Wei

Wei was the first hegemon of the Warring States, the state that proved reforms could make a small territory supreme. Born in 403 BC from the partition of Jin, Wei under Marquis Wen employed Li Kui, whose legalist code taxed harvests, rewarded grain-growing soldiers and punished idleness, and Wu Qi, who drilled an iron infantry; within a generation Wei seized Qin's Hexi lands and dictated terms to every neighbour. The capital moved from Anyi to Daliang, modern Kaifeng, a city of canals and markets. But the system's makers left: Wu Qi fled to Chu, the strategist Sun Bin was maimed by Wei's own jealous general Pang Juan, and at Maling in 341 BC the Qi army annihilated Wei's elite, killing the crown prince. From hegemon Wei sank to the battlefield of others, squeezed between Qin in the west and Qi in the east, surviving on diplomacy and the last talents, Lord Xinling, who once saved Zhao at Handan against the king's orders. Qin, remembering old humiliations, left Wei for last among the great states: in 225 BC Wang Ben diverted the Yellow River and drowned Daliang, and Wei's one hundred and seventy-nine years ended under water.