Interview With the Duke of Zhou

            On Monday, January 23^rd 2012, an interview was scheduled with the Duke of Zhou, the ruler of the Zhou Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty lasted from 1050 B.C to 221 B.C.
Interviewer: What year was the Zhou Dynasty established? What dynasty was before the Zhou Dynasty?
Duke of Zhou: King Wu and his tribes defeated the Shang Dynasty around 1050 B.C, which is the time that the Zhou Dynasty was created and began.

A series of questions were asked involving the dynasty and the Duke of Zhou himself.
Interviewer: Why did the Zhou Dynasty split into the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty?
Duke of Zhou: The Zhou Dynasty moved its capital from Haojing to Luoyang, which made our dynasty move from west to east. Since the dynasty lasted for so long, when we moved the capital, we split the time into the Western Zhou Dynasty, lasting from 1050 B.C to 770 B.C, and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, lasting from 770 B.C to 221 B.C.

After this, another question followed.
Interviewer: How did King Wu’s death change the Zhou Dynasty?
Duke of Zhou: Once my brother died, the Zhou changed in many different ways. The leader changed, of course. The ‘thrown’ was handed off to me and I took control. After Wu died, we had fewer wars too. Also, the Zhou Dynasty split into the Western and Eastern Zhou Dynasties. The government got stronger, but around 221 B.C, the government got weaker thus creating it to come to an end.

Then the next question was asked involving how long the Zhou Dynasty ruled.
Interviewer: How did you get your dynasty to be China’s longest ruling dynasty?
Duke of Zhou: The reason that the Zhou Dynasty was the longest ruing dynasty is because we didn’t fight as many wars. Fighting the wars would make us either win or lose. If we lost, our dynasty would suffer and get weaker with every loss we had. Of course we fought wars but they didn’t massively affect our dynasty.

After that question, the topic of Confucianism and other philosophies came up.
Interviewer: Which philosophy do you and the Zhou Dynasty follow and why.
Duke of Zhou: Confucianism was the philosophy that we followed. I decided to use this philosophy because it meant we would all be equal and it would give us a trust worthy group of people. It also strengthened our society because we treated everyone equally and we had peace. We were honest with each other and we had trust in each other.

Then came the last question we asked the Duke of Zhou.
Interviewer: How do you think your dynasty improved China and why.
Duke of Zhou: The Zhou Dynasty helped China in many different ways. Agriculture was improved by us because we transformed it using iron plows and tools to make the farming faster and more accurate. We also established an aristocratic structure for China.
The Duke of Zhou was a very powerful man and he was a great leader for the Zhou Dynasty, making it a very successful and long ruling dynasty.