Dong An was then a vassal of the Zhao clan of the Jin Dynasty, he was the builder of the ancient Jinyang City, a wise man who advised the head of the family, and a loyal and courageous courtier, whose death, while making people lament, also mercilessly unveiled the scars of the tragic political struggle of the Six Secretaries of the Jin Dynasty in the late Spring and Autumn Period.
Today, we will see how Dong An died. How could his death be related to the political struggle between the Six Secretaries of the Jin Dynasty in the late Spring and Autumn Period? What is the evolution of the political struggle between the six secretaries? Next, we will explore these issues.
Earlier, Dong Anyu built Jinyang City on the orders of Zhao Jianzi, the suzerainty of the Zhao clan, as a strategic stronghold in the rear of the Zhao clan.
In 497 BC, Zhao Jianzi, the patriarch of the Zhao clan of the Jin dynasty, wanted to move the population of 500 households from Handan to Jinyang City to enrich the population of the city, so he asked Zhao Wu of The Xiaozong of the Zhao clan (Handan Noon).
Zhao Wu listened to his father's brother's words and did not agree (including Zhao Wu's consideration of the self-interest of the Zhao clan in Handan), and was killed by Zhao Jianzi under the fury, which directly led to the rebellion of Emperor Xiaozong of Handan.
Among the six secretaries of the Jin Dynasty, the Fan clan and the Zhongxing clan were secretly allied with Zhao Ji because they were married to Zhao Wu.
Dong Anyu's strategic vision was very precise, and he quickly saw the severe situation at the moment, so he was busy reminding Zhao Jianzi to strike first. However, there was a clause in the laws of the Jin Dynasty at that time that "the first person who initiated the disaster should be executed for the crime", and Zhao Jianzi was afraid of taking on this crime, so he did not agree.
In the face of Zhao Jianzi's inaction, Dong Anyu privately mobilized the Zhao army and actively greeted the battle of "the mountain rain is coming and the wind is full of buildings".
At the same time, after Fan and Zhongxing heard Dong Anyu's suggestion, in less than a month, they first joined forces to defeat the army of Sima Zhiqin, the Shangjun who had been ordered by The Duke of Jinding to besiege Handan, and then launched an attack on the Zhao clan, and Zhao Jianzi could not resist and had to retreat to Jinyang City.
This is the "Fan and Zhongxing Rebellion" that triggered the eight-year-long "Fan and Zhongxing Clan Rebellion" in ancient history.
At the time when Jinyang City was under siege, the other three secretaries, Wei, Han, and Zhi, out of their own political interests, jointly suggested to Jin Dinggong that the three Zhengqing who provoked the trouble should be severely punished and the civil unrest should be quelled quickly.
However, the Fan clan and the Zhongxing clan did not know whether they were overwhelmed, and they actually aimed their spearhead at the monarch Jin Dinggong, and fan and Zhongxing Erqing, who had become the target of public criticism for a while, fled to Chaoge under the defeat.
In this turmoil, several Zhengqing also noticed the fierce Zhao Jianzi's family minister and strategist, Dong Anyu, during the civil unrest.
They realized that one day dong an yu existed in the world, the Zhao clan would not be able to stop the powerful pace, and their interests would be weakened accordingly, so Dong An Yu's heart thorn must take advantage of this rare opportunity to pull out!
Therefore, Xun Yan, the ruler of the Jin Dynasty, put pressure on Zhao Jianzi, saying that "the one who started the disaster is dead", that the rebellion between the Fan and Zhongxing clans was caused by Dong Anyu, and that Fan and Zhongxing Erqing had now fled to the outside world, and if they had been punished, how should Dong Anyu, who was still at large, apologize?
Zhao Jianzi was indeed extremely embarrassed at this time, on the one hand, he was his own minister, on the other hand, he was afraid of the pressure situation of his own body, and when he was hesitating, Dong Anyu stood up.
At this time, he calmly went to his death, and at the same time said a paragraph of his last words: "If my death can save the Zhao clan in exchange for the stability of the Jin kingdom, how can I be stingy with my own life?" Who can not die, I am late to die. ”
After saying this, he hanged himself in the jinyang city that he had built and guarded with all his heart, and the courtiers who were so devoted to the Zhao clan became victims of the internal political struggle of the Jin state!
From Dong Anyu's last words, we can see that he said that his death could save the Zhao clan in exchange for the stability of the Jin dynasty, and he would die without regrets.
