Editing Spring and Autumn period (section)

==Late Spring and Autumn (591–453 BCE)==
[[File:春秋青铜鎏金虎噬羊形器座.jpg|thumb|Bronze tiger eating an animal, gold inlay, Spring and Autumn period]]

===The Six Ministers (588)===
{{further|Six Ministers}}
In addition to interstate conflict, internal conflicts between state leaders and local aristocrats also occurred. <section begin="ministers" />Eventually the dukes of Lu, Jin, Zheng, Wey and Qi would all become figureheads to powerful aristocratic families.{{Sfn |Pines|2002|p= 4}}

In the case of Jin, the shift happened in 588 when the army was split into six independent divisions, each dominated by a separate noble family: Zhi (智), Zhao (趙), Han (韓), Wei (魏), Fan (范), and Zhonghang (中行). The heads of the six families were conferred the titles of viscounts and made ministers,<ref>{{ cite book
| author1= Sima Qian | author1-link= Sima Qian
| author2= Sima Tan| author2-link= Sima Tan
 | script-title=zh:史記
| title= [[Records of the Grand Historian]]
| orig-year= 90s BCE
| year = 1959 | publisher= Zhonghua Shuju
| chapter=[[:zh:s:史記/卷039|39: 晉世家]]
| ref={{sfnref|Shiji}}
}}</ref> each heading one of the six departments of Zhou dynasty government.<ref>''[[Rites of Zhou]]''</ref> From this point on, historians refer to "The Six Ministers" as the true power brokers of Jin.

The same happened to Lu in 562, when the [[Three Huan]] divided the army into three parts and established their own separate spheres of influence. The heads of the three families were always among the department heads of Lu.<section end="ministers" />

===Rise of Wu (584)===
[[Wu (state)|Wu]] was a state in modern [[Jiangsu]] outside the Zhou cultural sphere, considered "barbarian", where the inhabitants sported short hair and tattoos and spoke an unintelligible language.{{sfn|Milburn|2004|pp=203–204}}{{sfn|Milburn|2016|p=104}} Although its ruling house claimed to be a senior lineage in the [[Ji (Zhou dynasty ancestral surname)|Ji]] ancestral temple,{{efn|Descent of the Wu ruling house from the Zhou ancestral line is not universally dismissed in modern scholarship.{{sfn|Milburn|2004|p=203}}}} Wu did not participate in the politics and wars of China until the last third of the Spring and Autumn period.

Their first documented interaction with the Spring and Autumn states was in 584, when a Wu force attacked the small border state of Tan ([[:zh:郯國|郯]]) causing some alarm in the various Chinese courts. Jin was quick to dispatch an ambassador to the court of the Wu king, [[King Shoumeng of Wu|Shoumeng]]. Jin promised to supply Wu with modern military technology and training in exchange for an alliance against Chu, a neighbour of Wu and Jin's nemesis in the struggle for hegemony. King Shoumeng accepted the offer, and Wu would continue to harass Chu for years to come.<ref>{{ cite book | title= [[Zuo Zhuan]] | chapter = [[:zh:s:春秋左氏傳/成公#成公八年|Duke Cheng year 8]]}}</ref>

===Attempts at peace (579)===
[[Image:Pu with openwork interlaced dragons design.jpg|thumb|230px|right|''[[Chinese ritual bronzes#Sacrificial vessels|Dòu]]'' vessel with interlaced [[Chinese dragon|dragon]] design, Spring and Autumn period.]]

After a period of increasingly exhausting warfare, Qi, Qin, Jin and Chu met at a disarmament conference in 579 and agreed to declare a truce to limit their military strength.{{Sfn |Hsu|1999| p= 561}}  This peace did not last very long and it soon became apparent that the ''bà'' role had become outdated; the four major states had each acquired their own spheres of control and the notion of protecting Zhou territory had become less cogent as the control over (and the resulting cultural assimilation of) non-Zhou peoples, as well as Chu's control of some Zhou areas, further blurred an already vague distinction between Zhou and non-Zhou.{{Sfn |Hsu|1999|p=562}}

In addition, new aristocratic houses were founded with loyalties to powerful states, rather than directly to the Zhou kings, though this process slowed down by the end of the seventh century, possibly because territory available for expansion had been largely exhausted.{{Sfn |Hsu|1999 | p= 562}} The Zhou kings had also lost much of their prestige{{Sfn |Pines|2002| p= 4}} so that, when Duke Dao of Jin (r. 572–558) was recognized as ''bà'', it carried much less meaning than it had before.

