During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the rapid development of productive forces led to changes in production relations, which in turn led to political reform and innovation. These changes have promoted academic and cultural progress, leading to the emergence of private lectures and works.

The earliest private lectures and writings in the history of China were initiated by the great educator Confucius (55 BC1~ 479 BC). The emergence of private lectures and works has broken the monopoly of official learning on knowledge and the stereotype that only historians can remember words and notes. In the Warring States period, Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, fame, law and Yin and Yang hundred schools of thought contended. All schools get together to give lectures and express their opinions and ideas. Confucianism advocates propriety, Taoism advocates inaction, Mohism advocates universal love and non-attack, Legalism advocates strict legal system, famous scholars advocate paying attention to name and reality, Yin and Yang advocate observing the sky and the four seasons, and strategists advocate unity.

These different schools inherit the culture of their predecessors in two ways: first, teachers and students teach each other and pass it on from mouth to mouth; The second is to read ancient books. Pre-Qin philosophers gave full play to their opinions according to their personal understanding, and at the same time they needed to enrich themselves with the ideas and theories of their predecessors and peers, so they needed to have books. It was under this condition that private books first appeared in hundred schools of thought in the pre-Qin period.