About 2700 years ago, the Dog Rong, which arose in the steppes of Central Asia, conquered the capital of the Zhou Dynasty, Hojing, and overthrew the Western Zhou Dynasty, after which the Chinese nation reached the autumn of life and death, and when it was most dangerous, the Chu state went north and inu rong went south, and the "barbarians" in the eyes of the two Zhou people were only separated by a line. At this time, a male lord appeared in the eastern State of Qi, the Duke of Qi Huan, under the banner of his "Zun Wang Zhiyi", went north to attack inuyasha and suppressed the State of Chu in the south, and the princes of the Central Plains slowly survived the crisis of survival, and he also became the first overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period.
Just like the historical law of the Chinese dynasty "rise, prosperity, decline, and death", Qi Huangong's life is also this curve, in the early years of heroic and vigorous, middle-aged orders to the princes, but in his later years he was dazed and reused traitors, so that he was starved to death in the palace, and even the corpse was left on the bed for sixty-seven days without being taken care of, and the corpse worms crawled out of the window. Even if King Wuling of Zhao, who was also starved to death later, had his corpse collected after his death, it can be said that there were kings with names and surnames in Chinese history, and none of them was more humiliating than the death of Duke Qi Huan.
Then, after the humiliating death of Duke Qi Huan, what happened to the political situation of the State of Qi, and was he controlled by the traitors who starved the Duke of Qi Huan to death? In fact, there was none, because Qi Huangong had already made arrangements before his death, and he had the foresight to entrust the affairs after his death to two people, one of whom was the famous pedantic prince Song Xianggong!
In 643 BC, Duke Huan of Qi fell seriously ill and lay alone in his bedroom, with five princes (Gongzi Wuxia, Gongzi Zhao, Gongzi Pan, Gongzi Yuan, and Gongzi Merchant) each leading his henchmen to compete for the throne, and the sixth son, Gongzi Yong, did not participate, probably young, probably dead.
For the successor, Duke Huan of Qi actually had an arrangement earlier, that is, the third son, Gongzi Zhao. However, at that time, Guan Zhong (died in 645 BC), Bao Shuya (644 BC), and so on had just died, and for a while the court was not in favor, Gongzi Zhao lacked sufficient support, and now coupled with the fact that Duke Huan of Qi was seriously ill, this gave the other princes the opportunity, so the sons fiercely competed for the king.
Seeing that Duke Qi Huan was seriously ill and believing that he was running out of time, yi ya, the internal servant, consulted with Shu Diao on a plan, that is, to falsely pass on the order of Duke Huan of Qi, which probably meant that "from now on, neither the courtiers nor the princes will be allowed to enter the palace." After he is well, he will tell me about the affairs of the country", and gave them all the task of guarding. With the help of this means, Yi Ya and Shu Diao successfully blockaded the palace.
Yi Ya and Shu Diao could not be the monarchs of the State of Qi themselves, they wanted to use this to defect to the Grand Prince without loss, and thus grab the greatest political benefits. As a result, no one else could see Qi Huangong, nor could they enter the palace, except for Gongzi. Once Duke Huan of Qi died, then gongzi could immediately succeed to the throne without loss, and yiya and vertical diao, who had made great contributions, would continue to be reused in the future.
In the first ten days, the seriously ill Duke Qi Huan survived, so that Yongwu, Shu Diao, and Gongzi could not wait for any loss, so they expelled all the palace women and attendants, and then sealed the palace door, and then built a three-zhang high wall around the palace, isolating the inside and outside, leaving only a small hole, and sooner or later let people drill in to investigate the life and death of Qi Huan. In this way, within a few days, the 73-year-old Qi Huangong was starved to death.
After Yi Ya and Shu Diao starved Qi Huangong to death, did they really achieve their wish? In fact, there was none, because they ignored the two major arrangements before Qi Huangong's death.
After the death of Duke Huan of Qi, Yi Ya and Shu Diao claimed that Duke Huan of Qi's will was to change the title of Gongzi without loss, rather than the previous Gongzi Zhao. Therefore, except for those who supported Gongzi Wufeng, other ministers all came out to oppose it, among which Gao Dai had the greatest influence and the most fierce attitude. Subsequently, Yi Ya and Shu Diao became angry and directly launched a mutiny, killing more than a dozen ministers, but not Gao Dai, after which Gongzi became the 17th monarch of the State of Qi. The reason why Yi Ya and Shu Diao did not kill Gao Dai was that his identity and life had a lot to do with his life, and in the end he did not dare to kill.
