Since the king of Zhou Ping moved east, the Zhou dynasty has declined, which is embodied in two aspects, one is that Wang Qi has become smaller, and the other is that the military strength has shrunk.
Eastern Zhou did not lack Tianzi who wanted to revive the royal family, but after King Zhou ascended the throne, he had no heart to think about this problem, for the simple reason that his own food and clothing had become a problem.
The "Chinese" records that "gong food tribute, doctor food yi, shi food field, Shu ren food force, industrial and commercial food official." ”
Western Zhou had a system of tribute, in which princes lived on tribute from their subordinates, doctors on fiefdoms, scholars on fields, shu people on selling labor, and industry and commerce on serving officials.
The Zhou Dynasty formulated a complex and standardized system of tribute, in which 500 li in Wang Qi was Dianfu, 500 to 1000 li was Houfu, 1000li to 1500li was Binfu, the Barbarian region was to be served, and the Rongdi region was deserted.
Dianfu is offered for the day sacrifice, Houfu is offered for the moon ceremony, guest service is offered for time enjoyment, to be served for the yearly tribute, and the desert service is to see the Son of Heaven.
It can be seen from this that the status of the princes is also high and low, the daily festival is once a day, the moon ceremony is once a month, the guest dress is once a season, the service is once a year, and the desert dress is once in a lifetime.
However, in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the royal family declined, and many princes basically did not see the Son of Heaven.
The irony is that the exchanges between the princely states are quite frequent, especially the small countries do not dare to neglect the powerful countries, otherwise the consequences will be very serious.
For example, Lu Guo was relatively close to the Zhou royal family, and in the three hundred years of the Spring and Autumn Period, he only saw the Heavenly Son three times, but he met the overlords of Jin, Chu, and Qi more than thirty times.
The tribute of the princes caused the Zhou royal family to lose most of its economic resources, not to mention that the territory of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was only a hundred miles of projectile land, and the small area meant that the income was small, and the more difficult it was to feed a large number of royal children.
In particular, King Xiang of Zhou had a good face, reigned for thirty-two years, and his extravagant tossing and turning consumed the little remaining family foundation of the Zhou royal family.
After King Zhou ascended the throne, he could no longer take care of the disrespect of the princes, because the treasury had no money, and his own food and clothing would become a problem. What if I don't have money?
There are two general solutions, one is open source and the other is throttling.
Open source is to increase income, and the most direct and effective way is to expand the territory, which is undoubtedly a fantasy for the weak Zhou royal family.
Since open source is not good, it can only be throttled, the method is very simple, try to spend less money, a penny into two halves.
Therefore, King Zhou Qing did nothing during his reign for six years, and closed the door to live the days of his wife and children' hot kilns, so that there was no need to spend money, and anything could be saved.
On such a dull day, what made King Zhou most happy was marrying his daughter, because he could get a lot of money from the hands of the princes.
But sometimes you can't save money, such as the funeral of Tianzi, in 619 BC, King Xiang of Zhou died, and King Zhou had to be buried according to the standard of Tianzi.
However, the king of Zhou Qing could not come up with money, so he had to borrow money from the princely states, which were the lu states that were most closely related to the Zhou royal family.
In fact, the State of Lu "supported" the Zhou royal family more than once, and in 720 BC, king Ping of Zhou died, and the State of Lu took the lead in donating burial expenses;
In 717 BC, there was a famine in the Zhou royal family, and Lu Guo took the lead in selling grain to Tianzi at a low price; in 697 BC, Zhou Tianzi's car was old and faceless, and Lu Guo sent a good car.
Several times and three times, lu guo's heart was also weak, but this time things were special and had to agree.
The Zuo Biography records, "In autumn, the king of Xiang collapsed; in February, Uncle Zhuang Ruzhou buried the king of Xiang." ”
However, Luoyang and Qufu were far apart, and it took a long time to go back and forth, and king Xiang of Zhou died for half a year before king Zhou had money to be buried.
(References: Zuo Zhuan, Chinese)