C.) of which nothing
literary is recorded, and which, though powerful enough to assist
in making Emperors of Chou and rulers of Tsin, was never in
Confucian times thought morally fit to act as Protector of the
Imperial Federal Union, _i.e._ of _Chu Hia_, or "All the Chinas."
By a singular irony of fate, however, it so happens that a few Ts'in
inscriptions are the only political ones remaining to us of ancient
Chinese documents.
When the outlying semi-Chinese states surrounding the inner
conclave of orthodox Chinese states, after four centuries of
fighting and intrigue for the Protectorate, or at least for
preponderance, at last, during the period 400-375 B.C. became the
Six Powers, all equally royal, none of them owing any real,
scarcely even any nominal, allegiance to the once solitary King or
Emperor, then it was that the idea began to enter the heads of the
Ts'in statesmen and the rulers of at least three of the Six Royal
Powers opposed to Ts'in that it would be a good thing to get rid
of the old feudal vassal system root and branch.
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