King You of Zhou, in an attempt to make his favored concubine Bao Si smile, lit the beacon towers without cause, losing the trust of the feudal lords. Later, he sought to depose Queen Shen and Crown Prince Yijiu, intending to make Bao Si his queen and her son Bofu the crown prince. This enraged Queen Shen's father, the Marquis of Shen, who allied with the Quanrong tribe and marched on the capital Haojing. In panic, King You urgently lit the beacons to summon aid. Though the feudal lords saw the signals, unwilling to be fooled again, none came to his rescue. Thus, the Quanrong breached Haojing, King You was killed, and the Western Zhou Dynasty fell.
When the feudal lords learned that the Quanrong tribes had indeed breached Haojing, they finally mobilized their troops to come to the king's aid. Aware that the allied forces of the lords were approaching, the Quanrong plundered all the treasures of the Zhou royal house, set fire to the city, and withdrew from Haojing. The various lords entered Haojing and jointly installed the deposed Crown Prince Yijiu as the Son of Heaven, who became known as King Ping of Zhou.
When King Ping of Zhou ascended the throne, Haojing was essentially a disaster zone: the Quanrong tribe had looted it completely, leaving it in ruins; the tyranny of King You, combined with severe natural disasters, had turned the Guanzhong region, where Haojing was located, into a desolate wasteland with a greatly reduced population. According to historical records, the drought in the northwestern Guanzhong area had begun as early as the late reign of King Xuan, and by the time of King Ping, the Luo, Jing, and Wei rivers had all dried up, severely impacting agricultural production. Additionally, earthquakes and landslides in the Qishan region made it impossible for the people to continue normal production and daily life, leading to widespread hardship. Haojing bordered the northwestern nomadic tribes, and the powerful Quanrong to the west posed a constant threat of invasion, while the Western Zhou army had completely lost its combat capability and was utterly unable to defend against them. Fearing that Haojing could not be held, King Ping of Zhou decided to move the capital eastward to Luoyi, farther away from the Quanrong.
In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, after the Duke of Zhou suppressed the Rebellion of the Three Overseers, he established the eastern capital Luoyi in the Central Plains to govern the region. After King Cheng assumed power, he ordered the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Shao to send skilled craftsmen to continue building Luoyi, and over a decade later, it had developed into a full-fledged secondary capital. Although more than two hundred years had passed by the time of King Ping, the palaces in Luoyi remained majestic and splendid. King Ping reasoned that Luoyi was suitable as a capital, being centrally located in the Central Plains for easy communication with various states, economically prosperous, and near loyal vassal states like Jin, Zheng, and Wei that supported the Zhou royal house. With the current turmoil, Haojing had been devastated by war and lay in ruins, making Luoyi the ideal choice for the national capital.
Thus, in the first year of King Ping of Zhou's reign, which was 770 BCE, the king led his ministers and Queen Shen out of Haojing, preparing to move the capital to Luoyi. On the way, they encountered an obstruction by the leader of the Western Rong tribes, and battle ensued, with King Ping's soldiers dwindling in number. As the king grew anxious, the ruler of the Qin state arrived with his army. The Qin soldiers were fierce and skilled in combat, and soon the Western Rong forces were defeated and retreated.
Considering that the journey to Luoyi was long and might involve encounters with tribes like the Western Rong, the ruler of Qin promised to lead his army to escort King Ping to Luoyi. Overjoyed, King Ping granted him the title of Duke, making him Duke Xiang of Qin.
Thus, under the protection of the vassal states of Zheng, Qin, and Jin, King Ping of Zhou led his people eastward. The troops led by Duke Xiang of Qin were fierce and formidable, and although they encountered nomadic tribes like the Western Rong again along the way, these tribes no longer dared to attack. With Qin's escort and the support of Zheng and Jin, King Ping reestablished the Zhou dynasty, an event famously known in history as the "King Ping's Eastward Relocation." Historically, the period before this relocation is called the "Western Zhou," and the period after is called the "Eastern Zhou."
