The topic of this issue, "Jin Ling Gong Bu Jun", is one of the most famous stories in the "Zuo Zhuan", and later historians such as Sima Qian believe that Jin Ling Gong lived a luxurious life and behaved tyrannically at a young age. Because the cook's bear paw was not cooked, Linggong killed him in a fit of rage. When the body was transported out of the palace, it happened to be seen by Zhao Dun, the first assistant minister. Zhao Dun forced Linggong to rebel, causing the monarch to turn against him, and Linggong was eventually killed. However, after carefully analyzing the relevant records in the "Zuo Zhuan", we cannot agree with such a joke that there should be a deeper reason behind the death of Jin Linggong, and this reason is inseparable from the increasingly tight money bag of the Jin Dynasty...
Jin Linggong's determination to kill Zhao Dun was a year after Xu Jia was exiled. This story in the "Left Biography" used to be known as "Jin Ling Gong Bu Jun".
The so-called "no monarch" means that the Duke of Jinling does not have the appearance of a monarch. Zhao Dun couldn't see his eyes and repeatedly forced advice. Enraged, Ling Gong then set up a feast at the Hongmen Gate, ambushed the armored soldiers, and attacked Zhao Dun.
This is a suspicious public case, and the most puzzling thing is, which thing has become the fuse of the showdown between Jin Linggong and Zhao Dun? The "Left Biography" contains:
Jin Ling Gong Bu Jun: (1) Thick to carve the wall; (2) to shoot people from the stage, and to see its pills also; (3) Zaifu is not familiar with the bear, kill it, and make the woman carry it through the dynasty. Zhao Dun and Shi Ji saw his hand, asked him why, and suffered from it. Will advise. - "The Second Year of Zuo Chuan and Xuan Gong"
When the Zuo Chuan describes "Jin Ling Gong Bu Jun", it says three things:
The first is to increase taxes to meet office expenses. The political tradition of ancient China has always emphasized the enrichment of the people. I think that in that year, Jin Linggong's grandfather, Duke Wen of Jin, ascended to the throne, he promulgated such administrative measures:
Abandon responsibility and give alms. The rescue is sluggish, and the poor are not available. Easy to pass, trade and wide agriculture. Mao Zhi persuaded to divide, save enough money, sharp weapons And Virtue, to be generous to the people. - "Chinese Jin Yu IV"
Compared with the frivolity of the Jin Wengong and the generous people's livelihood, the daily use of the Jin Linggong seems to be somewhat expensive. If the degree of use is large, it is inevitable to increase taxes to fill the deficit.
The second manifestation of spiritual injustice is frivolous and stubborn behavior. According to Sima Qian, by the time Ofe-Lu Xuan's second year, 607 BC, the Duke of Jinling had already reached adulthood.
But this adult-looking monarch is still a giant baby in his bones. He also rubbed mud balls and played slingshots like he did when he was a child. The two legends of Gu Liang and Ram even say that the Jin Linggong shot the slingshot at the courtiers when they were on the throne. If it was really this trouble, Linggong was indeed too bad.
If it is just an ordinary young man who has reached the age of maturity but has no mature heart, then that is all. But Jin Linggong is not an ordinary person, he is the king of a country with the power of life and death, just like a milk tiger with teeth, his actions hurt people!
The "Zuo Biography" said that only because the bear paw cooked by the cook was not ripe, Jin Linggong wiped his neck with a knife, threw the body into the basket, and ordered the palace maid to carry it out. When the palace ladies were carrying the body, they happened to be bumped into by Zhao Dun, who inquired about the reason for the murder and expressed deep concern about the cruelty of Jin Linggong.
Of the three things mentioned above, including taxation, slingshot shooting, and torturing and killing cooks, which one prompted Zhao Dun to forcefully advise Jin Linggong and aroused Linggong's killing heart?
Sima Qian's choice was the last one. The "History of the Zhao Family" writes:
Fourteen years of spiritual publichood, yijiao. Zhao Dun suddenly advised, and LingGongfu listened. and eating bears, not ripe, killing people, holding their corpses out, Zhao Dun saw it. The Spirit Prince was afraid and wanted to kill the shield. - "History of the Zhao Family"
To tell you the truth, I don't quite understand Tai Shi Gong's choice. Let's first briefly sort out the whole process of friction between 612 BC and 607 BC, when the friction between Jin Linggong and Zhao Dun escalated and eventually caused fire:
In 612 BC, the 15-year-old Duke Ling of Jin, anxious to pro-government, attended for the first time the Confederacy of Princes held at Huyi. From then on, Zhao Dun lost the power to act as the Marquis of Jin;
Two years later, in 610 BC, due to the coup d'état of the Song State, Song Zhaogong was deposed, and Zhao Dun advocated the alliance to cut down the Song and punish the rebellion. Although the Duke of Jinling reluctantly agreed to send troops, he put aside the Marshal of the Chinese Army, Zhao Dun, and appointed the deputy general of the Chinese Army, Xun Linfu, as the commander of the coalition army. In the end, the coalition operation was aborted by the jin linggong instructing Xun Lin's father to accept bribes from the Song state;
After the coalition forces conquered the Song Dynasty, the Duke of Jinling re-established the alliance with Yu Hu. During the meeting, he refused to receive Zheng Mugong because he suspected Zheng Guo of surrendering to Chu. Zhao Dun reached an understanding agreement with Zheng Guo without consulting with Linggong;
Two years later, in 608 BC, Xu Jia, an important member of Zhao Dun's party and a deputy general of the Xia Army, was exiled by the Duke of Jin, on the grounds that he had miscommunited himself when he followed Zhao Dun to the Battle of Hequ six years earlier, which had buried the victory of the Jin army.
From the historical facts listed above, we can clearly see that in the five years from 612 BC to 607 BC, the Jin Linggong launched a comprehensive power struggle with Zhao Dun in various fields from diplomacy to internal affairs, and the offensive was aggressive.
On the other hand, Zhao Dun's side seems to be more tolerant and restrained than tit-for-tat. Even if such an important cronies as Xu Jia were exiled, Zhao Dun did not come forward to protect him, how could he rashly tear his face with Jin Linggong because he was a cook?
Therefore, among the three events contained in the Zuo Biography, it is unlikely that the killing of the chef provoked the conflict between jin linggong and Zhao Dun.
Of the three things, the one that is most likely to cause a fire between the two sides, I think, is the first one, that is, the tax increase.
The reason why I made a different choice from Tai Shi Gong was because I found that in the ruling experience of Jin Linggong in recent years, there was always an unchanging main theme: Linggong always tried every means to make money for himself.
During the first alliance, the State of Jin was prepared to carry out a crusade against the illegal acts of the State of Qi in invading the State of Lu, but in the end, the Duke of Jinling accepted bribes from the State of Qi, and the State of Qi could not be stopped;
Before the second alliance, Song Zhaogong was deposed, the Jin coalition rebelled, and song Wengong, who rebelled and came to power, paid bribes to Jin Xianggong and terminated the military operations of the Jin state.
These two military operations were not so much half-way aborted as the real purpose of Jin Linggong to extort bamboo and squeeze oil and water from foreign princes as an ally—from the very beginning, he had gone for bribes.
After receiving bribes from foreigners, they still did not have enough money, so they turned around and picked the skins of their own people: they levied taxes. The wool came out of the sheep, and the Zhao family, the most powerful and most fertile family in the Jin Dynasty, thus became the one with the heaviest losses among the nobles, so the contradictions between the two sides intensified.
So the question arises: How could the Prince of Jin Linggong, the prince of a country, be so short of money that he disregarded his system and unscrupulous means to accumulate wealth?
To explain this problem, we have to start with an important field production decree promulgated by the Jin State in 645 BC, "Making a Field".
Prior to the promulgation of this decree, the land property occupied by the Jinguo Gongfu consisted of two parts, one was the field of Gongyi, that is, the field property of the subordinate counties directly controlled by the monarch, and the other part was the field of auxiliary cultivation, that is, a certain amount of public land was set aside in the Caiyi of each nobleman, and the "wild man" who collected the land was assisted by the caiyi nobles, and the harvest was handed over to the office.
In that year, because Jin Wengong's predecessor, Duke Hui of Jin, was captured by the Qin army in the Battle of Hanyuan, in order to win the support of the domestic nobles and restore the morale of the Jin state, Lü Huigong's trusted minister Lü Huigong issued an edict to "make a field". It was announced that the public lands that the nobles had helped to cultivate in the villages were rewarded to them, resulting in the first loss of public land.
