The Everlasting Empire Read Online Free PDF Page A

curious attempt to institutionalize the multistate system: namely, two “disarmament conferences” in 546 and 541 BCE. The organizers proposed the creation of a mega-alliance, led simultaneously by Jin and Chu, legitimating thereby the bipolar world. 9 This initiative, however, failed miserably owing to the lack of mutual trust between major powers, and also to internal crises in both Chu and Jin and the rise of new “peripheral” powers, which further jeopardized the fragile interstate order. By the end of the sixth century BCE, the multistate system of the Springs-and-Autumns era was on the verge of collapse. On its ruins, the war of all against all ensued, giving the period following the breakup of the state of Jin in 453 BCE, and prior to the imperial unification of 221 BCE, its ominous name, the age of Warring States.
    As the name suggests, the Warring States period was an age when diplomats were overshadowed by generals. Alliances were inevitably shortlived; treaties were routinely violated—sometimes immediately upon being concluded—and the increasing cynicism further diminished the appeal of diplomatic means of settling conflicts. A contemporaneous observer noted:
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Despite clear pronouncements and manifested principles, weapons
and armor arise ever more; [despite] outstanding and compelling argu-
ments, battles and offensives never stop; [despite] gorgeous sayings
and refined words, the world lacks ordered rule; tongues are worn off
and ears deafened, but no achievements are seen. 10
    This gloomy summary explains why the multistate order was no longer seen as sustainable. As war became ubiquitous, attempts to preserve peace among rival polities were discontinued. In the meantime, a series of military innovations, and particularly the replacement of the aristocratic chariot-based armies of the past with massive infantry armies manned by peasant conscripts, changed the nature of warfare. Wars became longer and harsher; the size of the armies and the number of casualties steadily increased; and the texts of the late Warring States period inform us of dozens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of casualties in a single campaign. Slaughter of prisoners of war and of civilians, massive plunder, deliberate destruction of the enemy’s civilian infrastructure, and forced relocation of the hostile population—all exacerbated the sense of despair, eventually fueling the quest for unification. 11
    While devastating warfare contributed in the long term to the quest for unity, in the short term it strengthened centrifugal rather than centripetal forces. Each of the newly reformed Warring States was more cohesive internally than the aristocratic polities of the preceding age, and this internal consolidation occurred in tandem with increasing estrangement from neighbors. The separation was spatial, marked by long protective walls; administrative, as suggested by legal distinctions between native and foreign subjects; and cultural, as is indicated by the increasing divergence in the material and, to a lesser extent, written culture of major states. The decline of the aristocratic elite of the Springs-and-Autumns period meant partial abandonment of the Zhou ritual culture, which had once served as a common cultural denominator of the elite members. The new elite, some of whose members had risen from the lower social strata, was more diversified culturally than its predecessors. This diversification is particularly evident in the changing image of powerful “peripheral” states, Qin in the northwest and Chu in the south, which had once been considered members of the Zhou oikoumenë but by the fourth-third centuries BCE were treated as cultural strangers. 12 Cultural separation followed the lines of political fragmentation, indicating that centuries of division might well have resulted in the complete disintegration of the Zhou world into distinct quasi-national entities.
    The process depicted above of internal