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In the Spring and Autumn Period, ethnic conflicts and integration experienced a very long evolutionary process. After King Ping moved east, the first princes to compete for hegemony were Zheng, Wei, Song, Qi and Lu. During this period, there was only respect for the king, and there was no expulsion of the barbarians. When Duke Huan of Qi established his power and took hegemony, he called on the princes under the King of Zhou to save the Xing and Wei states that were invaded by the Di people and the Shanrong. The hegemony of the Song State was not actually completed. The long-term hegemony of the Jin State was due to the fact that the Jin State, as the leader of the princes, repeatedly fought against the rising Chu State in the south. In this war for hegemony, the most important participants were Qi, Jin, Chu, Wu and Yue. In the process of the rise and fall of these countries, they continued to expand their territories, and also continued to absorb ethnic groups that did not originally belong to them, and merged into new ethnic countries.

As for Qi, the Qi of Jiang was the main force of the Western Zhou feudal system to manage the Shandong Peninsula and its periphery. In a broader sense, the periphery of Qi was the Haidai region. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were no less than 30 small countries in this vast area. Lu, located in the east of the Central Plains, was originally the main base for the Western Zhou Dynasty to expand to the east, but Lu did not have a vast rear area, while Qi had most of the Shandong Peninsula as its development target. In the late Spring and Autumn Period, the Qi of Tian replaced the Qi of Jiang and became a great country in the east; at that time, Qi had already accommodated and digested almost the entire Haidai region. As mentioned above, some ethnic groups, such as Xu and Shu, had a considerable number of their populations gradually moved to the south and the middle section of the Huaihe and Yangtze River basins. As for the small countries such as Ju and Qi, they had all become counties of Qi, and the local residents had all been assimilated into the people of Qi.

The original fiefdom of Jin was in the Yuncheng Plain along the Yellow River in Shanxi, with its central area in the lower reaches of the Fen River; the central and northern parts of Shanxi were occupied by many so-called "Rong Di", such as the Red Di, the White Di, the Luhun Rong, the Dongshan Gaoluo Rong, etc. When Tang Shu was enfeoffed, the order he received included respecting the customs of the Rong and the traditions of the Xia. During the long-term struggle for hegemony between Jin and Chu, the Central Plains was already crowded with the original fiefdoms. In order to obtain resources for hegemony, Jin had no choice but to expand to the rear. Jin continued to manage the hinterland in the west and north, obtaining war horses, copper materials, salt and soldiers; the territory of Jin finally expanded to the west to the Yellow River and the north to "Bashang", covering the entire Shanxi region and part of Hebei. The original Shanrong, Red Di, White Di and other ethnic groups all became Jin people. After Jin expanded, it became extremely powerful. Han, Zhao, and Wei divided Jin: Zhao's land and population were in the eastern half of Shanxi and Hebei; Wei's territory was slightly to the south and the center, occupying the core part of Jin; Han's territory was to the west. Overall, more than three-quarters of the territory of the three kingdoms was annexed by the territories of other ethnic groups behind Jin.

The establishment of the State of Chu began in the late Western Zhou Dynasty. The Mi surname, one of the eight surnames of Zhurong in the East, migrated to the Han River Basin and cooperated with the local barbarians to establish the State of Chu. The State of Chu controlled the exit of the Hanzhong Basin, the border of the Han River Basin entering the Central Plains, and possessed the copper mines in Hubei and Anhui, as well as various resources in the Yunmeng Lake. In the inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty, obtaining "Southern Gold" was an important task. Therefore, for the Western Zhou Dynasty, the exit of the Hanzhong Kongdao was occupied by the State of Chu, and the Western Zhou Dynasty could not obtain important resources in the southeast. Therefore, there was hatred for Jing and Shu in the "Book of Songs". During the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Chu continued to struggle with the overlord of the Central Plains, and not only did it not fail, but it continued to grow, because the State of Chu had a vast hinterland to develop. The State of Chu initially developed to the north and northeast fronts, eroding the princes on the Huai River and Han River. Soon, the State of Chu also expanded to the hinterland in the south. By the end of the Warring States period, the territory of Chu State extended to the Dianchi Lake in Yunnan in the southwest, the eastern half of the Sichuan Basin in the west, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the southeast, and the Wuling Mountains in the south: Chu State had a vast territory, equivalent to most of the mainland of China in later times. The areas to the west and south of Chu State, which were originally isolated from the Central Plains, were all areas that Chu State focused on managing. In ethnology, China's southwestern Yi, Ba, Pu, Dian, etc., and the Baiyue in the east and southeast, all went through the stage of Chu State's expansion, and were eventually incorporated into Chinese ethnic groups.

Although the Wu and Yue people in the south claimed to be descendants of the Central Plains ethnic group in their own genealogy, for example, the Wu people claimed to be descendants of Prince Taibo of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the Yue people claimed to be descendants of Yu the Xia Dynasty. In fact, they all came from the Dawenkou culture that moved south and merged with the Liangzhu culture, and then merged with the local cultural ethnic groups in the south to become the Baiyue people distributed along the coast of South China and East China. When Jin and Chu were fighting, Jin cultivated the Wu State in the rear of Chu in order to resist Chu; Chu cultivated the Yue State in the rear of Wu in order to resist Wu. The natives of Wu and Yue had developed a high level of pottery and metallurgy technology with their local resources; some large-scale settlements had also appeared in the swamps and alluvial plains along the coast. Under the influence of Jin and Chu, these local civilizations merged with the mainstream civilization in the north. The large population of this large area also became part of the Chinese ethnic group.

The Qin State in the west originally took over the Guanzhong region left by the Western Zhou royal family. They digested various ethnic groups scattered in the Guanzhong region. The small countries unearthed in Guanzhong showed that there were many people who migrated to Guanzhong from more western and northern places. The Qin State also participated in the hegemony of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Therefore, they also had to constantly expand their hinterland. During the Warring States Period, the Qin State was already the common enemy of the eastern countries. The reason why the Qin State could rise to such a powerful country was that they could easily obtain war horses and soldiers from Longxi in the west and Hetao in the north. To the south of Guanzhong, you can enter the western half of the Sichuan Basin. The Qin people had long occupied Shu and had two major resources: iron ore and salt mines. The local ethnic groups in the northwest and southwest, such as the Yiqu Rong, also accepted the influence of the mainstream culture of the Central Plains after the Qin people's management, integrated into the many ethnic groups in China, and became a part of China in later generations.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Yan, far to the north, had lost contact with the Central Plains. During the Warring States Period, due to the expansion of the Central Plains countries, Yan, Zhao, and Qi had contacts and conflicts. In order to obtain more resources, the State of Yan expanded to the hinterland of the north and east, and thus occupied the eastern half of today's Inner Mongolia and the Liaohe River Basin in the northeast. As early as the Neolithic Age, the ethnic groups in these areas had separated and merged with the ethnic cultures in the Bohai Sea area and influenced each other. After the expansion of the State of Yan, the local culture in the northeast region gradually merged with the Central Plains culture due to exchanges and interactions, and those ethnic groups finally became part of the many ethnic groups in China in later generations.

In order to compete for hegemony over the Central Plains, these competitors living on the periphery of the country continued to grow stronger in the process of competition. Overall, the expansion and aggregation of various countries also expanded China. The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period lasted for five or six hundred years and are often regarded as a chaotic period in Chinese history. However, it experienced unprecedented expansion and integration, and finally integrated into the foundation of the Qin and Han empires, which also implemented the evolution of China.