People of the White Tiger

FOR MUCH OF THE first millennium B.C., China consisted of a patchwork of powerful states competing for supremacy. Among these were the Qin, who would go on to found the first unified Chinese empire, and the Han and the Chu, who would battle over the right to succeed them. During this long period of struggle, smaller kingdoms tended to be swallowed up by larger ones. It might seem unlikely that any of the smaller kingdoms survived under these circumstances, much less thrived. But the Ba kingdom of eastern Sichuan did both, despite its vulnerable location within striking distance of all three of these much more powerful states. The grave of a member of the Ba’s ruling class speaks volumes about how the Ba negotiated their way through