History of China/Chapter 5

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Chapter 5: The Eastern Zhou — The Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BCE)

1. Introduction: An Age of Transformation

The Spring and Autumn period (春秋时代, Chunqiu shidai, 770–476 BCE) takes its name from the Chunqiu (春秋, "Spring and Autumn Annals"), a terse chronicle of events in the state of Lu traditionally attributed to Confucius. The name, with its suggestion of cyclical alternation, is apt for a period defined by the ceaseless rise and fall of states, the making and breaking of alliances, and the tension between old forms and new realities. It was an era in which the Western Zhou order — the fengjian system of enfeoffment, the ritual hierarchy linking the Son of Heaven to the lords, the cosmic equilibrium of li and yue — did not collapse all at once but eroded gradually, transformed from within by economic change, military competition, diplomatic innovation, and the emergence of entirely new forms of political and intellectual life.

The Spring and Autumn period is conventionally dated from 770 BCE, when the Zhou court relocated from its devastated western capital to Chengzhou (modern Luoyang) following the barbarian invasion that killed King You, to 476 BCE, the approximate point at which the political dynamics shift decisively toward the outright wars of conquest that characterize the subsequent Warring States period. The dividing line between the two periods is not sharp — it is a convention of later historiography rather than a recognized break at the time — but it corresponds roughly to a genuine acceleration in the tempo and scale of interstate violence and institutional change.

The primary textual sources for the Spring and Autumn period include the Chunqiu itself and its three major commentaries (the Zuo zhuan, Gongyang zhuan, and Guliang zhuan); the Guoyu ("Discourses of the States"); and portions of the Shijing and Shangshu. Of these, the Zuo zhuan (左传) is by far the most important: a rich, detailed narrative history covering events from 722 to 468 BCE, it is one of the masterpieces of ancient Chinese historical writing and the indispensable source for the political, military, and diplomatic history of the period. Archaeological evidence — including bronze inscriptions, tomb excavations, and the discovery of bamboo-strip manuscripts — supplements and sometimes corrects the textual record.

2. The Decline of Zhou Authority

The move of the Zhou capital from the Wei River valley to Luoyang in 770 BCE marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou, but it also marked the effective end of Zhou political power. The Eastern Zhou kings retained their title as Son of Heaven (天子, tianzi) and their theoretical position at the summit of the political hierarchy, but they commanded only a tiny royal domain around Luoyang, had little military force at their disposal, and depended on the goodwill of neighboring states for their very survival. The Zhou court became, in the apt phrase of one scholar, "a ritual shell enclosing a political vacuum."

The decline was neither sudden nor total. In the early decades of the Eastern Zhou, the lords still recognized the ritual authority of the king and sought his endorsement for their actions. Interstate conferences (会盟, huimeng) were convened in the king's name, and the language of Zhou ritual continued to frame diplomatic exchanges. But the substance of power had shifted decisively to the regional states. By the seventh century BCE, the major states — Qi (齐) in the east, Jin (晋) in the center-north, Chu (楚) in the south, Qin (秦) in the west, and a constellation of smaller states in between — were effectively independent polities, conducting their own foreign policies, maintaining their own armies, and administering their own territories with minimal reference to the Zhou court.

The Zhou kings occasionally attempted to reassert their authority, usually with disastrous results. The most notorious episode occurred in 707 BCE, when King Huan (周桓王) led a campaign against the state of Zheng (郑), whose lord had defied royal authority. The Zhou army was defeated, and King Huan was wounded by an arrow — an event that shattered whatever remaining illusions existed about the military power of the Zhou monarchy. From this point forward, the Zhou kings were largely irrelevant to the major political dynamics of the age, though they continued to serve an important symbolic function as the nominal head of the interstate order and the custodian of the Mandate of Heaven.

3. The Hegemonic System: The Ba

The political vacuum created by the decline of Zhou authority was filled, in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, by a series of powerful lords who claimed the role of hegemon (霸, ba) — a position that carried no formal constitutional status but represented, in practice, leadership of the interstate order. The hegemon was the lord of the most powerful state of the day, who used a combination of military force, diplomatic skill, and appeals to Zhou legitimacy to organize the other states into a coalition under his leadership, convene interstate conferences, adjudicate disputes, punish violators of the interstate order, and coordinate collective action against external threats (particularly the southern state of Chu, which the northern states regarded as semi-barbarian).

