The Historical Course And Characteristics Of Chu Culture In Eastern Hubei

Eastern Hubei, which is discussed in the dissertation, is located in the east of Hubei Province, including the counties of Wuhan, Huanggang, E'zhou, Huangshi and Xianning.In the preface, we first briefly introduce the geographic environment of Eastern Hubei, retrospect the current studies with the existing questions, and put forward the thoughts which we try to combine the archaeological, history and historical geography theories and methods to study the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei.Then we discuss the visages and clans of the archaeological relics and the cultural structure in Eastern Hubei from Shang Dynasty to the early and middle Spring-Autumn period in the first chapter.After we introduce the domestic and "international" background at each estate, we analyze the visages and distribution of Chu tombs, cities, sites and relics, and the structure of culture ingredients in the second and the third chapters. On the base of the analysis, we get some clear cognition about the historical course, regional and sub-regional features of the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei. It is the main content of the forth chapter in this dissertation.In the middle and late Spring-Autumn period, there was a lot of comparability between the Chu culture of Eastern Hubei and that in West Han River, and some features of the Chu culture of Eastern Hubei took shape. In the early Warring States period, when the characteristics of the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei became much more stable and developmental, there were more and more communication and mergence between traditional ingredients and the Chu culture. In the middle Warring States period, Chu Culture had its own features and dominance, and replaced the complex cultural system in the east of Hubei. The Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei came into being by and large during that period. The late Warring States period was the phase when the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei reached a short-term climax and the communication between it and those of the adjacent areas became abrupt. The visages of the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei coincided with the state of the whole Chu Culture. At last, the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei merged into the torrent of Qin-Han civilization accompanied by the destroy of Chu State and the unification of QinDynasty.Because of the diversity in the distributions and proportion of the various traditional cultures, the structure of various ingredients has differences, which caused the emergences of the sub-regional features of Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei in the middle Warring States. At that time, there were three regions of Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei. The sites of the first region, including the Lutaishan(鲁台山) tombs at Huangpi and Nvwang City (女王城) show typical features of Chu culture and a certain influence from the Central plains and the local Yangyue culture. The second region was the important base and thoroughfare for Chu people exploiting the copper mine and transporting the copper, and the relics in the region have the diversiform features from various cultures gathering here. After Chu culture arriving here, the third region had been the distribution of the Yangyue Culture having a strong effect on the Chu culture, which is just the features of the relics in this region. In the late Warring States period, the area of Eastern Hubei became the axis which communicated ChenYing ($h§P) , Shouchun (^#), which were located in the middle and lower branches of Huaishui River, with the broad area to the south of the Yangtze River. And there were closer communication between Eastern Hubei and those areas, which had great effect on the Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei at that time. Then the two regions of the north and south of Yangtze River came into being. At the same time, just around Ying's (=§P) capture by Baiqi (fife), a Qin general, and the arrival of Qin Army to Jingling (MW), numbers of Chu people came to Eastern Hubei who brought the advanced and typical Chu culture of the central regions of Chu State. All of those speeded the development of Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei and its typical features. So as a whole, the sub-regional features of Chu Culture of Eastern Hubei are becoming much slighter.We also discuss the earliest era and reason of Chu people entering to Eastern Hubei in the fifth chapter. In the middle and late Spring-Autumn period, the change of the international situation between Chu State and Wu State resulted in the royal members coming to Eastern Hubei in order to protecting the transportation of the copper. And we compare the similarities and differences between E'dong and its adjacent Chu Cultures during the Spring-Autumn and the Warring States period in the end of this chapter.In the epilogue, we summarized the characteristics of Chu Culture, the historical course and the achievements of Chu people's exploiting to Eastern Hubei.In later middle Spring-Autumn period, Chu people came to the west of Wuhan City. Then they occupied several beachheads along Yangtze River, went deep into the copper mine and set up a city at today's Nvwang City. In the late Spring-Autumn period, Chu people had not occupied all of this area, but had held some important communications centers and strategic places. In the early Warring States, a lot of Chu people immigrated to the south-east of Eastern Hubei and exploited the copper mine with larger scale. A new communications center was set up at the boundary of Hubei-Hunan, which strengthened the connection and intercourse between Eastern Hubei and the South. And some places of the north of Eastern Hubei were under the more strict control of Chu people. The scale of Chu people's exploitation to Eastern Hubei in the middle Warring States period, and more and more Yangyue people were under the Chu's domination. There were many strong forces at the area of Nvwang City and Ezhou in order to insure the transportation between Chenying, Shouchun and the South in the late Warring States. In 223 B.C, Qin army captured the capital of Chu State; Eastern Hubei was taken by Qin State at last. There still were some Chu people in this area according to the excavation of some Chu people's tombs in Qin Dynasty at Taipingsi, Huangzhou(M'NJ￡5?'^f:) and Maocaoshan, Qichunffi^F?^^- ill).In a word, because of the exploitation and management to the Eastern Hubei by Chu people, the development levels of the politics, economy and culture of this area had been improved greatly. The gap between Eastern Hubei, the Yangtze and Hanshui River drainage area^&MJ^W) and the Central Plains have been narrowed effectively. And the national integration, cultural evolution and innovation have been promoted, which had settled solid foundation of the unifying in Qin-Han dynasty and the national integration.