The so-called school of the coalition advisors (zonghengjia 縱橫家, literally "criss-cross school") is one of so-called Hundred Philosophical Schools (baijia 百家) of the Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent.-221 BCE). It is actually not a systematic tradition but an aggregation of the political strategies by various high ministers or retainers of powerful actors that often changed their employer among the "Warring States". Coalition advisors thus often served one ruler and one state only to change side one day with the consequence that they intrigued against their previous boss. Their main business was to search for the best methods to strengthen the state they served and to overcome enemies, often by carfully planned coalitions with other states. The coalitions of several weaker states against one militarily superior state (for example, Qin 秦) was called hezong 合縱 "perpendicular confederacy", the strengthening of one state to overcome a multitude of weaker polities was called lianheng 連橫 "horizontal federation". The first method would, as Han Fei 韓非 put it, led to hegemony (ba 霸), the latter to kingship (wang 王) or eventually to the rulership over an empire. In contrast to the other schools of political advisors, internal reform was not considered as important as the perfect alliance with or against another state. There methods are therefore extremely case-related and very superficial compared to the Confucian teaching of a the ruler's benevolence towards his own people or the legalist idea of a centralized bureaucracy relying on the power of the objective law.