Chinese Philosophy--Simple Guides by Peter Nancarrow

Chinese Philosophy--Simple Guides by Peter Nancarrow

Author:Peter Nancarrow [Nancarrow, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-85733-642-9
Publisher: Kuperard
Published: 2011-07-25T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter 10

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Legalism

The Warring States

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To follow the next step in our journey through Chinese philosophy, we need to look in a little more detail at the history of the Warring States.

If we were to study a map of China in 450 BCE, we would find the state of Qin located at the far western end of the area of Chinese culture. At the time, it was even felt by some of the other states forming the remains of the Zhou Dynasty that the people of Qin were not really Chinese at all. The people of the so-called ‘Six Kingdoms’ all followed Zhou culture, but the people of Qin, with their war-like attributes, including the use of horses in battle, were viewed as more like the external ‘barbarians’. The feeling of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ was emphasised by the evolution of long defensive walls not only between the states, but also as an outer bulwark against the nomadic tribes who inhabited the lands to the north and west.

As the Warring States period began, with increasing military activity facilitated by emerging iron-founding technology, the remains of the Zhou hegemony began to crumble when the state of Jin started to collapse in about 403 BCE. By 376 BCE it had split into the three distinct states of Zhao, Wei and Han.



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