Governing (founding a state, keeping it together) in early East Asia

The problem of governing (founding a state, keeping it together) in early East Asia
seems repeatedly to have revolved around trying a) to harness the economic power of
the land and those who cultivated it, i.e., the peasantry and b) to curb or eliminate
other power-holders who stood between the state and peasantry. What role did the
philosophies we have been studying play in this process? What solutions (or suggestions) did—for example—Confucian thought, Daoist ideas, Buddhism, or Legalism offer, separately or in combination? Did they work differently in different countries?