The traditional list of the "Five Hegemons" (五霸, wuba) varies in different sources, but the most commonly cited are: Duke Huan of Qi (齐桓公, r. 685–643 BCE), the first and most celebrated hegemon, whose minister Guan Zhong (管仲) transformed Qi into the dominant power of the eastern plain; Duke Wen of Jin (晋文公, r. 636–628 BCE), who restored Jin to preeminence after years of exile and civil war; Duke Mu of Qin (秦穆公, r. 659–621 BCE), who expanded Qin's power in the west; King Zhuang of Chu (楚庄王, r. 613–591 BCE), the first southern ruler to be recognized as a hegemon; and Duke Xiang of Song (宋襄公, r. 650–637 BCE), whose claim to hegemony is disputed and whose reign ended in humiliating military defeat.

The hegemonic system functioned as a rough substitute for the defunct Zhou order, providing a degree of interstate stability and a mechanism for collective action. Interstate conferences (会, hui) were convened regularly, at which the hegemon and the assembled lords swore solemn covenants (盟, meng), sealed with the blood of sacrificial animals and invoking divine sanctions against those who broke their oaths. The texts of these covenants, several of which have been recovered archaeologically in the form of inscribed jade tablets, reveal a sophisticated system of interstate diplomacy with rules governing warfare, the treatment of captives, the inviolability of envoys, and the obligations of alliance.

Duke Huan of Qi set the pattern for the hegemonic system. Under the guidance of his chief minister Guan Zhong, Qi implemented a series of domestic reforms — reorganizing the population into administrative units, promoting commerce and salt production, and building a disciplined standing army — that made it the most powerful state of the early seventh century. Duke Huan then used Qi's power to organize a series of interstate conferences that established his hegemony over the northern states. His most famous act was convening the assembly at Kuiqiu (葵丘) in 651 BCE, at which the Zhou king sent a representative to endorse Duke Huan's leadership — a tacit acknowledgment that real power had passed from the Son of Heaven to the hegemon.

The hegemonic system had real achievements — it limited the most destructive forms of interstate warfare, maintained a degree of order in a multipolar system, and preserved the ritual framework of the Zhou order even as its substance evaporated. But it was inherently unstable. The hegemon's position depended on the continued supremacy of his state and his personal prestige; when either faltered, the system collapsed into renewed competition. After Duke Huan's death in 643 BCE, Qi disintegrated into factional chaos, and the hegemony passed to Jin under Duke Wen. Jin's hegemony lasted longer but was eventually undermined by internal divisions within the ruling house. By the late sixth century, the hegemonic system was giving way to a more fluid and violent pattern of interstate relations that would characterize the Warring States period.

4. Interstate Diplomacy and Warfare

The Spring and Autumn period witnessed the development of a remarkably sophisticated system of interstate diplomacy. The great states maintained permanent or semi-permanent diplomatic contacts with one another, exchanged envoys, negotiated treaties, and formed shifting alliances in a constant struggle for advantage. The diplomatic record preserved in the Zuo zhuan reveals a world of political complexity comparable to that of Renaissance Italy or early modern Europe, with states pursuing their interests through a kaleidoscopic array of alliances, betrayals, marriages of convenience, and calculated acts of aggression.

The principal diplomatic instruments were the conference (会, hui) and the covenant (盟, meng). At conferences, the lords of multiple states assembled to discuss matters of common concern — the threat posed by Chu, the succession crisis in a neighboring state, the punishment of a state that had violated its obligations. Covenants were sworn to bind the parties to specific commitments: to come to one another's aid in war, to refrain from attacking one another's territories, to support a particular claimant to a disputed throne. The covenant ceremony was a solemn religious act, involving animal sacrifice, the invocation of spirits and ancestors as witnesses, and the burial of the written covenant text along with the sacrificial victim. Violation of a covenant was regarded as a grave offense against both human and divine order.

Warfare in the Spring and Autumn period was frequent but, at least in the earlier phases, governed by conventions that limited its destructiveness. Battles were fought primarily between aristocratic chariot warriors, supported by infantry levies of common farmers. The chariot — a light, two-wheeled vehicle drawn by two or four horses and carrying a crew of three (driver, archer, and spearman) — was the decisive weapon of Spring and Autumn warfare, just as the mounted knight was the decisive weapon of medieval European warfare, and it carried similar associations of aristocratic honor and martial valor.

