The Warring States of China (Blog #5)

I asked Dr. Fitzgerald about the Warring States and I'm still curious as to how there were different states and the smallest ended up winning it all. When doing some more research, I stumbled across a page dedicated to the warring states period by San Jose State (http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/warringstates.htm ) . The Warring States period lasted from 475 BCE to 221 BCE, 254 years! There was a larger state named Jin that had broken into some of the warring states: Han, Wu, and Zhao. The states to follow and add to the tension were Chu, Qi, and Yan. But, the smallest and victorious state ended up being the Qin. At this time, the Qin were not considered Chinese. They were considered barbarians, but the irony behind this that many Chinese still refer to themselves as Qin. Interestingly enough, during this period, it was not just all brutal fighting and wars. Confucianism was big during this time and Confucius's student Mencius was teaching during this time. A lot of attention was still being focused on education, Confucianism and how it outlines the way society should be ran, and art. The wars that broke out during this long period of time was to establish order and unity. After Shinghuandi died, the Qin ruled a little longer and then the Han Dynasty was established.