Gao Dai was the great-grandson of Duke Wen of Qi, the ancestor of the Gao surname, the first meritorious servant of the Succession of the Duke of Qi Huan, and also participated in the reform of Guan Zhong, the hegemony of the Duke of Qi Huan, after 43 years of the reign of the Duke of Qi Huan, and for a long time he was the Shangqing of the State of Qi (like the Prime Minister), a senior minister of the State of Qi with high qualifications, high status, and great influence. More importantly, from the time when Duke Huan of Qi had not yet succeeded to the throne, Gao Dai had been assisting him, and for decades he had no two hearts, which could be said to be the most loyal minister of Duke Qi Huan, so Duke Qi Huan trusted Gao Dai very much before he died, and entrusted Gongzi Zhao to Gao Dai.
When civil unrest suddenly broke out in the State of Qi, Gao Dai was already 85 years old, and although he took the lead in opposing Gongzi's succession to the throne, Yi Ya and Shu Diao launched a mutiny, which made him see that it was difficult to quell the rebellion in a short period of time, so he began to make other plans: first, arrange for Gongzi Zhao to flee to the Song Kingdom immediately, seek the help of Song Xianggong, and make his own internal response at home; second, provoke the ambitions of other princes and let them compete with Gongzi for the throne without loss, so as to delay time.
Sure enough, the four princes fought for 67 days, causing Qi Huangong's body to be unscathed, and the corpse worms all crawled out of the window. Gao Dai really couldn't bear to look at it, risked his life to scold the four princes, and then there was a magical scene, the four princes immediately stopped fighting, but led people to fight for the body of Qi Huangong, and competed to send a funeral to Qi Huangong, and finally the prince successfully grabbed it without loss. When Gongzi buried Qi Huan without loss, the Song army led by Song Xianggong and Gongzi Zhao arrived.
The State of Qi and the State of Song did not border each other, so why did Duke Xiang of Song still send troops to support Gongzi Zhao? There are many reasons for this, both the desire of The Duke of Song Xiang to inherit the hegemonic position of the princes of the Duke of Qi Huan and the entrustment of the Duke of Qi Huan to the Duke of Song Xiang. Originally, in 651 BC, the Duke of Qi Huan held a general meeting of princes in Kuiqiu, and King Xiang of Zhou also sent representatives to participate, and the Duke of Qihuan was strongly commended, known in history as the "Kuiqiu Huimeng", which was a victorious congress and a successful congress, marking the peak of Qi Huangong's hegemony. At the Kwai Qiu Alliance, Duke Huan of Qi established Gongzi Zhao's status as crown prince and asked Song Xianggong to take care of Gongzi Zhao, and Song Xianggong promised to take care of Prince Zhao in the future.
We all know that Song Xianggong was a pedantic but trustworthy man, and his personality was vividly displayed in the Battle of Hongshui (Song Xiangzhiren), so Qi Huangong simply asked Song Xianggong to do this, rather than entrusting other monarchs, may not be just a game of great powers, but the bigger reason is that Qi Huangong saw through Song Xianggong as a person and knew that this was a person who had to do what he said.
Sure enough, in 642 BC, Song Xianggong twice sent all-out troops, as the internal Ying Gao Dai, first designed to kill Shu Diao, and then joined forces with other ministers to attack the Palace of the Prince of Qi, attacking Gongzi Wufeng, Gao Dai and Song Xiangqiu should be outside the united, and finally Yi Ya fled to the State of Lu, Gongzi Wufeng was killed, Gongzi Zhao entered the Qi capital Linzi to succeed to the throne, and then Song Xianggong also helped Gongzi Zhao eliminate the opposition forces.
Duke Huan of Qi was a very human being, and the two arrangements to ensure the succession of the crown prince to the throne reflected his great wisdom, and in the end, Gao Dai and Song Xianggong did not live up to his expectations.
However, after this internal strife in the State of Qi, the political situation began to be chaotic for a long time, how chaotic was the State of Qi? Looking at the monarch, it is clear that the 17th monarch is Gongzi Wufeng, the 18th is Gongzi Zhao, the 19th is Gongzi Pan (the fourth son of Duke Qi Huan), the 21st is Gongzi Merchant (the fifth son of Duke Qi Huan), and the 22nd is Gongzi Yuan (the second son of Duke Qi Huan), that is, five of the six sons of Duke Qi Huan have successively become the monarchs of Qi, because of the mutual struggle, one person came to power, and the other brothers were plotting to seize the throne. Continuous internal friction buried the excellent situation of the State of Qi, and also lost the position of hegemon, and the State of Jin began to become the hegemon for more than 150 years.
References: "History", "Zuo Biao", etc