The Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms was indeed a major event in the political history of the early Western Han Dynasty that could affect the direction of history. Chao Que himself is one of the key figures. After the Han Jing Emperor ascended the throne, Chao Que once gave the famous "Cutting Strategy" to the Han Jing Emperor, and Chao Que believed: "Now the cutting is also the opposite, and the non-cutting is also the opposite." If you cut it, it will be in the opposite direction, and the disaster will be small; if it is not cut, it will be late and the disaster will be great. "So, is the real situation at that time really as Chao mistakenly said?"
In the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu, the key figure was Liu Hao, the king of Wu, and we will take Liu Hao, the king of Wu, as an example to analyze whether Liu Hao would rebel if he did not cut the domain. In our general textbooks or history books, Liu Hao appears as a negative image. They all told everyone that Liu Hao was a warlord who opposed reunification, and later simply raised the anti-banner because of the central government's cutting of the domain. So is the truth of the matter as simple as that? In fact, there was a deep grudge between Liu Hao, the king of Wu, and Emperor Jing of Han, which had little to do with whether or not to cut the domain. As early as when Emperor Jing of Han was still the crown prince, Liu Hao also sent his crown prince to Chang'an to meet Emperor Wen of Han. Liu Hao's crown prince once played chess with Emperor Jingdi of Han, and Emperor Jingdi of Han lost, and Liu Hao's son did not spare the land and did not know how to give way. As a result, crown prince Liu Qi, in a fit of rage, shot a chessboard at the head of Prince Liu Hao of Wu. It was just so unfortunate that this moment actually killed Liu Hao's prince!
It is said that the prince broke the law and the common people were guilty of the same crime, but that only appeared in the opera. In reality, Emperor Wen of Han could not let the prince pay for his life, at most, he was fined three glasses of wine! Then Emperor Wen of Han sent someone to send back the coffin of Prince Liu Of Wu. We can imagine what kind of mood Liu Hao would be, my good son went, which made you beat to death! Liu Hao refused to accept it, and asked people to send his son's coffin back to Chang'an, saying that the surname of Liu in the world is a family, and where he dies, he will be buried where he dies!
Emperor Jing of Han and Chao
In this way, the two sides formed a beam. Liu Hao no longer went to see Emperor Wen of Han, and Emperor Wen of Han also felt that he was in a position to blame, not only not to pursue the sin of liu Hao, the king of Wu, for not making a pilgrimage, but also to reward him with a cane and the like as a sign of comfort. Although on the surface there is no trouble, but in the bones of both sides will not let go. After the death of Emperor Wen of Han, Emperor Jing of Han took the throne. Emperor Jingdi of Han felt even more weak in the face of Liu Hao, the King of Wu. Of course, Liu Tao, the King of Wu, would not take the initiative to run to Chang'an to meet Emperor Jing of Han. It was at this time that Chao Que presented the "Strategy of Cutting the Domain" to Emperor Jing of Han, and ordered that the two counties of Liu Hao's fiefdom be taken under the pretext that Liu Hao would not enter the dynasty. As far as Liu Hao was concerned, the central government's cutting of the domain was not just a simple matter of cutting down the fiefdom. This also means that the Han Jing Emperor did not let go of the incident of that year at all, and he even endured it this time. Things are far from over! Instead of finally cutting the fief and then slaughtering you, it is better to take advantage of the fact that there is still some capital in your hand to fight with you! Of course, there was no turning back arrow when the bow was opened, and later Emperor Jing of Han killed Chao mistakenly to ask Liu Hao for peace, and Liu Hao could not take it anymore!
In this sense, whether or not he cut the domain, Liu Hao, the king of Wu, might have a showdown with emperor Jingdi of Han. Chao's mistake in "Cutting the Fan Strategy" is nothing more than accelerating this process. However, although Chao Que and Emperor Jing of Han realized that Liu Hao was bound to oppose. However, the specific strategy is not without other options. When Emperor Jing of Han was cutting the domain, in order to explain to the people of the world that he was really not cutting the domain for personal grudges with Liu Hao, he not only ordered the reduction of Liu Hao's two counties, but also several other princes and princes. This is a violation of public anger, and there are too many enemies. Moreover, in this way, this is not only a personal grudge between Liu Hao and Liu Qi, but also another big dispute. How big is this dispute? This is a dispute that has lasted for more than a hundred years!
