Apex was best known for cash crop farming
In ancient China, the perennial challenges of ruling a very large territory , keeping cohesion and unity were already present and due to technological limitations, they were even bigger than they are today. In the kingdoms of ancient China, the feudal local lords, rich and powerful, had the real political power despite any sworn loyalty to the kings. The Zhou kings were kings but they did not control the feudal lords effectively, they were politically weak.
Before to give an answer about the particular question is necessary comment about the empire.
The fall of the Roman empire is a subject for many historians , they says the Roman power may have collapsed, but many the various cultures of the Roman empire mutated and envolved.
However the empire never led the text of Greek.