imperial throne, he felt
compelled to demonstrate that his family was just as much of divine
origin as the emperor's, and perhaps of remoter origin. In this matter
the travelling "scholars" rendered valuable service as manufacturers of
genealogical trees. Each of the old noble families already had its
family tree, as an indispensable requisite for the sacrifices to
ancestors. But in some cases this tree began as a branch of that of the
imperial family: this was the case of the feudal lords who were of
imperial descent and whose ancestors had been granted fiefs after the
conquest of the country. Others, however, had for their first ancestor a
local deity long worshipped in the family's home country, such as the
ancient agrarian god Huang Ti, or the bovine god Shen Nung. Here the
"scholars" stepped in, turning the local deities into human beings and
"emperors". This suddenly gave the noble family concerned an imperial
origin. Finally, order was brought into this collection of ancient
emperors. They were arranged and connected with each other in
"dynasties" or in some other "historical" form. Thus at a stroke Huang
Ti, who about 450 B.C. had been a local god in the region of southern
Shansi, became the forefather of almost all the noble families,
including that of the imperial house of the Chou. Needless to say, there
would be discrepancies between the family trees constructed by the
various scholars for their lords, and later, when this problem had lost
its political importance, the commentators laboured for centuries on the
elaboration of an impeccable system of "ancient emperors"--and to this
day there are sinologists who continue to present these humanized gods
as historical personalities.

In the earlier wars fought between the nobles they were themselves the
actual combatants, accompanied only by their retinue. As the struggles
for power grew in severity, each noble hired such mercenaries as he
could, for instance the landless nobles just mentioned. Very soon it
became the custom to arm peasants and send them to the wars. This
substantially increased the armies. The numbers of soldiers who were
killed in particular battles may have been greatly exaggerated (in a
single battle in 260 B.C., for instance, the number who lost their lives
was put at 450,000, a quite impossible figure); but there must have been
armies of several thousand men, perhaps as many as 10,000. The
population had grown considerably by that time.