King Ping of Zhou moved the capital to Luoyi, marking the beginning of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. King Ping ruled for fifty years and died in Luoyang in 720 BC. The Zhou Dynasty continued for more than five centuries in Luoyi, showing that the eastward relocation was a far-reaching and wise decision. However, the dynasty's move eastward after the Quanrong rebellion revealed its inability to survive without the rescue of vassal states, making its weakened national strength an undeniable fact and causing it to lose its former grandeur and authority. The Quanrong rebellion also showed the vassal states that the once-mighty Zhou Dynasty was not so formidable, breaking their blind faith in it and revealing that the power of ritual and ceremony was far too weak compared to strong military force. To command widespread obedience among the states, relying on the Zhou court was impossible; one had to depend on one's own strength. Strong vassal states would swallow up weaker ones, and large states annexed small ones, eventually forming major powers such as Qi, Chu, Qin, and Jin.
When King Ping moved the capital eastward, the states of Qin, Zheng, and Jin were extremely enthusiastic about it, and they also gained many benefits from the situation. The state of Zheng had already relocated to the Central Plains before this, and now that the Son of Heaven had also moved east, it became even easier for them to control the monarch; the state of Qin took over the lands abandoned by the royal house after the eastern relocation; Jin and Wei, with similar intentions, actively sent troops to protect the royal family. In the sixty-plus years following the eastern relocation, the royal house mainly relied on the support and protection of the states of Zheng and Jin.
Although the royal house was never able to recover from this decline, the Zhou royal family still held the title of Son of Heaven and was nominally the lord of all feudal lords, retaining a certain degree of influence. Some increasingly powerful feudal states used the royal banner to issue orders to other lords and actively expanded their own power. Thus, while the Zhou Son of Heaven was called the common sovereign of all under heaven, he was in reality constrained by others, reduced to a state even worse than that of a feudal lord. During the reign of King Zhuang of Zhou, King Wen of Chu destroyed the state of Shen and seized its territory. The Zhou dynasty lost its southern barrier, and its border directly adjoined that of Chu, leading to the incident where King Zhuang of Chu stationed his troops at the border of the Zhou kingdom, threatening the Son of Heaven.
Therefore, although the capital was moved and the Zhou royal house retained its nominal status as the "common sovereign," the Zhou dynasty gradually lost control over the feudal lords, and its direct military power also steadily diminished, rendering it a mere shell of its former self.
At the same time, the land under the Zhou royal house was also shrinking. When King Ping moved the capital to Luoyi, the Zhou royal family's territory radiated outward from Chengzhou as its center. The state of Qin drove away the Rong people from the area east of Mount Qi in the Guanzhong region and offered that land to the Zhou royal house, so in name, the land east of Mount Qi still belonged to the royal family. However, King Ping's descendants could not hold onto the eastern territories either, and the area gradually diminished.
During the reign of King Hui of Zhou, the lands east of Hulao (present-day Sishui Town, Xingyang, Henan) were granted to the State of Zheng, while Jiuquan was given to the State of Guo. The eastern territories of the Zhou royal house were thus confined within Hulao Pass. Later, Duke Xian of Jin borrowed a route through the State of Yu to destroy the State of Guo. Guo was a strategic throat leading to the Guanzhong region, encompassing the ancient sites of Taolin Pass, Hangu Pass, and Tong Pass. After Jin occupied Guo, the Zhou royal house lost vast territories in Guanzhong, leaving it cramped within just a few hundred li in the east, thereby reducing it to a second-tier vassal state.
During the reign of King Xiang of Zhou, the states of Qin and Jin relocated the Rong people of Luhun to the Yichuan region, which originally belonged to the royal domain. Later, when internal strife broke out in the royal court, Duke Wen of Jin was rewarded for his role in quelling the rebellion, and King Xiang granted him the cities of Yangfan, Wen, Yuan, and Zanmao, located north of the Yellow River. As a result, Jin's borders extended southward to Nanyang. Through the continuous division of its territories by the feudal states, the Zhou royal house saw its domain shrink to an area of less than two hundred li around Luoyi, further diminishing its authority and status.
The Eastern Zhou Dynasty can be broadly divided into two major periods: the earlier period is called the "Spring and Autumn period," and the later period is called the "Warring States period." It was not until the end of the Warring States period that the Qin state destroyed the two Zhou states, and then in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang conquered the six other states, unifying China, which marked the end of the Warring States period.