Empress Wu Zetian of China had found another Zhou Dynasty in 690 AD, which lasted during her reign. However, it is traditionally considered an interruption of the Tang Dynasty.
In the Chinese historical tradition, the rulers of the Zhou displaced the Yin and legitimized their rule by invoking the Mandate of Heaven. The Zhou dynasty was founded by the Ji family and had its capital at Hao, near the city of Xi'an, or Chang'an, as it was known in its heyday in the imperial period. Sharing the language and culture of the Shang (Yin), the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization, gradually sinicized, that is, extended Shang (Yin) culture through much of China Proper north of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River).
In Western histography, feudal has often been applied to the Zhou period because the Zhou's early decentralized rule invites comparison with medieval rule in Europe. At most, however, the early Zhou system was proto-feudal, being a more sophisticated version of earlier tribal organization, in which effective control depended more on familial ties than on feudal legal bonds. Whatever feudal elements there may have been decreased as time went on. The Zhou amalgam of city-states became progressively centralized and established increasingly impersonal political and economic institutions. These developments, which probably occurred in the latter Zhou period, were manifested in greater central control over local governments and a more routinized agrarian taxation. In Chinese Marxist histography, the Zhou dynasty marks the began of the feudal phase of Chinese history, a period which is said to extend to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.
Initially the Ji family was able to control the country firmly. In 771 BC, after King You had replaced his queen with a concubine Baosi, he was then sacked by the joint force of the queen's father, who was the powerful Marquess of Shen, and the barbarians. The queen's son Ji Yijiu was proclaimed the new king by the nobles from the states of Zheng, Lu, Qin and the Marquess of Shen. The capital was moved eastward in 722 BC to Luoyang in present-day Henan Province.
With the royal line broken, the power of the Zhou court gradually diminished; the fragmentation of the kingdom accelerated. From Ping Wang onwards, the Zhou kings ruled only symbolicly, with true power being held in the hands of powerful nobles. Towards the end of Zhou Dynasty, the nobles did not bother to obey the Ji family, even symbolically and declared themselves to be kings. They wanted to be the king of the kings. Finally, the dynasty was obliberated by Qin Shi Huangdi's reunification of China in 221 BC.
1 The first generally accepted date in Chinese history is 841 BC, the beginning of the Gonghe regency. All dates prior to this are the subject of often vigorous dispute. The dates provided here are those put forward by The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, the work of scholars sponsored by the Chinese government which reported in 2000. They are given only as a guide.
2 Nobles of the Ji family proclaimed King Hui as King Nan's successor after their capital, Luoyang, fell to Qin forces in 256 BC. However Zhou resistance did not last long in the face of the Qin advance and so King Nan is widely considered to have been the last emperor of the Zhou dynasty.''
