feudal state, became dictator, he had to struggle not only against other
feudal lords, but also many times against risings among the most various
parts of the population, and especially against the nomad tribes in the
southern part of the present province of Shansi. In the seventh century
not only Ch'i but the other feudal states had expanded. The regions in
which the nomad tribes were able to move had grown steadily smaller, and
the feudal lords now set to work to bring the nomads of their country
under their direct rule. The greatest conflict of this period was the
attack in 660 B.C. against the feudal state of Wei, in northern Honan.
The nomad tribes seem this time to have been Proto-Mongols; they made a
direct attack on the garrison town and actually conquered it. The
remnant of the urban population, no more than 730 in number, had to flee
southward. It is clear from this incident that nomads were still living
in the middle of China, within the territory of the feudal states, and
that they were still decidedly strong, though no longer in a position to
get rid entirely of the feudal lords of the Chou.

The period of the dictators came to an end after about a century,
because it was found that none of the feudal states was any longer
strong enough to exercise control over all the others. These others
formed alliances against which the dictator was powerless. Thus this
period passed into the next, which the Chinese call the period of the
Contending States.


6 _Confucius_

After this survey of the political history we must consider the
intellectual history of this period, for between 550 and 280 B.C. the
enduring fundamental influences in the Chinese social order and in the