The Spring and Autumn period
Zhou authority collapses into a century of manoeuvring between rival states.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 295 years
- Known to
- ± 10 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
After the Zhou court is driven east in 771 BCE, real power passes to the regional states, which fight, ally and swallow each other while maintaining the fiction of Zhou overlordship. The period takes its name from a terse chronicle of the state of Lu. The competition is intensely productive: states experiment with taxation, bureaucracy, law and military organisation, and the resulting insecurity is the setting for Chinese philosophy.