From this chapter, the chinese believed that they could predict major political and military events by

Ancient china believed that events in the sky directly reflected events on earth. As tradition dictated that the rulers of China, first kings and later emperors, should receive their political mandate from the sky, astronomy soon became a dominant science in China. The emperor was believed to be the Son of Heaven who had been given the Mandate, or right to rule, by Heaven itself. It was vital that he could prove that he retained this right by predicting the movements of the sky accurately.