The conventions of warfare included norms against attacking a retreating enemy, against striking an opponent who had not yet completed his preparations, and against continuing hostilities beyond what was necessary to achieve one's objective. The Zuo zhuan records numerous examples of commanders who observed these conventions even at a cost to their military advantage. The most famous (and most ridiculed) example is Duke Xiang of Song, who in 638 BCE refused to attack the Chu army while it was crossing a river, waited until the enemy had formed battle lines, and then suffered a catastrophic defeat — a debacle that later writers held up as a cautionary tale about the futility of applying outdated aristocratic codes to serious warfare.

These conventions eroded steadily over the course of the Spring and Autumn period. As states grew larger, warfare became more frequent, and the stakes increased, the old aristocratic restraints gave way to a more ruthless and pragmatic approach. By the late Spring and Autumn period, wars of annihilation were becoming more common: smaller states were conquered and absorbed by their larger neighbors, their ruling houses extinguished and their populations incorporated into the victorious state. The trend toward total warfare would reach its culmination in the Warring States period, when the old aristocratic order was swept away entirely.

5. Economic Transformation: Iron, Coinage, and Commerce

The Spring and Autumn period witnessed profound economic changes that undermined the foundations of the Western Zhou aristocratic order and laid the groundwork for the very different society of the Warring States and imperial periods. The most important of these changes were the introduction of iron technology, the development of metallic coinage, and the expansion of commercial activity.

Iron first appeared in China in the late Western Zhou or early Spring and Autumn period, initially in small quantities and for limited purposes. By the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, however, iron production had expanded significantly, and iron tools — particularly agricultural implements such as plowshares, hoes, and sickles — were coming into widespread use. The adoption of iron tools had a transformative effect on agriculture: iron plowshares made it possible to cultivate heavier soils and open new lands to farming; iron axes facilitated the clearing of forests; and iron sickles improved the efficiency of harvesting. The result was a significant increase in agricultural productivity, a growth in population, and the opening of previously marginal lands to cultivation.

The impact of iron on warfare was equally significant. Iron weapons — swords, spearheads, and arrowheads — were harder and more durable than their bronze counterparts, and they could be produced in much larger quantities because iron ore was far more abundant than the copper and tin needed for bronze. The democratization of weaponry — the fact that iron weapons could be mass-produced and distributed to large infantry armies rather than reserved for a small elite of chariot warriors — contributed to the military transformation that characterized the late Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

The development of metallic coinage was another transformative innovation. The earliest Chinese coins appeared in the Spring and Autumn period, taking the form of miniature bronze tools — spade-shaped coins (布币, bubi) in the central states and knife-shaped coins (刀币, daobi) in the eastern states of Qi and Yan. These coins, stamped with the name of the issuing state or city, facilitated commercial exchange by providing a standardized medium of value, replacing the older system of barter and cowrie-shell currency. The proliferation of coinages from different states reflects both the growth of commerce and the fragmentation of political authority: each major state developed its own monetary system, a diversity that would persist until the Qin unification.

Commercial activity expanded dramatically during the Spring and Autumn period, driven by improvements in agricultural productivity, the growth of specialized craft production, and the development of new transportation networks. Markets emerged in the capitals and major towns of the regional states, and a class of professional merchants — previously of low social status in the aristocratic hierarchy — began to accumulate significant wealth and influence. The Zuo zhuan and the Guoyu contain numerous references to merchants, markets, and trade, and the growing importance of commerce is reflected in the administrative reforms undertaken by several states, most notably Qi under Guan Zhong, which explicitly promoted trade and manufacturing as sources of state revenue.

The economic transformation of the Spring and Autumn period had profound social and political consequences. The growth of commerce created new forms of wealth independent of landed estates, challenging the economic monopoly of the hereditary aristocracy. The expansion of agriculture opened new lands on the periphery of the old states, lands that were often settled and administered by officials appointed by the state rather than by hereditary lords. And the development of iron weaponry made it possible to arm large armies of common soldiers, undermining the military monopoly of the chariot-riding aristocracy. Together, these changes eroded the foundations of the Western Zhou feudal order and created the conditions for the more fluid, meritocratic, and state-centered society of the Warring States period.

