The reason why Emperor Wudi of Han dared to blatantly carry out the "Tui En Order" with the purpose of weakening the strength of the princes was that the local princes no longer had the ability to oppose the central court and could only be slaughtered by the central court, so Emperor Wu of Han dared to carry out the "Tui En Order", the first Yang plot in eternity.
Chu and Han fought for hegemony, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu, swallowed Western Chu, and was proclaimed emperor at DingtaoShui (present-day northern Cao County, Shandong) in Shandong, with the name of Han and the ancestor of Han Gaozu.
After Liu Bang established the Great Han Dynasty, when summarizing the lessons of the demise of Former Qin, he believed that part of the reason why Qiang Qin would die was because the imperial family of the Qin Dynasty was powerless and powerless, and then when Zhao Gao was in power, the imperial family was powerless to clamp down; when the rebels rebelled against Qin in various places, the imperial family was powerless, which eventually led to the Qin Dynasty falling into an isolated and helpless situation until it perished. Therefore, in order to prevent Han from repeating the mistakes of Qin, after Liu Bang established Han, he wantonly divided his heirs into princes: the eldest son Liu Fei as the King of Qi, the third son Liu Ruyi as the King of Zhao, the fourth son Liu Heng as the Acting King, the fifth son Liu Hui as the King of Liang, the sixth son Liu You as the King of Huaiyang, the seventh son Liu Chang as the King of Huainan, and the eighth son Liu Jian as the King of Yan.
In order to give these princes the strength to "calm the four seas and defend the heavenly son", Liu Bang gave these princes the power of emperors, and in their own fiefdoms, these princes not only had the power to appoint and dismiss officials on their own, but also had political, military, and economic rights that were completely independent of the central government, and could recruit soldiers on their own, collect taxes themselves, and manage the people of the feudal country on their own.
And the most important thing is that because Liu Bang's heirs were too few at that time, but there was a lot of land, so the land allocated by each prince was particularly large, such as the State of Qi of Liu Fei, the King of Qi, which had seventy-three cities, and the territory was "south of Changshan, turning left in a big line, Duhe, Ji, A, and Zhen east." At that time, "there were Three Rivers, East Counties, Yingchuan, Nanyang, from Jiangling west to Shu, north from Yunzhong to Longxi, and the fifteen counties of Neishifan", at that time, the land directly under the central imperial court was only 15 counties such as Sanhe, Dongjun, Yingchuan, and Nanyang, and some of these 15 counties were the food of the princess marquis, while the rest of the area belonged to the princes.
Thus, at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the political environment of the Western Han Dynasty showed a distorted situation, that is, the central government was weak and the local government was strong. Imagine what happens when the localities are stronger than the central? Obviously, the powerful localities are no longer willing to be led by the weak central government, and in order to seize the power that originally belonged to the central government, the local governments began to use force, hoping to achieve the purpose of entering the central government through force. In this way, in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, it was inevitable that "the big ones rebelled, the small ones did not conform to the law, risked their lives, and died in the country", and those powerful princes rebelled one after another in order to gain the highest power. Although the weaker princes did not dare to openly rebel, they prided themselves on their own strength, and the central authorities did not dare to do anything to themselves, because they had done everything they could to violate the law and discipline and bring calamity to the country and the people.
Since Liu Bang's death, the central court has been in a secret contest with the local princes, the central government wants to weaken the princes, and the princes want to occupy the center, the two are not compromising to each other, each wanting to put the other to death. However, as the world's righteous ruling body, after all, the central imperial court occupies the great righteousness, he can directly order the princes to do what to do, and the princes unless they want to rebel, they directly obey, at least can not blatantly refuse. Therefore, with the passage of time, the strength of the central court began to slowly surpass that of the local princes, and gradually became a fatal threat to the princes.
As the strength of the central court gradually jumped above the local princes, the princes who gradually felt threatened, in order not to be annexed by the central court, they also began to rebel against "leaving the land of death and reborn". Eventually, this rebellion reached its peak during the reign of Emperor Jing of Han. In the third year of Emperor Jing's reign (154 BC), Emperor Jing of Han adopted the advice of Dafu Chao and adopted a tough policy of cutting the domain against the local princes, and successively issued edicts to cut the fiefs of Chu and Zhao. At this time, the local princes saw that the central court was so blatant that they wanted to kill them, and if they were still indifferent, they would only be the ones who would eventually perish.
So they stopped giving in.
In the first month, Liu Hao, the king of Wu, joined forces with Liu Peng the King of Chu, Liu Sui the King of Zhao, Liu Peiguang the King of Jinan, Liu Xian the King of Zichuan, Liu Jie the King of Jiaoxi, and Liu Xiongqu the King of Jiaodong to rebel, which is known in history as the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu".
The Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu was the rebellion of the Western Han Dynasty that had the widest scope and scale since Liu Bang, and involved the princes and princes surnamed Liu the most, and in order to quell this rebellion, the central court of the Western Han Dynasty paid a heavy price, the national treasury was almost hollowed out, and the local economy was seriously damaged, and it could not be restored for several years. Of course, although the central court suffered heavy losses, the rewards were even more abundant, and after this battle, the most powerful princes in the Western Han Dynasty, such as Wu, Chu, Qi, and Zhao, were all defeated by the Western Han And were no longer able to oppose the central court.
Except for the Chu state, the other six kingdoms were expelled, and most of their territories were either directly controlled or indirectly controlled by the central imperial court. Later, the Central Imperial Court took advantage of the power of this victory to intervene in the affairs of the princely kingdoms, first taking advantage of the situation to seize the branches and border counties of the princely states, and directly controlling by the central court, thus strengthening the central government and weakening the local princes. After that, he continued to implement Jia Yi's plan of "building princes and reducing their strength", and successively divided his own heirs as princes and went to divide the territory of local princes.
Finally, in order to strengthen the power and prestige of the central imperial court in the local princely states, the Han Jing Emperor successively implemented a series of policies to strengthen the centralization of power: abolish the appointment and dismissal of officials by the princes, and the princes and princes were no longer allowed to inquire about the political affairs of the princely states, and their administrative affairs could only be entrusted to the officials sent by the emperor; the power of the princes to collect taxes could only be collected from the country according to the amount prescribed by the imperial court; the official system of the princely states was reformed, and most of the officials such as Yushi Dafu were dismissed, and only a few official positions were retained.
Under the operation of Emperor Jing of Han, although the western Han princely states still existed, because the princes had lost the power to govern their own countries, and there was no longer the power to collect taxes, appoint and dismiss officials, etc., their actual status was no different, and in fact it had been directly controlled by the central imperial court. As the princely prince no longer had control over the princely states, he naturally completely lost the strength to confront the central government.
By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the princes were already empty in the name of the princes, but they had long lost the power possessed by the princes. At this time, unless the princes were dazed, they no longer had any courage to rebel against the central court. In the eyes of the central court, the local prince was an ant that could be pinched to death at any time, and there was no longer any threat.
The reason why Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty still had to implement the "Tui En Order" and annex the princely states with a more lenient attitude was simply that he did not want to bear the notoriety of oppressing his relatives!
To sum up, when Emperor Wu of han implemented the "Tui En Order", the princes did not want to resist, but they no longer had any strength to confront the central government. At this time, the princes did not rebel against the central government, at least they could have a fief that nominally belonged to themselves, and they could still have the title of a prince, and they could still live without worry. However, once they dare to resist, the mighty division of the imperial court can defeat them in an instant, leaving them to die and destroy the country. Therefore, how to choose, they naturally know that as long as he is a normal person, he will not resist.