The Study On The Relationship Between The Royal Finances Depleted In Middle And Late Era And The Decline Of West Zhou Dynasty

This paper investigates the decline of the Western Zhou Dynasty from the perspective of the royal finance depletion of the royal family in the middle and late era. "The reduction in income while the augment in spending is bound to lead to the depletion of finance." Under the guidance of this general idea, the article will decompose the royal finance into some factors, such as land, military and reward based on the analysis of comparative literature, bronze inscriptions and archaeological materials. Paper will clarify the main sources of royal finances firstly, then analyzes the changes of the above factors in the middle an late era of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and finally obtains the conclusion that "the depletion of royal finances resulted in the decline of the dynasty", and rethinking the measures that taken by Li Wang, Xuan Wang and You Wang in this background. This thesis is divided into six chapters. The first and second chapters introduce the main sources of the revenue of the Western Zhou royal family from Guinea land produced, contribution, capture and so on. The third chapter discusses the reduction of the agricultural income due to the atrophy of crown land and natural disasters. The fourth chapter demonstrates the huge consumption of the war for the royal finances by analyzing the situation of wars between Western Zhou Dynasty and national minorities in the middle and late era. The fifth chapter expounds the significance of reward behavior in the Western Zhou Dynasty by explaining the "potlatch" firstly, and then discusses the problem of aristocratic luxury of Western Zhou Dynasty in the middle and late of the aristocracy by comparing the funerary objects, the reward records in the inscriptions, and finally get the conclusion that royal finances reward leads to the depletion of the royal finances. The sixth chapter analyzes that the depletion of royal finance is one of the main reasons to the decline of the Western Zhou Dynasty on the basis of the previous discussion, and rethinking the measures that taken by Li Wang, Xuan Wang and You Wang in this background.