The Spring and Autumn period or Chunqiu in Chinese history lasted from approximately 770 to 481 BCE which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives from the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 481 BCE, which tradition associates with Confucius. During this period, royal control over the various local polities eroded as regional lords increasingly exercised political autonomy, negotiating their own alliances, waging wars amongst themselves, up to defying the king's court in Luoyi. The gradual Partition of Jin, one of the most powerful states, is generally considered to mark the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the beginning of the Warring States period.
The Warring States period was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest that saw the annexation of all other contender states, which ultimately led to the Qin state's victory in 221 BC as the first unified Chinese empire, under the Qin dynasty.
Fajia, often translated as Legalism, was a school of thought derived of classical Chinese philosophy. It represents several branches of thought of early thinkers mainly from the Warring States period, such as Guan Zhong, Li Kui, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang, and Han Fei, whose reform ideas contributed greatly to the establishment of the bureaucratic Chinese empire. With an influence in the Qin, it formed into a school of thought in the Han dynasty. The Qin to Tang were more characterized by the tradition.
Wei was one of the seven major states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It was created from the three-way Partition of Jin, together with Han and Zhao. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and Qi and included parts of modern-day Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong. After its capital was moved from Anyi to Daliang during the reign of King Hui, Wei was also called Liang.
Zhao was one of the seven major states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It emerged from the tripartite division of Jin, along with Han and Wei, in the 5th century BC. Zhao gained considerable strength from the military reforms initiated during the reign of King Wuling, but suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Qin at the Battle of Changping. Its territory included areas in the modern provinces of Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi. It bordered the states of Qin, Wei, and Yan, as well as various nomadic peoples including the Hu and Xiongnu. Its capital was Handan, in modern Hebei province.
Shen Buhai was a Chinese essayist, philosopher, and politician. The Shiji records that he served as Chancellor of the Han state under Marquis Zhao of Han for fifteen years, from 351 BC or 354 to his supposed death in 337 BC. He died of natural causes while in office. A contemporary of syncretist Shi Jiao and "Legalist" Shang Yang, he was born in the State of Zheng, and was likely a minor official there. After Han conquered Zheng in 375 BC, he rose up in the ranks of the Han officialdom, dividing up its territories and successfully reforming it.
The Qin, or as officially the Great Qin, was one of the ancient Chinese states during the Zhou dynasty. Traditionally dated to 897 BC, it took its origin in a reconquest of western lands previously lost to the Rong; its position at the western edge of Chinese civilization permitted expansion and development that was unavailable to its rivals in the North China Plain. Following extensive "Legalist" reform in the fourth century BC, Qin emerged as one of the dominant powers of the Seven Warring States and unified the seven states of China in 221 BC under Qin Shi Huang. It established the Qin dynasty, which was short-lived but greatly influenced later Chinese history.
Han Fei, also known as Han Feizi or Han Fei Zi, was a Chinese Legalist philosopher and statesman during the Warring States period. He was a prince of the state of Han.
Wu wei is an ancient Chinese concept literally meaning "inexertion", "inaction", or "effortless action". Wu wei emerged in the Spring and Autumn period, with early literary examples in Confucianism. It is an important concept in Chinese statecraft and Daoism. It was most commonly used to refer to an ideal form of government including the behavior of the emperor, describing a state of personal harmony, free-flowing spontaneity and laissez-faire. It can also generally denotes a state of spirit or state of mind, and in Confucianism, it accords with conventional morality.
Chu, or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BC. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was destroyed by the Qin in 223 BC during the Qin's wars of unification.
Zheng was a vassal state in China during the Zhou Dynasty located in the centre of ancient China in modern-day Henan Province on the North China Plain about 75 miles (121 km) east of the royal capital at Luoyang. It was the most powerful of the vassal states at the beginning of the Eastern Zhou, and was the first state to clearly establish a code of law in its late period of 543 BCE. Its ruling house had the ancestral name Ji (姬), making them a branch of the Zhou royal house, who held the rank of Bo (伯), a kinship term meaning "elder".
The Seven Warring States or Seven Kingdoms were the seven leading hegemonic states during the Warring States period of Ancient China:
Jia Yi was a Chinese essayist, poet and politician of the Western Han dynasty, best known as one of the earliest known writers of fu rhapsody and for his essay "Disquisition Finding Fault with Qin", which criticises the Qin dynasty and describes Jia's opinions on the reasons for its collapse. In particular, he is famous for his two fu, On the Owl (鵩鳥賦) and his Lament for Qu Yuan (吊屈原賦). He is also the author of the treatise Xinshu (新書), containing political and educational insights.
Marquess Wen of Wei was the first Marquess to rule the State of Wei during the Warring States period of Chinese history. Born Wei Si (魏斯), he belonged to the House of Wei, one of the noble houses that dominated Jin politics in the 5th and 6th centuries BC.
The Jin dynasty was a major Chinese imperial dynasty. Following the devastation of the Three Kingdoms period, the Jin unified those territories and fostered a brief period of prosperity between 280 and 304 CE. However, during this period many social problems developed as well, the most pressing of which was the migration of non-Han tribes into Jin territory, to the point where they outnumbered the Han people in some regions.
Qin's wars of unification were a series of military campaigns launched in the late 3rd century BC by the Qin state against the other six major Chinese states — Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu and Qi.
The Partition of Jin, the watershed between the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, refers to the division of the State of Jin between rival families into the three states of Han, Zhao and Wei. As a result, the three states were often referred to as the "Three Jins".
The Qin Empire is a 2009 Chinese television series based on Sun Haohui's novel of the same Chinese title, which romanticises the rise of the Qin state in the Warring States period under the leadership of Duke Xiao of Qin. It was produced in 2006 and first aired on television channels in China in December 2009. It was followed by three sequels: The Qin Empire II: Alliance (2012), The Qin Empire III (2017) and The Qin Empire IV (2019), which were also based on Sun Haohui's novels.
Ancient Chinese states were dynastic polities of China within and without the Zhou cultural sphere prior to Qin's wars of unification. They ranged in size from large estates, to city-states to much vaster territories with multiple population centers. Many of these submitted to royal authority, but many did not—even those that shared the same culture and ancestral temple surname as the ruling house. Prior to the Zhou conquest of Shang, the first of these ancient states were already extant as units of the preceding Shang dynasty, Predynastic Zhou, or polities of other cultural groups. Once the Zhou had established themselves, they made grants of land and relative local sovereignty to kinfolk in return for military support and tributes, under a system known as fengjian.
The Qin Empire III is a 2017 Chinese television series based on Sun Haohui's novel of the same Chinese title, which romanticizes the events in China during the Warring States period primarily from the perspective of the Qin state under King Zhaoxiang. It was first aired on CCTV-1 in mainland China in 2017. It was preceded by The Qin Empire (2009) and The Qin Empire II: Alliance (2012) and followed by The Qin Empire IV (2019), which were also based on Sun Haohui's novels.