Duke Hui of Jin died, Duke Wen of Jin came to power, in order to reward the ministers from Long Jiangong, he also gave them some of the counties directly subordinate to the office, and the original and Wen counties successively became the caiyi of the xian and Yang clans, resulting in the second loss of the public office's land property.
After the two contractions, the income from the public farm could no longer support the daily expenses of the monarch, so in 633 BC, the Duke Wen of Jin promulgated the "Law of being Lu", which stipulated:
Gong Shi Gong, Dafu Shi Yi, Shi Shi Tian, Shu Ren Zhi Li, Industrial and Commercial Food Official, Soap Subordinate Food Post, Guan Zai Food Jia. Politics and civilians are in a hurry, and their wealth is not scarce. - "Chinese Jin Yu IV"
"Gong food tribute" means that at this time, the main economic source of the Jin Dynasty is no longer the agricultural harvest of public land products, but the tribute paid by the Caiyi nobles. After the father and son of Duke Wen of Jin and Duke Xiang of Jin died, Linggong was young, Zhao Dun was dictatorial, and the expansion of the Qing clan's power led to an increasing competition for land property.
The "Left Biography" contains:
Yi Zhishou( Yi Zhishou) made the Marquis of Jin the Prince of Jin the Father of Zheng and Xiandu, while the envoys Shi Yi and Liang Yi'er (梁益爾) generals marched in the army. Xian Ke said: "Fox, Zhao Zhixun, can not be abolished." "From there. Xianke seized the field and obtained the yin. Therefore, Father Zheng, Xian du, Shi Yi, Liang Yi'er, and Pu De were in trouble. - "The Eighth Year Biography of Zuo Chuan and Wen Gong"
The Xian clan was Zhao's closest ally. Xian Keben, the grandson of Xianxun and the son of Xianju, was an important promoter of Zhao Dun's ascension to the rank of Marshal of the Chinese Army. Zhao Dun was in power, feeding back the Xian clan, and Chao Xianke was promoted to vice general of the Chinese army. The first thing Xianke did after he was promoted to an official was to forcibly seize the land property of Dafu Kude in Weiyin.
The beginning of Senke and the actions after his departure reveal this law in the political arena of the Jin Dynasty: that is, there is an inevitable causal connection between political gain and economic gain. Once the nobles gained power, they annexed large areas of land and expanded their estates. This not only easily led to conflicts between nobles, but even the deterioration of the relationship between monarchs and subjects often led to this.
34 years after the jin linggong was deposed, another case of a bad nature occurred in the jin kingdom. The deposed Duke Li of Jin was killed precisely because he wanted to cut the land of the old nobles and reorganize the power of the Jin state:
Jun (referring to the Duke of Jin) was wise and powerful, lazy and heavy, greater than his private nicknames, killing the three emperors and corpses of the dynasties, taking the room to divide the women, so the people of the country did not shy, so they killed the wings, buried outside the east gate of the wings, and rode in a car. The reason why Li Gong died was that he had no virtue and many meritorious deeds, and the people who served him were also many. - "Chinese Jinyu VI"
We can speculate that in the case that the Duke of Jinling was not yet a minor and the authority of the monarch had not yet been established, it was not excluded that the ruling nobles such as the Zhao clan would take the opportunity to erode the property of the public office, and the tribute handed over to the public office might also be greatly reduced, resulting in insufficient use of the office, forcing the Jin Linggong to have to open another source of wealth, so there were two blatant bribes in the alliance of the Hu.
Jin Linggong accepted bribes, losing the international reputation of the Jin state, zhao dun can bear it; but the tax increase is to directly take a knife to cut the flesh of the Zhao family, he can't stand it, which caused the final confrontation between the two sides.
Jin Linggong ambushed Zhao Dun, and Zhao Dun was forced to flee. However, before he left the country, he rebelled from his brother Zhao Pu and killed Jin Linggong in Taoyuan. Even Zhao Dun was unwilling to bear the notoriety of Yi Jun, so why did Zhao Pu rush up in a daze?
