Wang Mingming describes the means by which the ritual society was created in the Zhou period by the shi class in order to build the ideal of tianxia, or the Great Unity (datong).

The three great empires and the northern kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent engaged in a long-distance exchange of technologies, manufactured goods, and ideas. The steppe regions provided the highways along the so-called Silk Road that connected Rome in the west with the Han Empire in the east (figure 5.6).