Ancient Chinese states

Ancient Chinese states (traditional Chinese: 諸侯國; simplified Chinese: 诸侯国; pinyin: Zhūhóu guó) were dynastic or autonomouspolities of Ancient China within and without the vassalage to a higher sovereign. The term typically refers to various states that existed prior to Qin's wars of unification, particularly those during the Zhou dynasty who acknowledged the Son of Heaven as the universalsuzerain. Historically, the most significant are those during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, who are collectively called the Eastern Zhou states (東周列國; 东周列国; Dōngzhōu Lièguó) by historians.

Ancient Chinese states ranged in sizes from large clan estates, to city-states, to much larger sovereign states with multiple population centers. Many of these submitted to royal authority, but many did not — even those that shared the same culture and family name as the ruling royal family. Prior to the Battle of Muye, these ancient states were already extant as subjects of the preceding Shang dynasty, where they were known as fangguo (方國; 方国; fāngguó; 'local country'). Due to the decentralized nature of early Chinese dynasties (which were more like confederacies), the royal court often only had administrative authority over their own crown lands and relied on the loyalty of various larger vassal states to manage other states, and many of the smaller states ended up submitting to larger regional hegemons such as the Zhou state in military alliances. In the case of the Zhou, they took advantage of the Shang royal army being away on an against the Dongyi and attacked the Shang capital Zhaoge, forcing King Zhou of Shang to meet them in field battle with a hastily organized slave army. After the slave army defected on the battlefield, the Zhou alliance sacked the capital and established Zhou leader Ji Fa as the new ruling sovereign. To better consolidate control over other states, the Zhou court bestowed fiefs all over China to their immediate and extended family as well as close associates, establishing a federation-like political system known as fengjian (封建; fēngjiàn; 'investiture establishment'), where each state had autonomy over local administration but required formal approval from the Zhou royal family for legitimacy over inheritance, territorial changes or waging conflicts against other states.

The rulers of the Zhou-era states were collectively called zhuhou (諸侯; 诸侯; zhūhóu; 'many lords'), and their fiefs/lordships were known as fengdi (封地; fēngdì; 'conferred land') or fengguo (封國; 封国; fēngguó; 'conferred country'). Over the course of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE), the ties of family between the states attenuated, the power of the central government waned, and the states grew more autonomous. Some regional rulers granted subunits of their own territory to ministerial lineages who eventually eclipsed them in power and in some cases usurped them. Over time, the smaller polities were absorbed by the larger ones, either by force or willing submission, until only one remained: Qin (秦), which unified the realm in 221 BCE and became China's first imperial dynasty.