Lü Buwei was a merchant, politician, and thinker at the end of the Warring States period, and the minister of the Qin State. Lü Buwei was a very good businessman at the beginning, and accumulated ten thousand family wealth by buying cheaply and selling expensively. When he was doing business in Handan, he met Chu, the grandson of the King of Qin, who was taken hostage, and had the idea of turning from business to politics.
So he helped Zi Chu to plan and plan, and won the position of crown prince heir for Zi Chu. After Zi Chu's death, Zi Chu's son Ying Zheng ascended the throne, and Lü Buwei became the chancellor. During Lü Buwei's reign, he made great contributions to the Qin and the Six Kingdoms.
However, involved in the rebellion of the Yan Yi clique, he returned to China and finally committed suicide by drinking. Why did Lü Buwei commit suicide, and conversely, why did Yingzheng force Lü Buwei to commit suicide? In fact, there are many reasons, we can analyze it.
1. The rebellion of Yan Yi was implicated
Lü Buwei was implicated by Concubine Yi, which made Yingzheng suspicious of him and dismissed Xiangguo, which was the most direct reason.
Yan Yi was originally the male favorite of the empress dowager, because she was favored by the empress, her power gradually became larger, and her ambitions were gradually exposed.
In the ninth year of Qin Shi Huang, Concubine Yi committed a rebellion and was executed by The Prince of Qin. Why did the affair involve Lü Buwei?
First, Yan Yi was Lü Buwei's protégé.
After the death of the empress dowager's husband, King Xiang of Qinzhuang, the empress dowager was not willing to be lonely and had an affair with lü Buwei, an old friend. At that time, Yingzheng was still young, and the matter was not discovered, but as Yingzheng grew up, Lü Buwei was afraid that the matter would be revealed, so he found a physically strong Concubine Yi as his protégé, and wanted to sacrifice him to the empress dowager and replace his position, so that Yingzheng would not find out that he had an affair with the empress.
Second, Yan Yi entered the palace through Lü Buwei's operation.
In order not to be discovered by others, Lü Buwei pretended to have people accuse him of committing the crime of being punished by the palace, and then told the empress dowager of his own methods, and the empress dowager secretly gave many things to the official who presided over the palace punishment, asked him to pretend to punish Concubine Yi, and pulled out his beard to let him pretend to be a false eunuch. In this way, Yan Yi was able to enter the palace and have an affair with the empress dowager without being discovered by others.
Yan Yi took advantage of the empress dowager's favor to form the Yan Yi clique in an attempt to seize the throne, and the relationship between Concubine Yi and Lü Buwei was very shallow, and after Concubine Yi committed a crime, the Qin king would definitely examine it, and the qin king would definitely suspect Lü Buwei's intentions, so when he later took back the empress dowager who was under house arrest, in order to prevent the empress dowager from having an affair with Lü Buwei again, he was removed from his position as a minister, which was actually a kind of defense against him.
In fact, after killing Yan Yi, Yingzheng wanted to kill Lü Buwei as well, which shows the depth of Yinzheng's suspicion of Lü Buwei. But why didn't Yin Zheng kill Lü Buwei? There are two reasons for this:
1. Great service to the first kings.
Lü Buwei was a chancellor during the reign of King Xiang of Qinzhuang, and by the time of Yingzheng, two dynasties had already become prime ministers, and King Xiang of Qinzhuang was able to become a prince, most of which was the credit of Lü Buwei, so Yin Zhengnian had great merit in serving the previous king in Lü Buwei, so he did not kill him.
2. There are many people who defend him.
According to the Chronicle of Lü Buwei, when a political leader killed Lü Buwei,
"and the guest debaters as lobbyists"
Many guest debaters spoke for him, and later Yingzheng couldn't bear it and let him go.
Second, have talent and prestige
Qin Shi Huang killed Concubine Yi in September of the ninth year, and it took three years for Lü Buwei to commit suicide, so what did Yingzheng do in these three years? Why did Lü Buwei suddenly commit suicide? Although Yingzheng did not kill him after killing concubine Yi, he dismissed Lü Buwei from his position as Xiangguo in October of the tenth year, and after welcoming back the empress dowager, he sent Lü Buwei out of the capital.
In the year that Lü Buwei was sent out of the capital, the emissaries of various princes from various countries came to greet Lü Buwei, hoping that Lü Buwei would be able to come to their country, and Yin Zheng was afraid that he would become chaotic, and wrote him a very sharp letter, hoping that Lü Buwei's family would move to Shudi. Lü Buwei was afraid of being killed by Yingzheng, so he committed suicide.
From this incident, it can be seen that Lü Buwei was talented and prestigious, and envoys from all over the world came to visit him. But the reason why Lü Buwei was afraid of being killed by Yingzheng was definitely not because of this one thing.