===Hegemony of Wu (506–496)===
{{Main|King Helü of Wu}}
In 506, [[King Helü of Wu|King Helü]] ascended the throne of Wu. With the help of [[Wu Zixu]] and [[Sun Tzu]],{{sfn|Petersen|1992}} the author of ''The Art of War'', he launched major offensives against the state of Chu. They prevailed in five battles, one of which was the [[Battle of Boju]], and conquered the capital Ying. However, Chu managed to ask the state of Qin for help, and after being defeated by Qin, the vanguard general of Wu troops, Fugai, a younger brother of Helü, led a rebellion. After beating Fugai, Helü was forced to leave Chu. Fugai later retired to Chu and settled there. [[King Helü of Wu|King Helü]] died during an invasion of Yue in 496. Some sources such as the Confucian text ''[[Bai Hu Tong]]'' list him as one of the [[Five Hegemons]].<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://ctext.org/bai-hu-tong/juan-yi#n52859 | chapter= vol. 1: Ranks, epithets, and posthumous names | language=lzh | title= Bai Hu Tong | script-title= zh:白虎通 | title-link= Bai Hu Tong }}</ref>

He was succeeded by his son [[King Fuchai of Wu]], who nearly destroyed the Yue state, imprisoning [[King Goujian of Yue]]. Subsequently, Fuchai defeated Qi and extended Wu influence into central China.

In 499, the philosopher [[Confucius]] was made acting prime minister of Lu. He is traditionally (if improbably) considered the author or editor of the ''Spring and Autumn annals'', from which much of the information for this period is drawn. After only two years he was forced to resign and spent many years wandering between different states before returning to Lu. After returning to Lu he did not resume a political career, preferring to teach. Tradition holds that it was in this time he edited or wrote the [[Four Books and Five Classics#Five Classics|Five Classics]], including the ''Spring and Autumn Annals''.

===Hegemony of Yue (496–465)===
{{Main|King Goujian of Yue}}
In 482, [[King Fuchai of Wu]] held an interstate conference to solidify his power base, but Yue captured the Wu capital. Fuchai rushed back but was besieged and died when the city fell in 473. Yue then concentrated on weaker neighbouring states, rather than the great powers to the north.{{Sfn |Hui| 2004| p = 186}} With help from Wu's enemy Chu, Yue was able to be victorious after several decades of conflict. King Goujian destroyed and annexed Wu in 473, after which he was recognized as hegemon.

The ''[[Zuozhuan]]'', ''[[Guoyu (book)|Guoyu]]'', and ''[[Shiji]]'' provide almost no information about Goujian's subsequent reign or policies. What little is said is told from the perspective of other states, such as Duke Ai of Lu trying to enlist Yue's help in a coup against the Three Huan. Sima Qian notes that Goujian reigned on until his death, and that afterwards his descendants—for whom no biographical information is given—continued to rule for six generations before the state was finally absorbed into Chu during the [[Warring States period]].

===Partition of Jin===
{{Main |Partition of Jin}}
After the great age of Jin power, the Jin rulers began to lose authority over their ministerial lineages.  A full-scale civil war between 497 and 453 ended with the elimination of most noble lines; the remaining aristocratic families divided Jin into three successor states: [[Han (Warring States)|Han]], [[Wei (state)|Wei]], and [[Zhao (state)|Zhao]].{{Sfn | Hui | 2004| p = 186}} This is the last event recorded in the ''[[Zuozhuan]]''.

With the absorption of most of the smaller states in the era, this partitioning left seven major states in the Zhou world: the three fragments of Jin, the three remaining great powers of Qin, Chu and Qi, and the weaker state of [[Yan (state)|Yan]] ({{zh|labels=no|c=燕}}) near modern Beijing. The partition of Jin, along with the [[Usurpation of Qi by Tian]], marks the beginning of the [[Warring States period]].