n religion. In times of peace they were
centres of a true, emotional religiosity. In times of stress, a
"messianic" element tended to become prominent: the world is bad and
degenerating; morality and a just social order have decayed, but the
coming of a savior is close; the saviour will bring a new, fair order
and destroy those who are wicked. Tsou Yen's philosophy seemed to allow
them to calculate when this new order would start; later secret
societies contained ideas from Iranian Mazdaism, Manichaeism and
Buddhism, mixed with traits from the popular religions and often couched
in terms taken from the Taoists. The members of such societies were,
typically, ordinary farmers who here found an emotional outlet for their
frustrations in daily life. In times of stress, members of the leading
_elite_ often but not always established contacts with these societies,
took over their leadership and led them to open rebellion. The fate of
Tsou Yen's school did not mean that the Chinese did not develop in the
field of sciences. At about Tsou Yen's lifetime, the first mathematical
handbook was written. From these books it is obvious that the interest
of the government in calculating the exact size of fields, the content
of measures for grain, and other fiscal problems stimulated work in this
field, just as astronomy developed from the interest of the government
in the fixation of the calendar. Science kept on developing in other
fields, too, but mainly as a hobby of scholars and in the shops of
craftsmen, if it did not have importance for the administration and
especially taxation and budget calculations.

Chapter Five

THE CH'IN DYNASTY (256-207 B.C.)

1 _Towards the unitary State_

In 256 B.C. the last ruler of the Chou dynasty abdicated in favour of
the feudal lord of the state of Ch'in. Some people place the beginning
of the Ch'in dynasty in that year, 256 B.C.; others prefer the date 221
B.C., because it was only in that year that the remaining feudal states
came to their end and Ch'in really ruled all China.

The territories of the state of Ch'in, the present Shensi and eastern
Kansu, were from a geographical point of view transit regions, closed
off in the north by steppes and deserts and in the south by almost
impassable mountains. Only between these barriers, along the rivers Wei
(in Shensi) and T'ao (in Kansu), is there a rich cultivable zone which
is also the only means of transit from east to west. All traffic