After his first defeat by the
King of Wu, the barbarian King of Yueh devoted himself for some
years to the most strenuous life, with the ultimate object of
amassing resources for the annihilation of Wu; the interesting
steps he took to increase the population will be described at
length in a later chapter. In 361, as we have explained in Chapter
XXII., a scion of Wei went as adviser to Ts'in, and within a
generation of his arrival the whole face of affairs was changed in
that western state hitherto so isolated; the new position, from a
military point of view, was almost exactly that of Prussia during
the period between the tyranny of the first Napoleon, together
with the humiliation experienced at his hands, and the patient
gathering of force for the final explosion of 1870, involving the
crushing of the second (reigning) Napoleon.
Very often the term "perpendicular and horizontal" period is
applied to the fourth century B.C. That is, Ts'u's object was to
weld together a chain of north and south alliances, so as to bring
the power of Ts'i and Tsin to bear together with her own upon
Ts'in; and Ts'in's great object was, on the other hand, to make a
similar string of east and west alliances, so as to bring the same
two powers to bear upon Ts'u.
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