During the Warring States period, especially in the late Warring States period, the State of Qin was already the number one power, and at that time a situation was formed in which the State of Qin and the Six Eastern Kingdoms were opposed. By the time of Qin Shi Huang, he had spent nine years completely destroying the Six Kingdoms of the East. We call this unification. But have you ever wondered whether the people of that time accepted such unity? In other words, if you are a Zhao Guoren, when the Qin army comes, do you resist or cheer? Therefore, what we call unity is that for the peoples of the eastern countries, they feel the subjugation of the country. Qin Shi Huang's opponent was too powerful, and as soon as he died, the eastern countries began to fight back. The peasant revolt was only a fuse, and after Chen Sheng raised an army, all six countries in the East were soon restored. When Xiang Yu came to Guanzhong with his troops, in fact, it was a return to the situation in which the nations stood side by side at the end of the Warring States period.
The chu-Han rivalry is actually a reenactment of the Qin annihilation of the Six Kingdoms in the last years of the Warring States
This situation did not last long, and Liu Bang, who used Guanzhong as his base, did a new job of Qin Shi Huang's destruction of the Six Kingdoms. He successively destroyed the Western Wei kings Leopard, Zhao Wang Xie, Qi Wang Tian Dan, chu wang Xiang Yu, and the Yan king Zang Di and Han Wang Xin also surrendered successively. At this time, Liu Bang did not dare to directly rule these areas. Although he destroyed these people, he did not destroy these kingdoms, but re-divided the Yan king Lu Xie, the Chu king Han Xin, the Liang king Peng Yue, the Zhao king Zhang Ao, the Qi king Liu Fei, the Huainan wang Yingbu, the Changsha king Wu Rui, Han Wang Xin, and so on. After Liu Bang became emperor, the land under Liu Bang's direct jurisdiction was actually the land of the Qin state in the late Warring States period plus the land of the Zhou royal family and the land of Korea.
Princes with different surnames in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty
Liu Bang was certainly not at ease with such a situation, and he did another thing to destroy the Six Kingdoms before his death, successively destroying Han Xin the King of Chu, Peng Yue the King of Liang, King Yingbu of Huainan, Zang Di the King of Yan, Lu Xie the King of Yan, and Zhang Ao, the King of Zhao... Liu Bang realized that there was still a deep gap between the people of the eastern countries and the Qin people, and he was not eager to change this situation. After eliminating the princes with different surnames, he also divided the princes with the same surname. After Liu Bang's death, the boundaries between the central Han Dynasty and the various princely states did not change in the slightest. Behind Liu Bang, Emperor Hui of Han, Empress Lü, emperor Wen of Han, until the early years of Emperor Jing of Han, for more than forty years, this border was consistent. The central government is also constantly striving to eliminate the hostility of the people of the Eastern countries to the central government of the Qin and Han Empires. But the central government has not changed the border.
Princes of the same surname in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty
And when the Han Jing Emperor cut the domain, not only did he cut Liu Hao, but also the other six princes had to take back their fiefs, which meant that the central government of the Han Dynasty had to finally solve the problem of the estrangement between the people of the East and Guanzhong, which could not but cause a big backlash! So we saw that after Liu Hao raised his army, the soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms came menacingly, almost frightening the Han Jing Emperor, and even took the initiative to kill Chao to seek peace. However, just as the Eastern countries did not succeed in attacking Qin once during the Warring States period, this time the Seven Kingdoms alliance also failed. On the one hand, the strength of the central government of the Han Dynasty was far above that of other countries, on the other hand, after more than fifty years of efforts in the early Han Dynasty, the hostility of the people of the eastern countries to Guanzhong was also decreasing. The people of the Eastern countries will support the confrontation between the Seven Kingdoms and the central government of the Han Dynasty as they did in the anti-Qin war. Therefore, in less than a year, they were all eliminated by the central government of the Han Dynasty.
Of course, after the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu, it did not mean that the psychological gap between the East and the West had been completely eliminated, that was after the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty.