What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
For the princely state of Yue, the place where we are most impressed is that the Yue king who was lying down and tasting his guts, with his strong will and years of forbearance, struggled to survive under the insults of Wu Wangfuchai, and finally returned to Yueguo. After that, he launched a revenge against the state of Wu and the great cause of reviving the state of Yue, taking advantage of the fact that king Wu was competing with the princes of the Central Plains for hegemony, he attacked the capital of the state of Wu, and finally destroyed the state of Wu, successfully restored the country, and the king of Yue also became the last Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons.
However, many readers and friends may feel very confused, why is the Yue Kingdom obviously the hegemonic country in the late Spring and Autumn Period, but why it has not become one of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States? We know that among the Five Powers of the Spring and Autumn Period, there were also the kingdoms of Wu and Jin, and we know that the state of Wu was destroyed by the Yue king, and the state of Jin was divided up by the three families of Han Zhao and Wei. So why did the State of Yue fail to rise during the Warring States period? Did it also perish prematurely?
In fact, the real history surprised us, the Existence of the State of Yue was quite long, it survived until 222 BC, before it was completely wiped out in the war of the Qin State to unify the whole country, that is to say, the State of Yue actually lived longer than most of the princely states in the so-called "Seven Xiongs", only earlier than the State of Qi. So, since the Yue Kingdom did not perish in advance like the Jin And Wu Kingdoms, why didn't there be a place for the Yue Kingdom in the list of the most shining "Seven Heroes" in the Warring States Period?
The reason is not particularly complicated, simply summarized in one sentence: The Country is not strong enough. In fact, the Yue kingdom was indeed very strong when it had hegemonic strength, and in the decades since the reign of The Great-Grandson zhu Gou of the Yue King, the Yue Kingdom could be said to be quite strong. Mozi once had this assessment of the situation at that time: "Today, the warlike country is Qi, Jin, Chu, and Yue. ...... Now, for the sake of merging the country, the world is divided into four parts. "
To put it simply, during this period, the State of Yue could compete with the old princely states in the Central Plains and be evenly matched, so much so that Mozi believed that the most powerful countries in the world at that time were four countries: Qi, Chu, Jin, and Yue, and they divided the whole world by the four countries. It can be seen that the strength of the Vietnamese country at that time was beyond doubt. During Zhu Gou's reign, he was able to defeat the water divisions of the Chu state many times, and also annexed the states of Teng and Tan, turning the ju state into his vassals and encroaching on their lands.
According to the development of such a script, Yue Guo will inevitably become one of the seven heroes, and the strength will never be the bottom one. But the development of history is so elusive, who can have imagined that after experiencing decades of hegemony from Gou to Zhu Gou, the Yue kingdom will usher in a half century of civil strife, from yue wang feng to yue wang wu zhen (that is, 411 BC - 363 BC), the yue country has not stopped, how can it still concentrate on competing with the princes of the Central Plains in this case.
When the Yue Kingdom fell deeper and deeper in its own whirlpool of internal strife, the situation in the Central Plains countries was also undergoing earth-shaking changes. During the half century of the Vietnamese turmoil, the central plains countries completely entered the Warring States era, the original order was broken one after another, and the three families of Han Zhao and Wei were recognized by the Zhou royal family in the twenty-third year of king Zhou Weilie (403 BC) and officially became princes. In the eleventh year of king An of Zhou (393 BC), the great master of the State of Qi, Tian Shi, also formally abolished the original monarch Qi Kanggong.
The successive occurrence of these two major historical events, the three branches of the Jin Dynasty and the Tian clan, let the Central Plains countries see what would happen if they continued to abide by the former order. Therefore, the countries of the Central Plains have begun a vigorous movement to change the law, the balance of strength of the countries is constantly changing, the State of Wei, the State of Zhao, the State of Qi, and even the State of Qin have begun to become stronger, and the countries of the Central Plains have been completely shuffled in the strength of the Jin State in these decades, and the State of Vietnam has unfortunately been excluded because of civil strife, falling behind this vigorous era.
Under the rise and expansion of the Central Plains countries, the Yue State gradually retreated, constantly shrinking its sphere of influence. It was not until the Yue king wuzhen succeeded to the throne that the situation in the yue kingdom was stabilized, and the national strength was slowly restored under his governance. When Wu Zhen's younger brother Wu Jiang succeeded to the throne, he was not limited to restoring the national strength of the Vietnamese state, but actively expanded abroad and achieved good results, but this was also the last time that the Yue kingdom returned to the light.
After Wujiang, he sent troops to attack the State of Qi, which was like a bamboo, causing great pressure on the State of Qi, so that in the end, the Qi State's grand master Yongmen Zi Di Zi killed himself so that the State of Yue was able to retreat. However, the King of Qi Wei would not eat such a dumb loss, and he then deliberately sent someone to lobby the Yue King, to render the threat of the Chu State to them, and let him go to deal with the Chu State. As a result, Yue Wang Wujian really went to attack the Chu state, only to be defeated by the Chu Wei king in one fell swoop, and even Wujian himself died on the battlefield.
The State of Chu took almost all of the land north of the Qiantang River in the Yue Kingdom, established Jiangdong Commandery on the land of the original State of Wu, and defeated the State of Qi, which was behind the ghosts. After this battle, the Yue kingdom completely lost its qualification to compete with the various princely states for hegemony, not only lost a large amount of land so that the country was divided into two parts, Huiji and Langya, but also killed its own monarch, and the subsequent Yue monarch was only called "king" and no longer called himself "king".
Although the State of Yue no longer had the strength to compete for hegemony after that, but the strength of self-preservation was still there, so when the State of Chu tried to destroy the State of Yue during the reign of King Huai of Chu, it always failed to achieve its wishes, although the State of Chu often won victories, but the resistance of the State of Yue also caused the State of Chu to suffer heavy losses, and the King of Chu Huai sent a man named Shao Shui as a spy to disturb the State of Yue, thus taking away the Gouzhang area of the State of Yue. Later, the successor King Chu Kao Lie also continued to work hard, he sealed Chun Shenjun to Wudi and confronted the State of Yue, and the last territory of the State of Yue north of the Qiantang River, Langya, was also attacked by the State of Chu, and the State of Yue was completely reduced to a vassal of the State of Chu until it was finally completely destroyed by the State of Qin.