was, indeed, unceasing. This was a favourable soil for the overcoming of
feudalism, and the process was furthered by the factors mentioned in the
preceding chapter, which were leading to a change in the social
structure of China. Especially the recruitment of the whole population,
including the peasantry, for war was entirely in the interest of the
influential nomad fighting peoples within the state. About 250 B.C.,
Ch'in was not only one of the economically strongest among the feudal
states, but had already made an end of its own feudal system.

Every feudal system harbours some seeds of a bureaucratic system of
administration: feudal lords have their personal servants who are not
recruited from the nobility, but who by their easy access to the lord
can easily gain importance. They may, for instance, be put in charge of
estates, workshops, and other properties of the lord and thus acquire
experience in administration and an efficiency which are obviously of
advantage to the lord. When Chinese lords of the preceding period, with
the help of their sub-lords of the nobility, made wars, they tended to
put the newly-conquered areas not into the hands of newly-enfeoffed
noblemen, but to keep them as their property and to put their
administration into the hands of efficient servants; these were the
first bureaucratic officials. Thus, in the course of the later Chou
period, a bureaucratic system of administration had begun to develop,
and terms like "district" or "prefecture" began to appear, indicating
that areas under a bureaucratic administration existed beside and inside
areas under feudal rule. This process had gone furthest in Ch'in and was
sponsored by the representatives of the Legalist School, which was best
adapted to the new economic and social situation.

A son of one of the concubines of the penultimate feudal ruler of Ch'in
was living as a hostage in the neighbouring state of Chao, in what is