UMass Amherst
Early China
at the Warring States Project

The Chin Army of Unification

The end of the Jou feudal system in 0771, the emergence of a multistate system in Spring and Autumn (08c-06c), the bureaucratic and military transformation of those states in the Warring States period (05c-03c), and the emergence of the unified Chinese Empire in 0221, together constitute the greatest single event in world history. The key to it lies in the pre-Imperial period, and the evidence for that period is its preserved texts. The Warring States Project at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has undertaken a systematic study of those texts, with methods which are standard in all the humanistic sciences, and have been successfully applied to Greek as well as Chinese texts. The result is a coherent and historically plausible account of China's formative centuries. It reveals the "Hundred Schools" dialogue actually taking place, and shows, in greater detail than was previously available, the intellectual development leading up to the Chinese Empire. That result enhances the value of classical China for comparative history, and sharpens its relevance to contemporary situations.

Those interested in participating directly in this work of discovery are invited to consult the Making Contact page.

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