Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2025
This chapter turns to the accounts of the campaigns of the Spring and Autumn Period (771–476 BC), followed by those of the Warring States Period (475–221 BC) that ended with the creation of the first imperial state in China in 221 BCE, and finally the campaigns that created, maintained, lost, restored and then permanently lost the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). War for rulers, generals and statesmen required them to devise and execute strategies that were not ideal, often failed, and seldom accommodated higher moral values. This reality was portrayed clearly in most of the histories, even in the stylised and moralised anecdotes that are often all that is left to us.
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