LAWS OF NATURE IN CIVILIZATIONS 279
Ts'in's first move in the Sinic General War of 333-247 B.C. was a
campaign against Wei (gerebatur 332-328 B.C.) in which Ts'in, profiting
by the vantage ground which she had won from Wei in the first cam-
paign of the wars of 354-340 B.C., now conquered from Wei the rest of
'the Country west of the River' and other border districts into the
bargain.1 A counter-attack against Ts'in in 318 B.C. by the combined
forces of all the other six Powers, reinforced by Eurasian Nomad mer-
cenaries, resulted in the sanguinary defeat of the allies and the reduction
of Wei and Han to the rank of impotent satellites of the victor Power;2
and, after Ts'in had thus confirmed her hold on the passes opening east-
ward from the Wei Valley into the Lower Yellow River Basin,3 she
proceeded in 316 B.C. to anticipate Ch'u by seizing the command over
the passes opening southward from the Wei Valley into the Upper
Yangtse Basin and imposing her own suzerainty on the two contending
local semi-barbarian states between which the vast and potentially pro-
ductive territory that was eventually to become the Chinese province of
Szechwan was at that time divided.4 By 285 B.C. Ts'in's resources had
been doubled by the thoroughgoing incorporation of this country into
her body politic;5 but Ts'in had not waited for this consummation in
order to use the occupied territory as a jumping-off ground against
Ch'u. In a series of offensives delivered in 312-311 B.C.,6 in 302-292 B.C.,7
and in 280-272 B.C.,8 Ts'in annexed from Ch'u first the Han Valley and
then the Middle Yangtse Basin, which was the homeland of the Ch'u
Power. The capital city, Ying, fell in 278 B.C.9 The first move in the
last of these three campaigns was an encircling movement in which
Ts'in 'mopped up' the barbarian no-man's-land beyond Ch'u's south-
western fringes.10

While Ts'in was thus wearing down Ch'u with her right hand, she
still had strength to spare in her left hand to crush a coalition between
Ts'i, Han, and Wei (debellatum 298-293 B.C.).11 Ts'in made sweeping
annexations in the heart of Wei between 286 B.C. and 275 B.C.IZ

Even now that Ts'in's ominous shadow had thus been cast right
across the Sinic World, her prospective victims did not abstain from
fighting one another to TVin's advantage. In 286 B.C. Wei, Ts'i, and Ch'u
combined to partition Sung in revenge for conquests which Sung had
made at the expense of all three allies in 318 B.C.13 Thereafter, in 285-
279 B.C., Ts'i was attacked and temporarily occupied by Yen with the
support of Chao, Wei, Ch'u, and, of course, Ts'in,14 who was the ultimate
beneficiary from this fratricidal warfare through which the other sur-
viving states were using up the last remnants of their strength.

Towards the close of the third decade of the third century B.C. it

See Maspe'ro, op. cit., p. 398; Franke, op. cit., vol. I, p. 185.
See Maspero, op. cit., pp. 401-3; Franke, op. cit., vol. i, p. 186.
See Maspero, op. cit., p. 403. + See Franke, op. cit., vol. i, p. 186.

See ibid., p. 187. 6 See Masp6ro, op. cit., pp. 404-5.

See ibid., pp. 410-11. 8 See ibid., pp. 418-19.

See ibid,, p. 418; Franke, op. cit., vol. i, p. 194. *° See ibid., p. 104.

See Hirth, op. cit., p. 318; Maspero, op. cit., pp. 411-13,
See Franke, op. cit.. vol. i, p. 196.

See Franke, ibid., p. 196; Maspero, op. cit., p. 415; Hirtli, op. cit., p. 319.
See Franke, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 190 and 196; Maspero, op. cit., pp. 4*5~lS;
op, cit,, p. 319.