Studies On Ambassadors In The Spring And Autumn Period

This paper takes ambassadors who took, part in diplomatic activities in spring and autumn period as the object of research, and attempts to perform full Investigation and analysis about them.Four chapters are concluded in this thesis. The first chapter is mainly about the composition and duty of ambassadors. According to The Spring and Autumn Annals and Zuo Zhuan, an officer who undertook the responsibility of an ambassador was called a’Xingren’. Xingren in vassal states usually visited foreign countries, received ambassadors from other countries or assisted bureaucrats’visting. Correspondingly the word "Xingren" was used as the name of ambassadors. However, Xingrenwho had low status and little rights didn’t know much policies of their own country. That was why they wouldn’t serve as an ambassador for some diplomatic affairs such as alliances, marriages and visitings. Therefore, Xingren was less important in diplomatic activities and gradually gave way to side-bar bureaucrats who could achieve the diplomatic goal.The second chapter focuses on the influence on the diplomatic ambassadors made by political hegemony.Whether to dispatch an ambassador or not depended on one country’s diplomatic policies and international situations. With the change of the international situations, ambassadors were getting a higher status and bureaucrats’ visiting abroad become mainstream. When a small country visited a big one, almost all the bureaucrats in the whole country would set out. In the late spring and autumn period, faced with some diplomatic activities like condolence and congratulations, a monarch from a small country had to bear his responsibility by himself. As for their diplomatic purpose, all countries began to pursue more interests from these activities. Finally, diplomatic activities became tools for countries to search for interests.The third chapter talks about the effects on ambassadors which concepts and systems had based on political hegemony. The complexity of diplomatic activities forced ambassadors to performance more flexibly, which increased the difficulty of visiting. Accordingly these countries paid more attention to the selection of ambassadors. However through investigating ambassadors’behavior, we found that the standard whether the ambassador was excellent in the Spring and Autumn still rested on the the Western Zhou Dynasty’s concepts and systems. Ambassadors’ behavior and speech was restrained by the Western Zhou Dynasty’s concepts and systems especially the thought of moralities and rites. To make a summary, their behavior changed along with the concepts and systems.The fourth chapter makes more Investigate on the basis of preamble.Reality of the situation,concepts and systems at the same timemakethe ambassadorswhotook onthe politicaland culturalfunctions.As apolitician,ambassadorsignore the later:evenadvocatingideas of virtue and ritual,ambassadorsonlytake them astoolsfor diplomaticvictory.It is reflected in theattitudes anddiplomatic relationson the two countries Jin and Chu.Although has some special cases,tendencythroughout theambassadorsis evident.In conclusion,influenced by ritual and music civilization on Western Zhou, ambassadors in spring and autumn period take ideas of virtue and ritual astools because of the oppressivepolitical situation.For achieveingtheir ownpolitical interests, ambassadorswill choosediplomaticmethods ofbetter effect.