Ch 1 - In the Beginning

Out of Order ... Chaos

The Spring and Autumn Period in China.

Haojing, capital city of the Western Zhou Dynasty, was devastated by war in 771 BC. The following year, Crown Prince Yi Jiu ascended the Zhou throne as King Ping, first ruler of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. In the process of establishing a new government in Luoyang in northern Henan Province, the Zhou royal family lost about half its former territory and population. The Eastern Zhou never regained the military or political power necessary to reconquer the western lands or even to maintain much control over the 500 to 600 km2 they ruled. King Yu's death at the Battle of Haojing broke the royal line of succession and severely weakened the power of the Zhou court. Even King Ping's authority diminished in status to that of a marquis.

Despite the dynasty's accelerating fragmentation, it endured for another five and half centuries. It survived not because it was strong, but because no single state could sustain the political or military power to swallow it whole. The vast majority of the hundreds of petty city-states that dotted northeast China during the 8th century BC had only marginal power. The growing instability of these kingdoms, particularly the smaller states contending with encroachments from native tribes in the south, forced many to band together for mutual defense. They banded together and agreed to be ruled by a single territorial lord, or "hegemon." This trend toward regional city-state alliances under hegemon lords triggered a period of political turbulence and instability known as the Spring and Autumn Period (772-481 BC).

Small states that faced great uncertainty and danger formed and dissolved alliances with astonishing swiftness as territorial control shifted back and forth in response to the nearly constant warfare that raged across central China. It did not take long for ambitious "hegemon kings" to challenge the weakened Zhou Dynasty for power. In a long-running battle for hegemony that played out like a deadly version of "King of the Hill," city-states rose and fell with seeming regularity as they battled for hegemony, but none could manage to unify all the states at once.

One of the earliest challenges to the Zhou Dynasty came from Ji Wusheng, who ruled the State of Zheng in Shaanxi Province as Lord Zhuang (757-701 BC). He inherited his position and a ministerial title in the Eastern Zhou government from his father and grandfather. While the Zhou Dynasty went from bad to worse under King Ping's ineffectual rule, the State of Zheng grew powerful and prosperous under Lord Zhuang. Preoccupied with the affairs of his own state, Ji Wusheng had not served in the Zhou Court for a long time. In an attempt to curb the rising power of his vassal states, King Ping offered to replace Lord Zhuang with a more suitable candidate. When Lord Zhuang learned he might lose his title, he hurried to Luoyang and immediately offered his resignation. The king dared not offend such a powerful man and profusely apologized, repeatedly explaining that he had no intention of removing him from the court. The two men settled the issue by agreeing that Zhou's Crown Prince would live in the State of Zheng, ostensibly to "study state administration," and the Zheng Crown Prince would live in Luoyang. The "exchange of hostages" actually enhanced Lord Zhuang's prestige and showed the Zhou Dynasty existed in name only.

King Ping died in 720 BC, leaving the throne to his grandson, Ji Lin, who ruled Zhou as King Huan. Bearing a deep-seated hatred for Lord Zhuang, he removed his title as Zhou's minister. When Zheng's senior officials heard the news, many demanded immediate military action against the Zhou. Lord Zhuang raided two small neighboring states instead and plundered their granaries to test King Huan's reaction. Just as he expected, the Zhou monarch did not condemn the raids.

After five more years of watching Lord Zhuang challenge his authority, King Huan retaliated by personally commanding a military expedition against the State of Zheng. The powerful Zheng army made quick work of King Huan's warriors, which included troops from the states of Chen, Cai and Wei. Lord Zhuang's constant challenge to the Zhou Dynasty ended six years later, when the 56 year-old warrior died of an illness, never realizing his ambition to gain hegemony among the states.

Jiang Xiaobai, the first man to achieve hegemony in China, ruled the state of Qi as Lord Huan. The State of Qi had shown signs of great trouble under the tyrannical rule of his father and Jiang fled to the State of Lu to avoid imminent disaster. He returned to Qi after his father's death to assume leadership and presided over a remarkable resurgence of power and prestige. Many of China's tribal states expanded into such large and diffuse domains they could no longer be be effectively ruled by any form of family control. Lord Huan, with the assistance of his able and innovative prime minister Guan Zhong, replaced the old ruling methods of the clan aristocracy with a uniform, centrally controlled system of local government.

They are believed to have divided the population of Qi into geographic units controlled by the central government, instituted a uniform tax system that levied taxes according to the quality of the land, and reorganized the military system by requiring each geographic unit to provide levies for a central army. Under an active economic policy, they attempted to control prices, regulate weights and measures, encourage trade, and put mining and salt production under official control. Prime Minister Guan's strict orders to officials at all levels to recommend able people for office led to the creation of the bureaucracy, where bureaucratic administrators replaced former family-related aristocrats as aides of the ruler. Prime Minister Guan was the first clear example of such a bureaucrat.

Acting largely on the advice of Guan Zhong, Lord Huan ruled by "Venerating the King and Resisting Foreign Aggression." Lord Huan's prestige and influence soon exceeded that of the King of Zhou. Nine times in his life he organized and led alliances of states and in 651 BC he presided over an alliance meeting of most states in central China, thus becoming the first lord to achieve hegemony among the states. It was a short-lived triumph. At the height of his power, Jiang Xiaobai became complacent and the lords of the other states soon became disappointed with his rule. Adding to his troubles, each of his five sons was plotting to take his place as ruling lord. The State of Qi fell into near total chaos following the death of Prime Minister Guan Zhong in 645 BC. Two years later, when Lord Huan became seriously ill, treacherous officials confined him in isolation and began forging royal orders to execute their own designs. The once powerful Qi overlord died in misery and the internal fighting that erupted in the State of Qi following his death severely weakened the state, which quickly lost its hegemonic position.

