Warring States Period

(475–221 &BC;) In Chinese history, a period in which small feuding kingdoms or fiefdoms struggled for supremacy.

The period was dominated by seven or more small feuding Chinese kingdoms. It was the age of Confucian thinkers Mencius and Xunzi, the time when many of the government institutions and cultural patterns that would characterize China for the next 2,000 years were established. The term Warring States (Sengoku) is also used in Japan for a period (1482–1558) during the Muromachi period that was marked by almost constant warfare among rival daimyo seeking to consolidate and increase their landholdings.