8 - Hegemons and warriors: social transformation of the Spring and Autumn period (770–481 BC)

Summary

Historical events that happened in the three centuries following the collapse of the Western Zhou state in 771 BC are chronicled in the Spring and Autumn Annals (and further detailed in the Zuo Commentary) which gave the period its epic name. Whether Confucius’ authorship of the book was true or false, he lived towards the end of the period, and indeed died only three years after the annals ended in 481 BC. He reflected upon the Western Zhou and before as the cultural past for his time. Therefore, the transition from the Western Zhou (1045–771 BC) to the Spring and Autumn period (770–481 BC) in which Confucius lived represented the fine line dividing “antiquity” and “post-antiquity” in the intellectual conceptualization of China’s past in Early China. The changes that occurred across this line were wide-ranging and fundamental, and, when taken together, had the consequences of totally reshaping the Yellow River society for a new era of great empires to come.

While previous scholarship has offered a valuable basis for analyzing these changes in different scholarly domains, the logical order in which the changes took place and the complex relationships between them have not been fully understood. This was due largely to the inaccurate understanding of the political and social systems of the late Western Zhou period as the starting point for all subsequent changes that took place in the Spring and Autumn period. Based on new knowledge acquired about the Western Zhou state in recent scholarship, discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, we can now reassess these changes and logically explain the origin of the social transition of the Spring and Autumn period.