6. The Rise of the Shi: The Scholar-Official Class

One of the most consequential social transformations of the Spring and Autumn period was the emergence of the shi (士) as a distinct and increasingly important social class. In the Western Zhou, the term shi had referred to the lowest rank of the aristocracy — minor nobles who served as warriors, administrators, and retainers in the households of the great lords. During the Spring and Autumn period, the meaning and composition of the shi class underwent a profound change. As the old aristocratic order fragmented — as ancient lineages lost their lands, as political upheavals displaced ruling families, as new men of talent rose to prominence through merit rather than birth — the shi evolved from a hereditary military caste into a class of educated men who offered their services as advisors, administrators, diplomats, teachers, and strategists to the rulers of the competing states.

The rise of the shi was driven by both supply and demand. On the demand side, the rulers of the regional states, engaged in increasingly complex and competitive interstate politics, needed men of ability to serve as ministers, generals, envoys, and administrators — men whose loyalty was to their employer rather than to a hereditary lineage, and whose competence was demonstrated by their skills rather than their bloodline. On the supply side, the breakdown of the old hereditary system released large numbers of educated, ambitious men from the bonds of lineage and locality, creating a mobile pool of talent that flowed to wherever the best opportunities were offered.

The competition for able shi became a defining feature of Spring and Autumn politics. The Zuo zhuan and other sources record numerous stories of rulers who rose to power by attracting talented advisors and fell when they drove them away. Duke Huan of Qi owed his hegemony in no small measure to the genius of his minister Guan Zhong; Duke Wen of Jin relied on a circle of brilliant companions who had shared his years of exile. Conversely, the decline of states was often attributed to the failure of rulers to recognize and employ worthy men — a theme that would become central to Confucian political thought.

The shi class was the seedbed of the intellectual revolution that would transform Chinese thought in the late Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Freed from the ritual and territorial constraints of the old aristocratic order, the shi developed new forms of learning, new modes of argument, and new conceptions of virtue, governance, and human nature. They established private schools, composed texts, debated ideas, and traveled from state to state offering their theories to anyone who would listen. From this ferment emerged the great philosophical traditions of ancient China: Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, Legalism, and the many other "schools" that constituted the "Hundred Schools of Thought" (百家争鸣, baijia zhengming) of the Warring States period. But the roots of this intellectual revolution lay firmly in the social transformations of the Spring and Autumn period.

7. Confucius and the Intellectual Revolution

The greatest figure to emerge from the shi class of the Spring and Autumn period — and arguably the most influential thinker in all of Chinese history — was Kong Qiu (孔丘, 551–479 BCE), known in the West by the Latinized form of his honorific title Kong Fuzi (孔夫子, "Master Kong"): Confucius.

Confucius was born in the small state of Lu (鲁, in modern Shandong province), which, as the fief of the Duke of Zhou, had preserved the richest traditions of Western Zhou ritual culture. He came from a family of minor aristocrats that had fallen on hard times — a background typical of many shi of his generation. From an early age, he devoted himself to the study of the ancient rituals, texts, and music of the Zhou tradition, becoming renowned for his learning and his skill as a teacher. He attracted a large and devoted following of students, with whom he traveled from state to state seeking a ruler who would implement his ideas. He held minor official positions in Lu but never achieved the influence he sought during his lifetime. He died in 479 BCE, apparently convinced that his mission had failed.

The irony of Confucius's life is that his influence, negligible during his own lifetime, proved to be incalculably vast in the centuries and millennia that followed. His ideas, preserved and transmitted by his students in the Lunyu (论语, "Analerta" or "The Analects"), became the foundation of the dominant intellectual tradition in Chinese civilization, shaping the political, educational, ethical, and social thought of China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other East Asian societies for over two thousand years.

The core of Confucius's teaching can be understood as a response to the crisis of his time — the breakdown of the Western Zhou ritual order and the resulting political, social, and moral chaos. Confucius believed that the solution lay not in new institutions or radical innovation but in the restoration of the ancient way (道, dao) of the sage-kings of antiquity, particularly the Duke of Zhou, whom he revered as the architect of the ideal social order. This restoration required, above all, the cultivation of personal virtue (德, de) in the individual, the practice of benevolence (仁, ren) in human relationships, and the observance of ritual propriety (礼, li) in all aspects of social life.

