Question

According to the Mandate of Heaven,

a ruler must be good to the people
only members of the Zhou could rule China
the gods wanted China to control all of Asia
only strong military leaders could rule China

Answer 1

The Mandate of Heaven is the idea that heaven (天; Tian) granted East Asian emperors the right to rule based on their ability to govern. Heaven bestows its mandate to a just ruler, the Son of Heaven, and withdraws it from a despotic ruler, leading to the overthrow of that ruler. The Mandate of Heaven would then transfer to those who would rule best. The fact that a ruler was overthrown was taken by itself as indication that he had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

The Mandate of Heaven does not require that a legitimate ruler be of noble birth, and dynasties were often founded by people of common birth (such as the Han dynasty and Ming dynasty). The concept of the Mandate of Heaven was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, and their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty. It was used throughout the history of China to support the rule of the Emperors of China, including 'foreign' (i.e. of non-Han ethnicity) dynasties such as the Qing Dynasty.

The Mandate of Heaven was a well-accepted and popular idea among the people of China, since it argues for the removal of incompetent or despotic rulers, and provided an incentive for rulers to rule well and justly. The concept was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in ancient China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that otherwise offered little other checks to this power. The Mandate of Heaven had no time limitations, instead depending on the just and able performance of the ruler. Throughout the history of China, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement.

Answer 2

wha