Confucius lived in a transformative time. He was acutely aware of the changes around him, denouncing some and accepting others. He insisted that his worldview was rooted in the legacies passed down to him from antiquity. But there were notable innovations in his interpretations of the past.

The book of Zuozhuan, finalized around a hundred years after Confucius' death in 479 BC, offers a short but charged episode on Confucius's final political endeavor, which took place just two years before his death.

Check out the last episode of the ChinainInk series to learn more about China's most influential thinker and discover an age that was defined by his successes and failures.