This has also been China's usual policy
in later times.
CHAPTER XXVI
FIGHTING STATE PERIOD
The period of political development covered by Confucius' history--
the object of which history, it must be remembered, was to read
to the restless age a series of solemn warnings--was immediately
succeeded by the most active and bloodthirsty period in the
Chinese annals, that of the Fighting States, or the Six Countries;
sometimes they (including Ts'in) were called the "Seven Males,"
i.e. the Seven Great Masculine Powers. Tsin had been already
practically divided up between the three surviving great families
of the original eleven in 424 B.C.; but these three families of
Ngwei, Han, and Chao were not recognized by the Emperor until 403;
nor did they extinguish the legitimate ruler until 376, about
three years after the sacrifices of the legitimate Ts'i kings were
stopped. Accordingly we hear the original name Tsin, or "the three
Tsin," still used concurrently with the names Han, Ngwei, and
Chao, as that of Ts'u's chief enemy in the north for some time
after the division into three had taken place.
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