Extended from its original meaning of obedience,the character ’fu’ in the Western Zhou inscriptions is also equivalent to tasks,duties and tributes.For instance,the Zhou King called official and retainers’ duties as ’fu’.Marquis’ tributes and tasks were also called by the Zhou King as ’fu’.Besides,official of the Zhou King also claimed their tasks or duties as ’fu’.Both of these meanings are related to the Western Zhou ’fu’ system in historical texts and served as representations of this concept.Major contributions of this article are in two folds:on the one hand,to complement the writing records of ’fu’ in historical documents;on the other hand,this paper points out that such descriptions were colored by idealized concepts and attempts to rectify some misunderstandings of ’fu’in previous research.
