Professor Andrew Meyer

But the reason it's a significant moment is that Tianchang realizes that this challenge to his authority and to the authority of the kind of hereditary clan that he leads is

It can't go uncontested, right?

So he makes fundamental changes to the way the entire state is organized.

He takes personal control of about half of the arable land in the state of Qi.

And, you know, from that point forward, things begin to change very rapidly throughout the entire Zhou realm because, in effect, it's a kind of reaction-response formation.

This attempt to try and defend the traditional power of the ducal house

it pushes the entire state of qi towards kind of fundamental restructuring that then begins to get mirrored and emulated throughout the Zhou realm.

Yes.

You know, by the time that Tianchang does this, this has become a very old dance.

Lots and lots of sub-feudal lords have killed the duke

put one of the Duke's young relatives on the throne.

This is an old story.

And it's been for a while, more than two centuries, the Joe Kings haven't really had much power to do anything directly about this.

What the Joe Kings have been able to do in the past is to say, okay, they'll put out an announcement to all of the surrounding regional lords and say, my kinsman has been killed.

You all should do something about this for me.

And of course, you know, the regional lords, the neighbors of a kingdom, they're always happy to take advantage of the chaos of one of their neighbors.

So now they have a license from the king to do something.

So generally, a usurper like Tian Chang would have been forced to pay a price.

for having done this, he gets away with it.

He gets away with it scot-free.