13 The Period of Warring States

The Period of Warring States 

The Period of Warring States had begun. Weapons were of iron and steel. By the end of the 400s the power of the Chu state was in decline. The Chu government had become corrupt and inefficient. Much of the state's treasury paid for a large official retinue (advisors and such), with many officials having no meaningful task other than receiving money. Chu's corrupt and awkward bureaucracy reduced the quality of its military.

There were more aggressions. Historian Victoria Tin-bor Hui writes of 160 wars "involving great powers" between 656 and 357 BCE ^note10  Some of the powers had been gobbled up by others, and of the 148 or so powers that had existed, the tendency of big powers to absorb smaller powers reduced that number to something like seventeen, at the beginning of the Warring States Period, considered as having begun around the mid-400s BCE.

Among the Chinese states were alliances that contributed to holding in check any one power from becoming so big and powerful as to overwhelm the others. But the tendency of one power to emerge dominant remained as it had elsewhere in the world: in ancient Sumer, in Egypt and eventually with Macedonia dominating the city states of Greece. The balance of power among the Chinese states failed, and the state that would conquer the others was Qin (pronounced chin) – the word from which the state today called China gets its name)