Zhou defeated Shang, but the culture is inherited like the Chinese Characters. Dynasty usually in China doesn't category as one civilization, it is just a epis

Zhou defeated Shang, but the culture is inherited like the Chinese Characters. Dynasty usually in China doesn't category as one civilization, it is just a episode in the Chinese history. And this is not a modern invention either, China has the great tradition of 修史, literaly meaning the making of history, which means the later dynasty is responsible of recording the official history of previous dynasty, and by doing so it is treated as a testament to the current dynasty's legimacy. Interestingly, even PRC is somewhat inherited this tradition, where an official account of Qing's history is set to publish this year, which is almost 30 million characters long.