| A comprehensive study of the wars and the scale of war in the Warring States period has seldom been conducted because of the academic training required for the job, the Chinese traditional preference for the "civil" over the "martial," and the complexity of the job. Traditional scholars were hindered from uncovering the number of inter-state wars fought during subperiods because of the lack of information in these subperiods and the lack of appropriate methods to identify such data. While the former problem has been offset by the archaeological findings in the past several decades, the latter is solved by the application of the statistic method of interpolation.; Since there is no systematic theory or hypothesis in the study of the scale of war, the author must set a conceptual framework for the study. After solving the problems of defining, identifying, and counting wars, a comparative study of wars in the Warring States period and those in its predecessor, the Spring and Autumn period, is conducted not only to characterize the Warring States period, but also to present two different Chinese models for dealing with warfare. Hundreds of wars are thus examined and the results are included for the convenience of future study.; From the study of the sources on both periods, twelve measurements---seven quantitative and five qualitative---are found for the scale of war of both periods. Except for one, all show that the Warring States period has greater scale of war than the Spring and Autumn period. What follows are an effort to discover why and the examination and analysis of various factors. |
