 A small amount of historical context will be useful before we begin. The Zhou people conquer the Shang in approximately 1046 BCE, and for the next several hundred years, the central plains of what is now China were either ruled directly by the Zhou king, or else by elite families loyal to the Zhou, in a kind of feudal system. By the Spring and Autumn era (771 BCE–476 BCE), the power of the feudal lords had eclipsed that of the Zhou king, but a rough peace still prevailed with different feudal lords acting as “hegemon (ba)”. This system then breaks down and the pre-Imperial period enters its final stage, the Warring States era (often dated 475 BCE–221 BCE), which received its name from the incessant warfare conducted between the realms that established themselves as independent powers after the effective demise of the Zhou dynasty. Not only was warfare common in this period; it was also increasingly vast in scope, as the chariot armies of the elite made way for much larger conscript-based armies. This change was in turn related to the increasing abilities of states to raise, organize, and feed such large armies. Both larger populations and more complex governmental structures lay behind these developments. All these inter-related developments, finally, both drove and were shaped by the era’s social and political philosophies. The texts that we examine here all date from the Warring States era, a period of pluralistic debate that establishes key terms and questions addressed by Chinese thinkers for many centuries thereafter. Three general, provocative treatments of this era are El Amine 2015, Bai 2012, and Pines 2012, and Hsiao 1979 is a classic account of the subject.