The concept of ren (仁), often translated as "benevolence," "humaneness," or "humanity," is the central virtue in Confucian ethics. It refers to an attitude of genuine care and concern for others, manifested in the treatment of every person with the respect and consideration appropriate to the relationship. Confucius taught that ren was the essential quality of the gentleman (君子, junzi) — the morally cultivated individual who, through self-discipline, learning, and the practice of virtue, achieved an excellence of character that qualified him for leadership. The gentleman, in Confucius's conception, was not defined by birth or wealth but by moral achievement: anyone who cultivated virtue and practiced benevolence could become a gentleman, regardless of social origin.

The concept of li (礼, "ritual propriety") was equally central. For Confucius, li was not merely external ceremony but the outward expression of inner virtue — the set of formalized behaviors, customs, and traditions through which moral values were embodied and transmitted in social life. Proper observance of li — in family relationships, in governance, in education, in worship — maintained the harmonious social order that was the goal of all Confucian endeavor. The decline of the li in Confucius's own time — the spectacle of lords usurping royal prerogatives, ministers overthrowing their rulers, sons disobeying their fathers — was, for Confucius, the root cause of political disorder and human suffering.

Confucius's emphasis on education was revolutionary. He is traditionally regarded as the first private teacher in Chinese history — the first to open his school to students of all social backgrounds (he famously declared that he would accept any student who brought him a bundle of dried meat as tuition, regardless of birth or wealth) and the first to advocate education as the primary means of personal and social transformation. The content of his curriculum was the cultural heritage of the Zhou: the Shijing (Book of Songs), the Shangshu (Book of Documents), the Yijing (Book of Changes), the Yili (Book of Rites), and the principles of music and archery. But his purpose was not antiquarian: he taught these subjects as vehicles for moral cultivation, believing that immersion in the literature, music, and ritual of the sages would transform the character of the student and prepare him for responsible participation in public life.

8. Origins of Chinese Political Thought

Confucius was the most important but not the only political thinker of the Spring and Autumn period. The intellectual ferment of the age produced a range of ideas about governance, morality, and the proper ordering of society that laid the foundations for the great philosophical debates of the Warring States period.

The Zuo zhuan and the Guoyu record the speeches and opinions of numerous statesmen, ministers, and diplomats whose ideas, while not formalized into systematic philosophies, reveal sophisticated thinking about the nature of political power, the requirements of good governance, and the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. Key themes include the importance of moral example by the ruler (the idea that the people follow the character of their leader, for good or ill); the necessity of employing worthy and able officials rather than relying on hereditary privilege; the dangers of excessive taxation and military adventurism; and the role of heaven, fate, and moral desert in determining the rise and fall of states.

Several specific intellectual developments of the Spring and Autumn period deserve mention. The concept of "people as the foundation" (民本, minben) — the idea that the welfare of the common people is the ultimate purpose and criterion of good government — appears in numerous Spring and Autumn texts and speeches. This is not democratic thought in the modern sense; it does not advocate popular sovereignty or political participation by the masses. But it does assert that the ruler's legitimacy depends on his ability to provide for and protect his people, and that a ruler who oppresses his people forfeits his right to rule — a principle closely related to the Mandate of Heaven doctrine and one that would become a fundamental tenet of Confucian political thought.

The tension between the claims of hereditary privilege and the demands of merit — who should govern, and on what basis? — is another theme that runs throughout the Spring and Autumn period and would become a central issue in Warring States political philosophy. The old aristocratic order assumed that political authority was a birthright, vested in the descendants of the Zhou royal house and its enfeoffed allies. But the manifest failures of hereditary rulers, the visible success of talented ministers of humble origin, and the pragmatic needs of interstate competition all pointed toward a meritocratic principle: power should go to the competent, regardless of birth. This tension between heredity and merit would never be fully resolved in Chinese political thought, but the Spring and Autumn period was the crucible in which it was first articulated.

The religious and cosmological thought of the Spring and Autumn period also underwent significant development. The Western Zhou conception of tian (Heaven) as a moral force governing human affairs remained influential, but it was increasingly subjected to questioning and reinterpretation. Some thinkers emphasized the impersonal, naturalistic dimensions of tian — Heaven as the order of nature rather than a moral judge — foreshadowing the naturalistic cosmology of the Warring States period. Others questioned whether Heaven was truly just, pointing to the manifest suffering of the virtuous and the prosperity of the wicked as evidence that cosmic justice was at best unreliable. These doubts, preserved in passages of the Shijing and in the speeches recorded in the Zuo zhuan, represent the beginnings of a critical, philosophical engagement with the religious traditions inherited from the Western Zhou — a process that would intensify dramatically in the Warring States period with the emergence of Daoism, Mohism, and other philosophical movements.

