Events in Spring and Autumn Period

There is one sentence says that “Heroes always emerge in trouble times”. The civil war situation made countless heroes and elites in the Spring and Autumn Period. Aiming to remember their triumphs, events and stories of these heroes have been passed generation to generation till the present time.

The period started as the crown prince Ji Yijiu escaped the fall of Hao, capital of Western Zhou Dynasty, from the sack of western barbarian tribes. During the flight from the western capital to the east, the Zhou king relied on nearby lords of Qin, Chang and Jin to bodyguard and fight off harassing attack from the barbarians and rebellious lords. He moved his capital from Zongzhou (Hao) to Chengzhou (today Loyang) in the Yellow River valley.

 

The fleeing Zhou elite had no strong foothold in the eastern territories; even the crown prince's coronation had to be supported by those states to be successful. With his domain greatly reduced, now only included Loyang and nearby area, the Zhou court can no longer support a standing six groups of troops. Subsequent Zhou kings had to request help from neighboring or powerful states not only to protect themselves from raids but also to solve internal power struggles. The Zhou court would never revamp its original authority and were merely a figurehead of the feudal states. Though remained as mandate of heaven, the title had nothing more to do than to worship ancestors.

 

The first nobility to help the Zhou kings was the Duke Zhuang of Chang (r. 743 BC-701 BC). He was the first to establish the hegemonial system, which was intended to keep up the old proto-feudal system. Traditional historians claimed it as protection of the weaker civilized states and the Zhou royalty from the intruding "barbarian" tribes from the south, north, east and west, respectively (Man, Yi, Rong, Di). All so-called "civilized" people, however, lived along with the so-called "barbarians" and the states in fact comprised of substantial mix of multi-ethnicity -- hence there was no fine line between a "civilized" state and a "barbarian" one. Nevertheless, these ethnically and culturally different tribes had their own unique civilizations in some areas. Some ethnic groups were so substantially civilized and powerful by traditional Chinese standards that their political entities including Wu and Yue are even included in some versions of the five overlords (see below).

 

Eagerness of stability for continuous aristocratic privileges was more fundamental than traditional ideology of supporting the weak ruling entity during times of unrest, which had been widely propagated during imperial China to consolidate the ruling family.

 

Amid conflict between Jìn and Chǔ, two coastal states with dubious Zhōu ties, Wú and Yuè, grew in power as they gained relevance in interstate affairs. Starting around 583 BC, Jìn used aid to solidify an alliance with Wú, which then acted as a counterweight to Chǔ so that, while Jìn and Chǔ agreed to a truce in 546 BC to address wars over smaller states, Wú maintained constant military pressure on Chǔ and even launched a devastating full-scale invasion in 506 BC.

 

When the king of Wú died during an invasion of Yuè (496 BC), his son, King Fuchāi of Wú nearly destroyed the Yuè state, defeated Qí, threatened Jìn. In 482 BC, King Fuchāi held an interstate conference to solidify his power base, but Yuè captured the Wú capital. Fuchāi rushed back but was besieged and died when the city fell (473 BC). Yuè then concentrated on weaker neighboring states, rather than the great powers to the north.

After the great age of Jìn power, the Jìn dukes began to lose authority over their nobles. A full-scale civil war between 497 and 453 BC ended with the elimination of most noble lines; the remaining aristocratic families divided Jìn into three successor states: Hán, Wèi, and Zhào.

 

With the absorption of most smaller states in the era, this partitioning left seven major states in the Zhōu world: the three fragments of Jìn, the three remaining great powers of Qín, Chǔ and Qí, and the weaker state of Yān near modern Beijing.