Shang China was centred in the North China Plain and extended as far north as modern Shandong and Hebei provinces and westward through present-day Henan province. The kings of the Shang are believed to have occupied several capitals one after another, one of them possibly at modern Zhengzhou, where there are rich archaeological finds, but they settled at Anyang in the 14th century bce. The king appointed local governors, and there was an established class of nobles as well as the masses, whose chief labour was in agriculture. The king issued pronouncements as to when to plant crops, and the society had a highly developed calendar system with a 360-day year of 12 months of 30 days each. It was during the Shang that Chinese writing began to develop, and the symbol for “moon” was—as it has remained—that also for “month.” The calendar took cognizance of both lunar and solar cycles, and, when it became necessary to adjust the basically lunar year to the seasonal reality of the solar year, intercalary months were added.
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