9. The Late Spring and Autumn: Toward a New Order

The final decades of the Spring and Autumn period, roughly the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, witnessed an acceleration of the trends that had been transforming Chinese society and politics throughout the era. The old hegemonic system broke down as no single state was able to establish lasting dominance. The great aristocratic lineages that had governed the major states as semi-independent power brokers — the six ministerial families of Jin, the three Huan families of Lu, the great clans of Qi and Chu — engaged in increasingly bitter struggles for power, often overshadowing or marginalizing the nominal rulers of their states.

The most dramatic case was Jin (晋), the largest and most powerful state of the central plain. By the late sixth century, real power in Jin had passed from the ducal house to a group of powerful ministerial families who controlled their own territories, armies, and administrative systems within the nominal boundaries of the state. These families — originally six, later consolidated to four, and finally three — fought a long, complex struggle for supremacy that culminated in 453 BCE with the partition of Jin among the three surviving families: Han (韩), Zhao (赵), and Wei (魏). The formal recognition of these three families as independent lords by the Zhou king in 403 BCE is sometimes taken as the official beginning of the Warring States period, and the partition of Jin stands as the definitive end of the aristocratic political order of the Spring and Autumn period.

Similar processes were at work in other states. In Qi, the ducal house of Jiang (姜) was gradually displaced by the Chen (陈, later known as Tian 田) family, which completed its usurpation of power in 386 BCE. In Lu, the three Huan families dominated the state government for generations, reducing the Duke of Lu to a figurehead — a situation that Confucius himself experienced and lamented. Everywhere, the old hereditary order was being undermined by the ambition and ability of new men, the growth of centralized state power, and the relentless logic of interstate competition.

The world that was emerging from the ruins of the Spring and Autumn order was fundamentally different from the one it replaced. The Western Zhou system had been a network of kinship-based, ritually connected states united (at least in theory) under the Zhou king. The world of the Warring States would be a system of large, centralized, bureaucratically administered territorial states locked in a struggle for survival that would end only with the unification of China under the Qin in 221 BCE. The transition between these two worlds — from the aristocratic order of the Zhou to the bureaucratic states of the Warring States — was the central process of the Spring and Autumn period, and its consequences shaped the course of Chinese history for the next two millennia.

10. The Significance of the Spring and Autumn Period

The Spring and Autumn period occupies a pivotal position in Chinese history. It was the bridge between the Western Zhou feudal order and the centralized bureaucratic states of the Warring States period — the era in which the old order dissolved and the new one began to take shape. Its significance can be summarized along several dimensions.

Politically, the Spring and Autumn period witnessed the transformation of the Chinese political landscape from a loose network of kinship-based enfeoffed states under a ritual monarchy to a competitive system of increasingly centralized and bureaucratized territorial states. The hegemonic system, for all its limitations, created a framework for interstate relations that would evolve into the diplomacy of the Warring States. And the internal transformations within the states — the concentration of power in the hands of centralizing rulers, the displacement of hereditary aristocrats by appointed officials, the development of new administrative techniques — laid the groundwork for the powerful, efficiently governed states that would compete for supremacy in the following period.

Economically, the introduction of iron technology, the development of metallic coinage, and the growth of commercial activity transformed the material basis of Chinese society, creating new forms of wealth, new social classes, and new economic relationships that challenged the hereditary privileges of the old aristocratic order.

Socially, the rise of the shi class — educated men of ability who offered their services to any ruler willing to employ them — broke the monopoly of the hereditary aristocracy on political power and cultural authority. The shi would become the backbone of the bureaucratic state in the Warring States and imperial periods, and the ideal of the educated, morally cultivated public servant that they embodied would remain central to Chinese civilization for millennia.

Intellectually, the Spring and Autumn period gave birth to the most important single tradition in Chinese thought: Confucianism. Confucius's emphasis on moral cultivation, ritual propriety, benevolent governance, and education as the foundation of social order provided the ethical framework within which Chinese civilization would develop for the next two and a half millennia. But Confucius was not alone: the Spring and Autumn period also saw the emergence of the broader intellectual ferment — the questioning of tradition, the development of new ideas about governance and human nature, the competition among rival visions of the good society — that would flower into the "Hundred Schools of Thought" of the Warring States period, one of the most creative episodes in the history of world philosophy.