ere
thus came into existence in the early Chou empire a new social group,
later called "scholars", men who were not regarded as belonging to the
lower class represented by the subjugated population but were not
included in the nobility; men who were not productively employed but
belonged to a sort of independent profession. They became of very great
importance in later centuries.

In the first centuries of the Chou dynasty the ruling house steadily
lost power. Some of the emperors proved weak, or were killed at war;
above all, the empire was too big and its administration too
slow-moving. The feudal lords and nobles were occupied with their own
problems in securing the submission of the surrounding villages to their
garrisons and in governing them; they soon paid little attention to the
distant central authority. In addition to this, the situation at the
centre of the empire was more difficult than that of its feudal states
farther east. The settlements around the garrisons in the east were
inhabited by agrarian tribes, but the subjugated population around the
centre at Sian was made up of nomadic tribes of Turks and Mongols
together with semi-nomadic Tibetans. Sian lies in the valley of the
river Wei; the riverside country certainly belonged, though perhaps only
insecurely, to the Shang empire and was specially well adapted to
agriculture; but its periphery--mountains in the south, steppes in the
north--was inhabited (until a late period, to some extent to the present
day) by nomads, who had also been subjugated by the Chou. The Chou
themselves were by no means strong, as they had been only a small tribe
and their strength had depended on auxiliary tribes, which had now
spread over the country as the new nobility and lived far from the Chou.
The Chou emperors had thus to hold in check the subjugated but warlike
tribes of Turks and Mongols who lived quite close to their capital. In
the first centuries of the dynasty they were more or less successful,
for the feudal lords still sent auxiliary forces. In time, however,
these became fewer and fewer, because the feudal lords pursued their own
policy; and the Chou were compelled to fight their own battles against
tribes that continually rose against them, raiding and pillaging their
towns. Campaigns abroad also fell mainly on the shoulders of the Chou,
as their capital lay near the frontier.

It must not be simply assumed, as is often done by the Chinese and some
of the Eu