In the Spring, Autumn and Warring States periods (722 to 221 BC) it was possible for a scholar from one state to go to another and achieve a high position. As the states were continually at war with each other, their rulers were eager to receive new ideas.

Some of these scholars genuinely sought to solve problems of the age, others have been called adventurers. Sometimes they had considerable influence on events. Two of these scholars famed for their diplomatic activity during thr Warring States period were Su Qin and Zhang.

This story reflects the conflict between the powerful State of Qin, which wanted to absorb the other six main states to the east (called the horizontal alliance), and the attempt by the other states to oppose Qin (the vertical alliance). Su Qin advocated the latter, and Zhang Yi the former and they were among those known as the "criss -cross philosophers.' Both were of humble origin and had been fellow students under a well known debater, Yi.

Su Qin originally had no intention of opposing the State of Qin. Going there from his native home in Luoyang, he found that his particular ideas for helping Qin were not wanted there. He had to go back home in despair and rags, having spent all his resources.

"You'd have done better if you had become a merchant as I told you to" his mother complained, "but you insisted on having an education and becoming an official. Now look what you've come to!" His wife sat before her loom weaving without moving her head, as though they were strangers. Su Qin had to ask his sister-in-law to give him something to eat. "We don't even have firewood for cooking, to say nothing about food," she snapped.

Stung, Su Qin decided he'd have come up with a better political scheme. He spent the next two years making an intensive study of the political and military successes and failures of every state, often working right through the night, keeping awake by pricking himself with an awl till blood came. His conclusion was just the opposite of his former position: now he wanted to unite the six states against Qin.

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