His teachings

and doctrine proposed a disregard for self and materialism, instead emphasising subsequent lives and the eventual deliverance from the eternal cycle of life and suffering which is human existence.
While the seeds of higher philosophies were being sown, warfare itself continued. Before 500 BC, China did not exist as a nation. The territory now known as the People's Republic of China was made up of a large number of minor, independent states, generally operating under feudal rule.