To evaluate the top three in the Spring and Autumn Period, the candidate countries must be five hegemons, seven xiong and Wu Yue. The first round of elimination: wuba removed Song, qixiong went to Yan, and Wu Yuequan eliminated. Song ranked among the five hegemons barely, and there were constantly historians trying to kick him out of the VIP seat of the five hegemons; Wu Yue was short-lived, pouring out the strength of the country to exhaust the army, and the day of the blossoming was already painful and painful, and he was soon terminally ill; Yan Guo was basically an old supporting role for more than 800 years, and perhaps the only thing we overlooked was Qin Kai, a figure similar to Wei Qing and Yue Fei - the grandfather of Jing Ke's deputy Qin Wuyang, who fought against Dong Hu and "expanded the soil for two thousand miles", which is actually a national hero. The second round of elimination of Qin, Qin will not be really strong until the Warring States period, and it is not very good in the Spring and Autumn Period. And there is too much content to put in this "group performance" and write later.
What has not been ruled out is the strongest: Qi, Chu, and Jin. These three great powers are truly strong, strong for a long time, and have experienced short-term lows, and they can all rise rapidly and continue to be strong. What is the "soul of a great power" that supports them to do this?
The national soul of the State of Qi is affluence. How rich is it? The Warring States Policy records: "Seventy thousand households in Linzi ... It is very rich and solid, and its people are all blowing pipes, drumming, beating, playing the piano, fighting cocks, running dogs, six bo, and bowing. "In ancient times, it was all big families, 70,000 households were hundreds of thousands of people, everyone had money to develop their hobbies, even in modern times, it is difficult to achieve "its people are all", right? If you think about the indiscriminate counting, who remembers how many people Mr. Nan Guo participated in the ensemble? The Han Feizi records: "King Xuan of Qi made people blow the whistle, and there would be three hundred people." "Still compared with modern times, a small-scale symphony orchestra is about 20 people, and a large three-wind orchestra can perform up to 100 people. There are 23 pipes, so the "Pipe Orchestra" is 23 wind orchestras, 300 people, not much. In any case, the country of Qi is indeed rich, the country is rich, and the people of Li live and work in peace and contentment.
It is a pity that Wu Xiaobo only renewed "One Hundred Years of Turbulence" after writing "Thirty Years of Turbulence", how I hope he can continue to go forward for three thousand years, so that we can thoroughly understand how the country of Qi is rich. It usually boils down to these reasons: First, the land is fertile, and so far Shandong's output of vegetables, fruits, and aquatic products ranks first in the country, and it is the main producing province of the northern "vegetable basket" project; second, it relies on the sea and reaps the benefits of fish and salt; third, it first carries out maritime trade at the government level, imports furs from the Korean Peninsula, and exports silk on a large scale; fourth, there are many mineral resources and high technology for mining copper and iron ore, which represents the highest productivity at that time; fifth, the local establishment of a "Qi Dao coin standard" monetary system, and knife coins once passed around the periphery Sixth, the epoch-making concept of open development, Jiang Ziya, the "father of the nation" of the State of Qi, once said: "The three treasures of great agriculture, great industry, and great business." Guan Zhong has greatly promoted the development process of commerce, engaged in the "state-owned asset contract management system", and advocated consumerism, and he opposed frugality.
The national soul of the Chu state is the system. Only the Chu state is a county system, but it is not yet perfect, there are no counties, only counties. Because the other countries are all princely states divided by the Great Zhou Kingdom, the monarchs are called so-and-so Gong; while Chu and Zhou are juxtaposed, and the monarch is called Chu King. The State of Chu was a native barbarian regime that proclaimed itself king, and later paid tribute to Zhou and accepted the viscount of Zhou Feng, but most of the time it called itself king. Therefore, the Chu state is different, and the king of Chu does not divide the seals downwards, and the central government directly sends officials to manage the localities and implements the county system. Moreover, Li Siben was a small official in the Chu Kingdom, and Qin Shi Huang wanted to engage in the county system, and he had the ability to make plans for it.
Simply put, the county system is to strengthen the centralization of power. After the sub-feudal system sealed the localities to the princes, the specific affairs of the localities could not be taken into account. In theory, the monarch has the right to revoke the sub-fief and reclaim the land, which in fact forces him to rebel. For example, the King of Zhou launched a nationwide anti-pornography campaign, sweeping up to Linzi, which was "seven hundred women and lu [lǘ] and requisitioning their night-time funds to replenish the use of the country", Qi Huangong said no, I want to develop the economy and stabilize taxes. Guan Zhong said to himself leisurely: "I have a dream, the whole people step into the middle class." "Legally speaking, the King of Zhou has no ruts. So if you want a county system, how dare Qi County taishou not sweep? The central government pays salaries, the evaluation is centrally managed, and medical care and pensions also rely on the central government, which is guaranteed to sweep you and sweep thoroughly.
The Chu state also has some other advantages, such as large land and extensive local resources, and at least has considerable strategic depth. From east to west for 5,000 miles, the pressure in the west is greater to move the capital to the east, and the pressure in the east is greater all the way to the west, moving back and forth to move out of the 7 capitals. The Chu state also has copper mines, good smelting technology, and three major metal processing centers in the Warring States: Qi Linzi, Zhao Handan and Chu Wan.
The national soul of jinguo is the talent strategy. Other countries only select talents from the family, and the Jin state can reuse people from different families. The establishment of the "six secretaries" is the board of directors system, and the six secretaries are six directors. Under the six-secretary system, a large number of talents of the opposite sex have emerged. In the Spring and Autumn Period, there were two kinds of talent strategies, and the third one was added after the Shang Martingale Transformation Law, which is compared: the Military Meritorious Title System of the Qin State> the Six Secretaries System of the Jin Dynasty> the hereditary system of the same surname in other countries. The Qin military merit system is that everyone competes on an equal footing, as long as there is military merit, the common people can also get ahead, so the people of the six countries flock to [tà]. In the Spring and Autumn period, when there was no Shang martingale, the six secretaries system of the Jin state was the best. Looking directly at the results, the above data: statistics of the important battles of the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin Guo played 6 times, and the record was 1 win in alignment, 2 wins against Qin, 2 wins and 1 loss against Chu, and the winning rate was 83%. The concept of 83% is equivalent to Ke Jie's winning rate in the first division at his peak. Like Qi and Chu, the Jin state also had other advantages, geopolitics, one of the three major iron smelting centers, and so on.
It is not difficult to see that these big powers and powers generally have some basic advantages, such as the vast land, the people's customs and martial arts (Qi Ke is the feudal state of Jiang Ziya, the "master of logging", Chu Nainan is barbaric and fierce), rich in minerals, advanced iron smelting technology, and so on, and they all have the same unique, often epoch-making, and have a major impact, sparkling advantages. Just like the college entrance examination, the doors are excellent, do not lose points, a subject is particularly strong, fiercely pull points, this must learn to bully also!
This one is partial to internal strength, writing about what the major powers rely on to cultivate internal strength and store national strength; the full strength must be released externally, and the next one will be written. Stay tuned to History Beyond the History Books 09: The Art of War. The whole department has more than 70 articles, more than 100,000 words, one change every other day, the first channel: WeChat public account "one father".
(Image from the Internet)