722 BC

Spring and Autumn Annals

The Spring and Autumn Annals opens with Duke Yin’s first year in Lu

The first line of the era's namesake chronicle records no battle and no coronation — only the year, the season and the royal month.

What actually begins in 722

The supportable event here is textual: the Spring and Autumn, the state of Lu's annalistic record, begins its surviving coverage in 722 BCE, the first year of Duke Yin. Van Auken's chronology runs that coverage to 479 BCE.

The opening entry announces only Duke Yin's first year, spring and the king's first month. The first recorded action is his third-month covenant with Yifu of Zhu at Mie.

Other 722 entries record the earl of Zheng defeating Duan at Yan, a royal emissary bringing funeral gifts to Lu, a covenant with Song at Su, and the death of Gongzi Yishi.

King Ping was already decades into his reign

The listing says the period begins as King Ping reigns in name only. He neither acceded nor moved the capital in 722: the conventional eastward relocation of the Zhou court, and with it the usual start of the Eastern Zhou, is dated to 770 BCE, and his reign is conventionally 770–720.

A recent reconstruction places his establishment in 772 and the eastward move in 770, while noting conflicts among the Shiji, Xinian and Bamboo Annals traditions.

So the historical period usually starts in 770, while the book that gave it its name does not begin until 722.

Not a powerless throne, and not a declared era

Calling the king a purely nominal figurehead is too absolute. The 722 annals themselves record a Zhou royal emissary arriving in Lu with funeral gifts.

The 722 boundary comes from the start of Duke Yin's reign and the surviving Lu sequence, not from a new Zhou king or a sudden constitutional change; no source describes an overnight collapse of royal authority.

"Spring and Autumn period" is a retrospective label. Nobody in 722 BCE announced that a named era had begun.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at -0722.

What the sources leave uncertain

Historians use competing endpoints and sometimes competing starting conventions: 770 BCE follows the Eastern Zhou transition, while 722 BCE follows the opening of the Lu annals from which the period takes its name.
A recent chronological reconstruction places King Ping’s establishment in 772 BCE and his eastward move in 770, while noting conflicts among the Shiji, Xinian, and Bamboo Annals traditions.
The label Spring and Autumn period is retrospective; people in 722 BCE did not announce that a named era had begun.