Research On The Four Generations Of Warring States

This paper attempts to research the Four Lords in the period of Warring States. Since the literary work, “Records of the Grand Historian”, came out, the arguments regarding to the origin of their titles have never been stopped. Through my analyses, indeed, the title of Zhao Sheng is his fief, but the titles of Tian Wen, Wei Wuji and Huang Xie could not be confirmed. At first, the four titles appeared in Jia Yi’s essay "The Fault of Qin" and collectively called “FourLords”. Later on, severalothertitles, such as “Four Worthy”, “Four Giants” and “Four Princes” also appeared. However, “Four Lords” and “Four Princes” are the most acceptable titles to posterity, while the “Four Lords” and the “Four Princes” of the Warring States have been the proprietary titles for them. It is apparent to discover that, the “Four Lords” is more in line with the culture of the Warring States, and the “Four Princes” can be better reflect the way that the political system leading the evolution of the words’ meanings, which became the public consensus. They all were in the period of Warring States. Besides the background and traditional cultural factors pointed by the scholastic precursors, the macro background, for instance, the political situation, economic level, social values and atmosphere of supporting masters and the micro environment, like the persons they making friends with and the kings they serving can explain their differences in personality and fate. Classical literature in the pre-Qin period and the Han Dynasty recorded the four main activities, mainly including “Warring States Tactics” and “Records of the Grand Historian”. Through analyzing the biographies in the “Records of the Grand Historian” and the ideological argument of Confucianism, Legalism and Eclectics in theZi Radical, I conclude that SimaQian was more likely to support the Lord Xinling’s personality and the various cultural attitudes to appraise the four, respectively.