We can also see that the Zhi clan held the idea of constantly dropping one of Zhao's arms and vowed not to give up, and was aggressive towards the Zhao clan, and if the Zhao patriarch Zhao Jianzi did not agree, then he would have to follow in the footsteps of the Fan clan and the Zhongxing clan.
The internal unrest in Jin, triggered by internal contradictions among the Zhao clan, soon turned into a war between the Various Qing clans.
As a result of this civil unrest, the Fan and Zhongxing clans were permanently "swept out of the house", and the internal political power of the Jin state was also changed from the dictatorship of the six secretaries to the dictatorship of the four secretaries, which also invisibly accelerated the evolution of the political situation of the Jin state and laid the foundation for the later "three families divided into Jin".
After the Fan and Zhongxing clans were expelled, the Han and Wei clans, with the consent of the Duke of Jinding, recalled Zhao Jianzi, who had retreated to Jinyang. Although Zhao Jianzi made a comeback and returned to the position of Zhengqing again, the political situation at that time was not optimistic for him.
The remnants of the Fan and Zhongxing clans and the support of the Qi, Lu and other princely states made it difficult to completely eliminate them; and although the Wei, Zhi, Han and Zhao clans belonged to the same camp, these three families shouted slogans but did not take practical action to support the Zhao clan, especially the Zhi clan, and the Zhao clan did not have a good relationship with them, so there was the later "death of Dong Anyu".
It can be said that dong anyu's death led to the reconciliation of the Zhao and Zhi families, and it was also the result of zhao's compromise with other Qing clans led by the Zhi clan.
Through the "Death of Dong Anyu" incident, we can see the fierceness of the struggle between the Six Secretaries of the Jin Dynasty in the late Spring and Autumn Period, so the question is, how did the Dispute Between the Six Secretaries of the Jin Dynasty develop? Did Liu Qing fight for your life at the beginning? What are the reasons behind this? What are the implications? What was the outcome of the internal political struggle of the Six Secretaries? Understanding this question can help us better understand the inevitability of the "Death of Dong Anyu" incident, and then we will talk about these issues.
1. Jin wugong clan
During the Jin Dynasty, in order to avoid the recurrence of civil unrest such as "Quwo Daiyi (Xiaozong of the Jin Dynasty usurping the throne of the Great Emperor)", but also in order to consolidate his position as monarch, Xiangong tried to kill the sons of the Shu clan such as Huan Shu and Zhuang Bo, and the gong forces began to suffer a heavy blow.
Then, with the "Li Ji Rebellion", Crown Prince Shensheng committed suicide, and Gongzi Zhong'er and Gongzi Yiwu were forced to take refuge in other countries. After "exhausting the number of princes", the Jin state no longer established princes or gongsuns as nobles, "the sons of the monarch except for the sons of the world need to live in other countries, and are not allowed to keep in the country, and there is no record in the historical records of the princes of the Jin state being divided", and the political contradiction between the public office and the gong clan contributed to the establishment of the political system of "Jin wu gong clan".
The internecine killing between the two weakened the power of the Gong clan, and at the same time increased its dependence on the Qing clan of different surnames, and when the Gong Clan in turn was offended or even attacked by these Qing clans, there was no longer any blood-related Gong Clan to support it, which was probably something that the Gong Clan did not expect.
The implementation of this system laid a good foundation for the subsequent ascension of qingfu with different surnames and different clans to the political arena of the Jin state, but at the same time there were also strong "side effects", that is, the Jin state did not succeed in forming a strong clan in the later time. It can be said that the decline of the Jin dynasty during the Spring and Autumn Period and the usurpation of power by the Qing clan are inseparable from the long decline of the Jin gong clan.
The Gong clan is gone, the political power should still be run, so those foreign surnames and foreign clans have been reused during this period, which has indeed played a certain positive role to a certain extent, such as injecting fresh blood into the political arena of the Jin Dynasty at the beginning, ensuring the vitality and stability of the current regime, and maintaining the good operation and development of the state power.
While these foreign clans were absorbed into the political clique of the Jin State, it also meant that the Jin State abandoned the governing strategy of "pro-relatives and shang-en" since the Western Zhou Dynasty, and replaced it with a governance strategy based on "honoring the meritorious and meritorious service" and military merit.
