The Warring States period (simplified Chinese: 战国时代; traditional Chinese: 戰國時代; pinyin: Zhànguó Shídài), also known as the Era of Warring States, is a period in ancient China following the Spring and Autumn period and concluding with the victory of the state of Qin in 221 BC, creating a unified China under the Qin Dynasty. Different scholars use dates for the beginning of the period ranging between 481 BC and 403 BC, but Sima Qian's date of 475 BC is most often cited. Most of this period coincides with the second half of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, although the Chinese sovereign (king of Zhou) was merely a figurehead.
The name of the period was derived from the Record of the Warring States, a work compiled early in the Han Dynasty.
Read more about Warring States Period: Geography, Culture and Society, Economic Developments
Famous quotes containing the words warring, states and/or period:
“I make this in a warring absence when
Each ancient, stone-necked minute of love’s season
Harbours my anchored tongue....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“With steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “central ideas” of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us—God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare, that “all States as States, are equal,” nor yet that “all citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that “all men are created equal.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)