One of the features in many of the vassal states was the growth of great families, whose private power was very apt to constrain the wishes of the reigning duke, count, or baron. Thus in the year 537, when the King of Ts'u was meditating a treacherous attack upon Tsin, he was warned that "there were many magnates at the behest of the ruler of Tsin, each of whom was equal to placing 100 war-chariots in the field." So much a matter of course was it to use chariots in war, that in the year 572, when the rival great powers of Ts'u and Tsin were contesting for suzerainty over one of the purely Chinese principalities in the modern Ho Nan province, it was considered quite a remarkable fact that this principality in taking the side of Ts'u brought no chariots with the forces led against Tsin. In 541 a refugee prince of Ts'u, seeking asylum in Tsin, only brought five chariots with him, on which the ruler, ashamed as host of such a poor display, at once assigned him revenue sufficient for the maintenance of 100 individuals. It so happened that at the same time there arrived in Tsin a refugee prince from Ts'in, bringing with him 1000 carts, all heavily laden. On another occasion the prince (not a ruler) of a neighbouring state, on visiting the ruler of another, brings with him as presents an eight-horsed chariot for the reigning prince, a six-horsed conveyance for the premier, a four-horsed carriage for a very distinguished minister in the suite, and a two-horsed cart for a minor member of the mission.