In the early Spring and Autumn Period, of course, the implementation of this system had a positive impact on the Jinguo Gongfu, but with the development of these Qing clans, there was inevitably an irreconcilable conflict of interest between them and the office and the monarch, and in the early stage of the conflict between the two, the latter still held the initiative, such as cutting their titles and reaping their titles; but in the middle and late Spring and Autumn, with the increasingly fierce struggle for political rights and interests between the two, the initiative slowly tilted to the former, and the land and people of the latter were gradually divided until the former's victory." "Three branches of promotion" is a concrete embodiment of this phenomenon.
2. Six-secretary system
In 633 BC, the Jin state held by the Lu Zhifu (sōu) formally established the system of three armies and six secretaries, and the system of "six secretaries" of military and government integration existed in the Jin state.
Liu Qing originally referred to six people, including the General of the Chinese Army, the General of the Middle Army, the General of the Upper Army, the General of the Upper Army, the General of the Lower Army, and the General of the Lower Army, and later generally referred to the Qing clan who served as generals in the Army of the Jin Dynasty.
From the previous text, "The Death of Dong Anyu", we can see the figures of the six secretaries of the Jin Dynasty in the late Spring and Autumn Period, they are Zhao, Wei, Han, Zhi, Fan and Zhongxing.
However, from being lu da to the three families, during this period of more than two hundred years, there were many families who served as six secretaries, in addition to the above six, there were more than ten families such as the Xian, Fox, Luan, Hao, Xu, Shi, and Bu families. For the sake of their families' interests, they took turns to stage "bloodless wars (politics)" and "bloody politics (wars)" in the political arena of power and profit.
The characteristics of the six secretaries system of military and government integration made the internal affairs and military power of the Jin state more concentrated, and the implementation of this system played an active role in escorting the great cause of the Jin state's struggle for hegemony.
With the passage of time, the Jin Dynasty gradually formed a solidified model of the six secretaries taking turns to govern, and this political model of the six secretaries of state under the leadership of the zhengqing was more reasonable, which played a positive role in balancing the forces of the various secretaries of state, avoided the occurrence of dictatorship as much as possible, and was conducive to formulating correct decisions in line with the interests of the state.
The existence of the Liuqing system has indeed struggled and worked hard for the hegemony of the Jin Dynasty, such as the Battle of Chengpu, the Battle of Kun, the Battle of Wu, the Battle of Yanling, and so on, all of which embody the sweat and blood of Liuqing's efforts.
Liu Qing's efforts contributed to the strength of the Jin state, and the powerful Jin state also fed back the Six Qing, and with the continuous growth of these different Qing clan forces, the drive of interests made them no longer focus on helping the Jin Dynasty to fight for hegemony or maintain their hegemony, but more concentrated on the development of their own Qing clan, while effectively improving social productivity, but also caused conflicts of interest between the Qing clan in the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, as well as between the Qing clan and the office, and the "death of Dong Anyu" mentioned above is one of the results of these contradictions.
The existence of the six secretaries system has had different effects on the Jinguo gongfu and the monarch in different periods, they (the six secretaries) were initially loyal subjects, not satisfied with the current interests after their own growth, and competed with the public office for power and profit, with the further development of strength, they began to be inferior and gradually occupied the advantage, and the imbalance of the balance of the monarchy's power eventually led to the demise of the Jin monarchy in name only.
With the example of "the death of Dong Anyu", we lead to the relationship between him and the political interest struggle between the six secretaries of the Jin State in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and finally talk about the evolution of the dispute between the six secretaries of the Jin State.
Judging from the political power of the various Qing clans in the Jin Dynasty during the Spring and Autumn Period, before the "three families were divided into Jin", the Hu clan, the Xian clan, the Hao clan, the Xu clan, the Luan clan, the Fan clan, the Zhongxing clan and the Zhi clan were successively destroyed, and the more powerful Qing clan also continued to rise, and at the same time, the Jin monarchs after the Jin Dynasty were either killed or replaced. It can be seen that behind the "you sing and I appear" is the continuous change of power and mergers between the six secretaries, and it is also an invisible weapon to weaken the power of the Jinguo Gongfu!
In fact, even if it is not "Dong Anyu", there will be "Li Anyu" and "Sun Anyu", which is one of the inevitable results of the dispute between the six secretaries, and we also see that every power struggle has two things flowing: flowers and blood.