Lord Mu became ruler of the State of Qin in 659 BC, about the time Qi reached the zenith of its power. He attempted numerous political reforms and promoted able and virtuous people to government office. Seeing the growing power of his state, he eagerly competed with Qi and Jin in the east and Chu in the south for hegemony over central China. During his 39 year reign, Lord Mu skillfully managed to bring some 12 states under his domain, extending its territory by nearly 600 km and gaining hegemony among China's western states.

By the 6th century BC, ten of China's larger and more efficient states, each ruled from the palace of an often tyrannical nobleman, stood out as major players in the quest for hegemony. Each had consolidated hundreds of tiny city-states under their domains. The State of Zhou, heart of the Zhou Dynasty culture, ruled over northwestern Henan Province south of the Yellow River. To the east in the Wei River valley lay the States of Song and Lu, whose lords descended from the Duke of Zhou and the Shang royal bloodlines respectively. The State of Qi dominated the greater part of the hilly Shandong Peninsula on the eastern edge of the North China Plain. The State of Jin ruled over a vast domain in the north that included central Hebei province and Shanxi Province north and east of the Yellow River. The State of Yen lay beyond Jin in the northeast, on the plains surrounding the modern site of Beijing. The literal name for the modern Chinese capital of comes from Yanjing, or the "Yen capital."

In the west, the State of Qin controlled the former lands of the Western Zhou in the Wei River basin. The semi-"barbarian" State of Chu occupied a vast domain along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River that stretched from southern Shaanxi Province to the plains of northern Anhui Province. From its beginnings in the eighth century BC, Chu rulers rejected the empty pretense of Zhou leadership by calling its own rulers wang, or king. The State of Wu dominated the region of the lower Yangtze River and coastal regions of eastern China. To the south, the State of Yue commanded the countryside situated along China's southeast coastal region, an area of large lakes and navigable rivers. The three southern states of Chu, Wu, and Yue were actually maritime powers with both naval fleets and land armies.

During the closing years of the Western Zhou Period, people began to despair at the apparent abdication of moral behavior by their leaders, a despair that only grew stronger throughout the Spring and Autumn period. Attention turned from Heaven to more secular issues following the collapse of the old tribal aristocracy and the rise of the clans of hereditary ministers. Governments became more corrupt and less trusted by the people, many of whom disregarded or openly rejected basic common values. The ever-widening gulf between the top and bottom of society created an atmosphere of moral chaos. While the wealthy lived extravagant lives in their mansions, crimes of robbery, theft and murder increased in the cities and villages.

Economic changes began to undermine hereditary rank in society. As communal land use gave way to private ownership of land, the old form of aristocratic rule based on tribal tradition gradually disappeared. The increased production and rapid development of trade led to tremendous wealth and a newly emerging class of merchants. Marketplaces were flooded with expensive goods, many of which had "no real utility." While China's productive class shrank, the mercantile sector grew to become a strong political force in many northern China cities by the fifth century BC. The existence of a new social class proved disruptive to the old aristocratic order, which began propagating a theory that society consisted of four classes:  the warrior-administrators at the top, the peasants or primary producers next, the artisans or secondary producers third, and last of all the merchants, whose economic value seemed dubious at best. However unrealistic this theory was, it remained East Asian dogma for the next two thousand years.

During the last 150 years of the Zhou Dynasty, the less than delicate balance of power among China's largest states fell into chaos. Alliances proved volatile and eventually fell apart as large states began to actively invade and swallow up less powerful states. At the beginning of the 4th century BC, only eight or nine very large states remained. Powerful armies led by warlords able to amass great private wealth began throwing their weight around in the form of open warfare for dominance and influence to see who would control all of China. The Chinese states of Qin and Yen, whose influence extended well northward into the Mongolian steppes and Manchuria, experienced almost continuous contact with the Xiungnu. The nearly constant pillaging of agrarian settlements along China's northern frontier caused a great deal of trouble. Ironically, it was the response of these agrarian regions to the Xiungnu threat that accelerated the nature and intensity of warfare - the farmers gradually learned how to defend themselves.

After numerous clashes with the Xiungnu, the Chinese reorganized and rearmed their military forces. China's once elite aristocratic chariot units equipped with expensive bronze weapons were replaced by armed cavalry units. The Chinese organized huge peasant armies numbering tens of thousands of men armed with such cheap iron weapons as swords and knives, short nine-foot spears, and long eighteen-foot spears. In addition to the bow and arrow, Chinese foot soldiers also carried the most powerful of contemporary weapons, the crossbow, a very effective flat-trajectory weapon that possessed tremendous striking power. The introduction of the crossbow, combined with the powerful composite bow used by the Xiungnu, made the cavalry a formidable military force in Asia. In this exchange of technology with the nomads however, iron weapons passed into the hands of the Xiungnu. The Xiungnu and other northern nomads, armed with newly-acquired iron weapons and their tradition of horsemanship, became a much stronger threat to the future security of China and the emerging states of the Korean peninsula.