The Cambridge Illustrated History of China

The intellectual foundations of Chinese civilization were established during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE), a period of political fragmentation and moral crisis. The first half of this era is commonly called the Spring and Autumn period, after the name of a chronicle covering the years 722 to 481 BCE. This was a highly aristocratic period, and the Zhou kings continued to reign in Luoyang during these centuries, but regional lords had much of the power and competed against each other, making and breaking alliances, exchanging hostages, and sporadically taking up arms. Over time, military conflict became more frequent and more deadly, and the second half of this period is conventionally called the Warring States period (403–221 BCE). By then the Zhou king was no longer a major player and one by one the smaller states were conquered and absorbed by the seven largest ones.

The ruthlessness of the competition among the regional powers, although uniformly lamented, nevertheless served to foster social, technological, and economic advances. These included the introduction of iron casting, infantry armies, coinage, private ownership of land, and social mobility. New ideas also emerged in profusion on topics ranging from the natural order to ethics, war, and government. The ideas of the most reflective thinkers began to be written down, and the circulation of these texts further stimulated intellectual debate. Recently excavated texts both confirm much of what was known about this period from received texts and point us in new directions.

Rival states

The political system of the Western Zhou had from the beginning carried within it the danger of the regional lords becoming so powerful that they would no longer respond to the commands of the king. As generations passed and ties of loyalty and kinship grew more distant, this indeed happened. In 771 BCE, the Zhou king was killed by an alliance of Rong tribesmen and Zhou nobles. One of his sons was put on the throne, and then for safety's sake the capital was moved east out of the Wei River valley to modern Luoyang, located just south of the Yellow River in the central plains. The revived Zhou never fully regained control over its lords, and China entered a prolonged period without a strong central authority.