This book is a groundbreaking work—highly ambitious, tightly reasoned, and internally consistent in its conclusions. It is a scholarly masterpiece of a kind rarely seen in this field in recent years.

The author first focuses on the four key terms contained in the book’s main title and subtitle, analyzing the work’s principal arguments and academic contributions through these terms.

Zhouguan (周官). For the past century, this ancient classic had been regarded as a forgery, but the author of this book has thoroughly “restored its honor.”

Zhou institutions (周制). By conducting a thorough analysis of Zhouguan, the author constructed a systematic framework for the Zhou state’s governance and laid a solid foundation for elucidating the nature of the Zhou state.

“Territorial state” (疆域国家). In the early East Asian mainland, peoples of different cultures (including everyday life practices) and faiths lived intermingled in confusion. Then, following a certain “historical logic,” they underwent repeated cycles of division and reunification, and eventually a structure emerged with a center (“China”) and a periphery (“Four Barbarians”).

“East Asia.” This is a somewhat sensitive scholarly concept, one that encompasses not only geography and culture but also sentiment and political issues.

In 1923, Gu Jiegang (顾颉刚) published an essay titled “Discussing Ancient History Books with Mr. Qian Xuantong” (与钱玄同先生论古史书), and the Doubting Antiquity school (疑古学派) took shape. The modern intellectual origins of this school can be traced to Liao Ping (廖平), Kang Youwei (康有為), and Qian Xuantong (钱玄同). Although there were even ideological antagonisms among these figures (indeed, the doubting-antiquity current can be traced back as far as the Han dynasty), their advocacy of doubting antiquity was nonetheless connected. The core assertion of this school was to adopt a skeptical and critical attitude toward the ancient canonical texts of the early East Asian state (“China”)—above all the Five Classics—and in particular, they pronounced a “death sentence” upon Zhouguan.

Yu Jiang (俞江)’s work began by restoring Zhouguan (周官) to its original form. Applying methods from archaeology, history, and classical philology, he eliminated characters that had been deliberately inserted into Zhouguan over the centuries, as well as other superfluous textual accretions. In particular, he demonstrated the authenticity of Zhouguan using the excavated Tsinghua bamboo slips (清华简) and mid–Western Zhou bronze inscriptions (銘文). This innovative and groundbreaking research brought an end to the authenticity debate over Zhouguan that had continued since the Han dynasty. Such a scholarly achievement was closely tied to a methodological breakthrough.

Furthermore, the author provided a meticulous and detailed interpretation of Zhouguan. As a result, he revealed for the first time the complete picture of the official positions and their duties recorded in Zhouguan, laying the groundwork for the key themes developed later in the work.

By systematically analyzing and organizing the offices and their functions, the author gives a detailed account of the particulars of various institutions — including the Zhou state’s institutional framework, walled cities, corvée labor, and ritual codes. The significance of this study is clearly reflected in one of the author’s central arguments: namely, that the Zhou’s institutional framework was to a large extent inherited from the institutions and ethos of the Xia and Shang dynasties. In other words, the Zhou institutions did not simply fall from the sky; rather, they were the result of adjusting, modifying, and developing the systems and governing wisdom of the Xia and Shang. According to the author, the fundamental feature of the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) system was that royal authority and bureaucracy were combined so that the royal house and the various enfeoffed lords governed the realm in a decentralized manner, “firmly upholding their pledges and scrupulously following the established institutions.” This stood in fundamental contrast to the absolute autocratic monarchy later established by the Qin and Han dynasties.

Next, the crux of the author’s argument focuses on how, after a territorial realm had formed in the Zhongyuan (中原, Central Plains) region of early East Asia, the Zhou institutional system operated and was implemented, and furthermore how it spread to, was adopted by, and was reinvented among the surrounding “Four Barbarians” (四裔, “四夷”), thereby forming an effective “sphere of influence” of the Zhou institutions. This line of argument by the author effectively overturns the various existing discussions (and claims) about what “China” was in the context of the early East Asian territorial realm. The author’s method of combining textual interpretation with archaeological discoveries once again left a deep impression.

“East Asia” serves as the vast stage and backdrop for the author’s research. And with regard to territorial states, although this book confines its discussion to the Central Plains (“China”) and surrounding regions, the author’s intent is clear. In other words, he aims to show that the Zhou institutions spread to and were embraced even by the barbarians of all four directions; that the Zhou system (a synthesis of the Xia and Shang institutions) possessed universal value in the formation of early East Asian states; and that it played a decisive role in shaping the patterns of relations between the Central Plains and the Four Barbarians (with mutual cultural influence). It should be emphasized that the author’s purpose here is not to borrow the old in order to discuss the present; rather, he has endeavored solely to reconstruct the fundamental principles and forms by which territorial states took shape on the East Asian continent.

This book received considerable attention after its publication. Over a dozen media outlets — including Shanghai’s Wenhui Daily (文汇报) — ran substantive reviews of it, and it was featured on several “Good Books” lists by various organizations. Notable mentions include: the Chinese Academic Joint Booklist’s Good Books of Original Chinese Works in Humanities and Social Sciences (2024, 11th installment); Legal History Review (法律史评论)’s 2024 “Dewey Legal Commune Top 10 Good Books”; Rujiawang (儒家网)’s Top 10 Good Books of 2024 (Thought & Scholarship category); and Fazhi Zhoumo Bao (法治周末报)’s 2024 Top 10 Rule-of-Law Books, among others.