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.

He went to the state of Yan and convinced the King of Yan of the wisdom of his course and became the latter's special ambassador to the other states. When the alliance was formed in 333 BC with Su Qin as head, he was already Prime Minister of the State of Zhao. In order to make it effective, he was given the seal of the prime minister of each of the other states.

This time when he went back to Luoyang. The king of the defunct old Zhou dynasty, still holding on there, had the roads swept and sent a minister to greet him. His mother eagerly came down the street to welcome her now respectable and richly clad son. Because of her former attitude, his wife did not dare look him in the face. His sister-in-law knelt before him.

"Why do you show me so much respect?" he asked, feeling uncomfortable.

"Because you have a high position and money" they replied.

"It's money that counts, even with one's relatives" Su Qin sighed as he rode them home in his chariot. He built a magnificent house for them and distributed the money he had brought with him among the poor and those who had once helped him.

Zhang Yi, too, had an inauspicious beginning. He had gone to the State of Chu, and was once a minor guest at a banquet. While the King of Chu (most of the dukes under the Zhou dynasty were now calling themselves kings) was showing his guests a priceless piece of jade he had acquired, there was a sudden downpour and in the confusion the jade disappeared. As the most humble and shabbily dressed among the guests, Zhang Yi was suspected. He was beaten black and blue to force him to confess he had taken the jade, but he still wouldn't admit it.

He returned home battered and bruised. His wife wept, "If you hadn't become a scholar and pursued fame and honour, you'd never have had this beating. Now stay home after this." Zhang Yi opened his mouth wide and said "Is my tongue still there?" Of course it was. "As long as I have my tongue to spread my ideas, I'll be able to make it".

When he recovered he sought out his former fellow-student Su Qin, hoping to receive help. To his surprise, Su Qin treated him coldly. Su was entertaining guests when Zhang arrived and kept him waiting in the corridor till noon. Many extravagant courses were served, but Zhang Yi was given the food of the servants.

They finally talked and Su Qin said, "You have greater ability that I, it is only that I have been luckier. One word of recommendation from me could make you somebody. But if you don't live up to my expectations it will ruin my reputation". Offended, Zhang Yi stood up and left without a word. He decided to try his luck on the other side... in the State of Qin.

Su Qin later told one of his assistants in confidence that he had deliberately wanted to infuriate Zhang Yi and drive him over to the side of Qin so that he could make use of him over there. Su Qin sent his men secretly to Qin with a handsome sum to establish connections there for Zhang Yi. Thus Zhang Yi eventually became a trusted minister of the King of Qin.

Su Qin, however, was assassinated not long afterwards by a rival in the State of Qi. After his death Zhang Yi furthered his own plan by disrupting the unity of the other states and trying to win them over to Qin. Su's alliance had kept Qin away for a while, but in the tide of history it was Zhang Yi whose plan succeeded as Qin conquered the other states one after another.

Legend adapted from Shanghai on Internet