at least some extent overlapping and co-extant civilizations, perhaps the three most powerful of the so-called “10,000 states” of the ancient past.  The idea of this collection of semi-verifiable myths and legends being given the same cultural credence as the verifiably historical Shang and Zhou Dynasties yet to come, in fact stems back as far as our written histories will take us – namely to the very first historical work to come out of China, or at the least survive the rigors of the ages: the Shiji, meaning simply “Historical Record,” but more commonly called the Records of the Grand Historian, the aforementioned historian being the Han Dynasty-era scholar, Sima Qian.  The second chapter of the bamboo-scroll work he entitled Xia Benji, or “Basic Annals of the Xia,” giving it the same historical weight as his later chapters on subsequent dynastic lines.  As such, even though the Xia cannot accurately be described as a true “dynasty” in the normal sense, it’s nevertheless customary to call it one.  Once again from Chang, “Present evidence suggests that there was indeed a Xia dynasty.  That Sima Qian selected Xia from among many contemporary polities was probably because during the earliest part of the Chinese Bronze Age or the Three Dynasties Period, Xia was the most powerful.  If Erlitou can be identified with Xia, this is indeed true.”

OK, did I lose you yet?  Because as fascinating as that all is, I fully acknowledge that a good narrative it does not make.  I just wanted to get that out in the open right off the bat.  From this point on, we’re going to primarily stick with the traditional narrative account of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou, even as we acknowledge that much of what we’re offered is a goodly blend of fact and fiction.  In the words of historian Pierre Briant translating Léo Ferré: “Even if it is not true, you need to believe in ancient history.”

When we last saw Yu, he was riding high after emerging victorious in his decade-long struggle to control the yearly floodwaters that had inundated the Yellow River Valleys.  Just four days before he had been called away to replace his father and save the empire, Yu had married a young woman named Lady Tushan, who took the name of her home region.  Newly wedded though they were, Yu had no choice but to heed the Emperor’s summons, and so bid his bride goodbye, saying he did not know when he would be able to return.  In fact, it would be thirteen years before he would set foot inside his own house again, though he passed it by thrice.  The first time, his wife Tushan was in labor with his son Qi.  By the time he passed by again, Qi was old enough to call out for his father, and the third time Qi was a boy of more than 10.  Each time he passed, his family would beg him to come home to them, but Yu refused, stating that while the country suffered and rendered so many without food or shelter, he could not in good conscious partake in such luxuries.