It is recorded in the "Thirty-three Years biography of Zuo Chuan and Gong Gong" that in 627 BC, after the nobles were extinct, the Duke of Jin Xiang took back the Xianshi Caiyi and gave it to the Grand Master Xu Chen. That is to say, the Caiyi nobles did not have full ownership of the land property granted by the office.
When the lord of Caiyi is either extinct or convicted, the office has the right to take back the land property in his name. Zhao Dun fled abroad, and once declared a traitor by the Duke of Jinling, all the feudal and field properties of the Zhao family would be confiscated by the government office for treason. Seeing that the rice bowl of the Zhao family was going to be smashed by others, Zhao Pu, who was anxiously red-eyed, could not care about junchen Gangchang, and with the stigma of Yi Jun, he stabbed Jin Linggong to the end.
The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Liu Biao recorded such a story: the Guanzhong warlord Zhang Ji, because of a lack of food, led troops into Jingzhou to plunder, and unfortunately died for liuya. Subordinates at all levels came to congratulate Liu Biao, the pastor of Jingzhou, on the great victory, and Liu Biao said:
The poor come, the master is rude, and as for the confrontation. This is not pastoral, and the shepherd is not hanged by Heye. - "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu, Biography of Liu Biao"
Jin Linggong was like zhang ji, who was extremely poor and helpless, and he had to suffer from bribery and expropriation. Unfortunately, the author of "Zuo Biao" did not understand Jin Linggong as Liu Biao tolerated Zhang Ji. Not only is it inconsiderate, the Zuo Zhuan even directly describes Linggong as the culprit of the decline of the Jin hegemony:
Marquis Of Jin and Zhao Xuanzi were in charge, but they did not enter the government, so they did not compete with Chu. - "Zuo Chuan, Xuan Ann Yearbook"
The author of the "Zuo Zhuan" later gave another important historical figure, Xiong Qian, the king of Chu. It is very interesting that he not only shared the bad comments of the historian with the Jin Linggong, but even got a nickname exactly like the Jin Linggong after his death: The King of Chu Ling.
The so-called "extravagance" of "Zuo Zhuan" does not refer to the arrogance and extravagance and profligacy of personal quality, but to the fact that this politician ignored the provisions of the Zhou Dynasty's etiquette system and wantonly destroyed the feudal pattern of the Zhou Dynasty.
Zheng Zichan, a politician whom Confucius admired, said:
The princes repaired the alliance, and the small countries also existed. - "The Thirteenth Year Biography of Zuo Chuan Zhao Gong"
The international politics of the Spring and Autumn Period, in a word, is the struggle for hegemony. The so-called struggle for hegemony is to replace the declining Zhou Tianzi with the emerging princes and overlords to maintain the stability of the feudal pattern of the Zhou Dynasty, especially to prevent the excessive aggression of large countries on small countries and to ensure the basic survival rights of small countries.
King Chu Ling was the vanguard of the transition from hegemonic politics to annexation politics in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and was criticized as "extravagant" by the Zuo Zhuan because he was attracted to the annexation of weak countries. The Duke of Jin Ling, in the name of the overlord of the princes, openly demanded bribes and refused to administer justice for weak countries such as Lu and Song, so he was also criticized by the "Zuo Chuan" as "luxury".
The historical concept of zuochuan was deeply influenced by Confucius's "Spring and Autumn", and Confucius appointed himself as the successor of Zhou Gonglizhi, so "Spring and Autumn" and "Zuo Zhuan" often focused more on their influence on international politics when evaluating the heads of state of Jin and Chu.
As for the subtle changes in the internal affairs of the two countries and the undercurrents of power at the top, little attention was paid to them, so that the infamous Jin Linggong has not been able to obtain an objective evaluation until today.
bibliography:
Bai Guohong, "Study of Zhao in the Spring and Autumn Jin Dynasty"
Takikawa Ziyan "Notes on the History of the Society"
Li Mengcun and Li Shangshi, "History of the Jin Dynasty"
(Han) Li Yuyu, "Research on the Military Leadership Mechanism of the Western Zhou Dynasty"
Yang Bojun's "Spring and Autumn Left Commentary"
Xu Yuanchen's "Chinese Collection"
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The text | Prince of Jin
Typography | cream belly
The picture | the network