Professor Andrew Meyer

It's not as well watered by the Yellow River and its tributaries.

So again, they have a very large expansive terrain, but relatively low population density relative to states like Qi and Han and Zhao and Wei.

They were constantly at war, if we think in terms of hot and cold war.

There was this mutual hostility.

The interesting thing is that at this point with these seven great regional states, much of what we think of as China was balkanized in a manner that we associate with kind of post-Westphalian Europe.

Each of these seven great regional states have very robust control over their territory, very autonomous direction over both domestic and foreign affairs.

They begin to conduct what we would effectively call foreign affairs with one another.

By the time we get to the end of the 4th century BC, the rulers of these seven great warring states and two others sneak into the club through the back door.

they usurp the title king.

The Zhou kings last all the way down to 256, so they exclusively hold the title son of heaven, really till almost the end of the Warring States.

But in 334 BC, two of the rulers in the north, the ruler of Qi and the ruler of this new state of Wei that had formed from the partition of Jin, they come together in a conclave and they recognize one another as kings.

The idea being, well, it's silly for us to pretend that we're the vassals of the Joe son of heaven anymore.

We're his peers.

He doesn't have any kind of sovereign power to intercede in our affairs anymore.

You know, the buck stops here.

Initially, everyone's shocked.

This is a big scandal.

But eventually, the logic of this is so clear that all of the seven great states follow suit.

They declare themselves kings.

Two other states also call themselves kings.