Interstate Relations During The Spring and Autumn Period - Treaties

Treaties

Treaties or covenants, called meng (盟) were the formal documents involved in the relations between states. The term usually refers to the whole of the ceremony by which states joined in a pact, rather than to the pact itself.

After long discussions about the terms of the treaties to be signed, the representatives participated in a solemn ritual in which an animal – usually a calf – was sacrificed at some holy spot outside the walls of a city. The left ear of the sacrificial victim was cut off and it was used to smear with blood both the document bearing the articles of agreement, and the lips of the participants. One copy of the document was buried with the sacrificial beast and each of the signatories kept a copy. The texts of these treaties were couched in brief but solemn language and usually involved three parts: the statement of purpose, the articles of agreement, and an oath invoking the wrath of the most important deities upon anyone who transgressed the agreements. Despite the solemn language and ceremony, treaties were often broken.

Of 140 treaties are recorded in the Chunqiu, more than half are bilateral. Bilateral treaties were concluded for mutual defence, trade, marriage alliance, and for the sake of traditional friendship between states. With the hegemony of Duke Huan of Qi the states came to rely more upon the meetings of the leagues to settle their problems, and the greater number of the recorded treaties became multilateral. Multilateral treaties often carried more weight with individual states because there were provisions for joint action on the prt of the other signatories against any state which violated the provisions. It was only with the decline of Jin power toward the close of the 6th century BC that a system of bilateral alliances again became predominant.