Lü Buwei once wanted to write a book and say that, so he ordered his diners to write down what they had seen and heard, and synthesized them into a total of eight books, six treatises, and twelve centuries, totaling more than 200,000 words, which was "Lü's Spring and Autumn".
And this book was published on the gates of Xianyang, on which hung a bounty of a thousand gold, and if anyone could change a word, a bounty of a thousand gold would be given. If you can do this kind of "word-for-word" thing, if you don't have enough prestige and talent, you don't dare to be so confident.
Moreover, Lü Buwei's prestige lies in his protégés. At that time, the State of Wei had the Xin Ling Jun, the Chu State had the Chun Shen Jun, the Zhao State had the Pingyuan Jun, and the Qi State had the Meng Taste Jun, and they all paid tribute to the corporal xian and made friends with guests.
Lü Buwei wanted to compete with them in this regard, and he also wanted to recruit talented people for the Qin State, so he also recruited many literati and bachelors and gave them generous treatment. In the end, Lü Buwei had a very large number of diners, as many as 3,000 people, many of whom had both moral integrity and ability.
Lü Buwei recruited many disciples, although it was said that he recruited sages for the Qin State, but Yingzheng did not think so. After Lü Buwei's death, look at how the King of Qin treated his diners to know the attitude of the King of Qin. After Lü Buwei's death, Lü Buwei was not buried by the King of Qin with the specifications of Xiangguo, but was a guest under his door
"Plagiarism"
, is to bury secretly.
But how did the King of Qin treat Lü Buweimen?
According to the "History of Qin Shi Huang Benji", "Those who give up their houses are also expelled from the Jin Dynasty; the Qin people who are more than 600 stones are seized and moved; those who do not come below 500 stones are moved, and they are not moved." If Lü Buwei's courtiers participated in the weeping hanging, if they were Jin people, they would be expelled; if they were Qin people, the officials of Feng Lu with more than 600 stones would be stripped of their titles and moved to Fangling; if they did not participate in the weeping hanging, they would be moved to Fangling but not deprived of their titles.
From this point, it can be seen that Yingzheng was not grateful because Lü Buwei had recruited many doormen, but his attitude towards the doormen was very different from that of Lü Buwei. Lü Buwei's solicitation of doormen was not for the Qin State in Yingzheng's view, but for Lü Buwei himself. Lü Buwei himself was very talented, and he had recruited so many disciples, what he wanted to do, this move was very dangerous in the eyes of the king.
Therefore, when Lü Buwei was expelled from Beijing, there were envoys from so many countries visiting, and there were three thousand visitors, which was a time bomb in the eyes of Yingzheng.
In order to consolidate his rule, Yin Zheng sent a letter to Lü Buwei, which read: "What credit do you have to the State of Qin, and the State of Qin has given you 100,000 households?" What blood do you have with the King of Qin and are known as the Middle Father? You hurry to move to Shudi with your family! "The words of this letter are very sharp,
On the one hand, Lü Buwei was afraid that the King of Qin would send someone to kill him, and on the other hand, he might have self-esteem, so he committed suicide by drinking poisonous wine.
Third, there is a threat to the unification of Qin
After Lü Buwei was expelled from Beijing, there was an endless stream of visitors from various countries.
It would have been nice not to have these visitors, but even if there were many visitors, it also accelerated Lü Buwei's death.
As I said before, Lü Buwei was a very talented person, and he must have been very familiar with the situation in the Qin State for many years. If such a talented and intelligent person who is familiar with the situation in the Qin state is allowed to serve as the minister of other countries, it will be a great threat to the Qin state, and moreover, in the heart of Ying Zheng, the unification of the six countries is the most important thing, and he will absolutely not allow anyone to stop him from unifying the world.
Maybe Lü Buwei also thought so, even if Yingzheng didn't give him death, then it was not certain that Yingzheng would not send someone to kill him after that. Instead of waiting for Yingzheng to implicate his family, it is better to commit suicide directly, which not only preserves the self-esteem of his family and himself, but also dispels Yingzheng's suspicions.
summary
Lü Buwei turned from business to politics, was brilliant, and was a first-class strategist. But in the case of Yan Yi, he did not see Yan Yi's ambition. Under the recommendation of Lü Buwei, Yan Yi won the favor of the empress dowager, and later slowly formed the Yan Yi clique, and even could compete with Lü Buwei's forces, resulting in a tragic disaster.
Moreover, after Yingzheng ascended to the throne, Lü Buwei did not let go of his rights, so that such a "love of power" actually aroused the suspicion of Yingzheng.
When Lü Buwei was expelled from Beijing, he was still a guest, and once the forces could not be dispersed, it was a "hypnotic charm" that eventually took Lü Buwei's life.
Reference: The Biography of Lü Buwei
"History of The First Emperor of Qin"