The longitudinal, the united are weak to attack the strong also; The horizontal one, the strong one to attack the weak also.
——— "Han Feizi"
The Zonghengjia were a special group of people in the Warring States period, and they were good at mediating diplomatic relations, and the so-called three-inch tongue could rival millions of male masters. It is said that it was passed down from oniguzi and had unique behavioral characteristics in the politics of diplomatic relations, and we can also find throughout the history of the Warring States period that the stage and market of the Zongheng family are very large, and the people who generally stir up the storm are from the Zongheng faction.
For example, Su Qin, who proposed the combination of vertical and vertical, Zhang Yi, who proposed Lianheng, Fan Ju, who proposed the long-distance and close-range attack, or Zou Ji in "Zou Ji Satirized the Qi Wang NaZhi", these people all belonged to the Zongheng family.
The relations of diplomatic relations throughout the Warring States period also basically evolved around the policies proposed by the Zonghengjia, and whether they were allies or mutual attacks almost depended on this.
But the development of the Zongheng family is fast, the weakening is also fast, after the Warring States, the establishment of the great unified dynasty, the Zongheng family has lost the stage of development, in the past dynasties and dynasties there are aftersound, but there are few major deeds, so why did the once indispensable Zongheng family gradually disappear in the long river of history in later generations? This is probably related to the behavioral characteristics of the Zongheng family and the attitude towards politics.
First, pay attention to external forces
Zonghengjia is a school that is very advocating the external environment, and it is very exaggerated to the role of strategy, which is somewhat flashy.
That is to say, conspiracy power tactics or diplomatic relations strategies are more effective in the eyes of the Zonghengjia than the actual development of internal affairs, and they and the Legalists are basically two opposites, and the most appropriate word to describe the Zonghengjia is that the three-inch tongue can rival a million male masters, and it is based on a diplomatic strategy.
For example, Zhang Yi, Zhang Yi once used his eloquence to sabotage the alliance between the Chu State and the State of Qi, deceived several cities in the Chu State, and even after this, Zhang Yi continued to send envoys to the Chu State like a man without incident, that is, by virtue of his superior eloquence, he confused the King of Chu Huai, so that the King of Chu Huai not only did not vent his anger at him, but instead heeded his advice, entered the Qin State alone, and was finally detained by the Qin State, helplessly, and died in a foreign land.
It can be seen from this that the Zongheng family pays a little attention to external planning. Another example is Lin Xiangru, which we can see in the historical records that Lin Xiangru either forced the King of Qin to abandon his covetousness for zhao in the two incidents of diplomatic relations between the complete bi and the meeting of Zhao and The Meeting of Shichi, either through lobbying or by forcing him to die.
They are not like the legalists, the legalists pay attention to internal reform, is the perfection of the state system, such as Shang Martin, Li Wu and others, they all have specific measures and concepts of governance, they have been reformed in different aspects, the contribution to the country's internal affairs is very large, but the Zonghengjia is a school that advocates external forces, which makes the development path of the Zonghengjia relatively narrow.
Moreover, their excessive admiration for diplomatic strategy led to the school taking practical political ideas as its starting point.
Second, only the actual political needs are considered
The Zonghengjia are a school of thought aimed at seeking practical benefits, they do not have a long-term plan, unlike the reform of the law, even if the effect of the fast change of the law will take a certain amount of time to assist, but the Zongheng family is different, they use the actual political needs of the country as the standard to plan specific lobbying measures and strategies.
For example, Fan Ju proposed a long-distance and close-range attack. When he was lobbying King Zhaoxiang of Qin, he once said that it would be better to make good friends with countries that were farther away and attack countries that were closer, so that an inch of land would be an inch of the Qin state, and a foot would be a foot of the Qin state.
From this point of view, his pursuit of practical interests is very profound. That is to say, the country needs what zonghengjia will plan, but such a pursuit is not necessarily complementary to the interests of the members of the country, such as South Korea's Shen Bu harm, although Shen Bu harm is a legal person, but some historians in the process of research will think that it has a little Zongheng family nature.
Because his change of law does not have a long-term vision, but is based on the actual needs of the monarch, which makes Shin Buxi overly consider han Zhaohou's thoughts when formulating decrees for Korea, which makes the decree completely become an appendage of the monarch.
However, only considering the preferences of the monarch and considering the needs of the monarch will ignore the real needs of national development to a certain extent, which is also the biggest difference between Shen and Shangmartin.
The martingale was completely based on the needs of the country, so it would later anger the nobles and invite the disaster of killing. Of course, if the Zongheng family can be consistent with the monarch's concept, it may also have amazing effects, such as the cooperation between Zhang Yi and King Huiwen of Qin, and the cooperation between Fan Ju and King Zhaoxiang of Qin, which are all top-notch.
But this also creates a fatal flaw, that is, there is a market for stakeholder disputes.
Third, only when there is strife can there be survival
From the nature of the above school, we can see that the Zonghengjia is aimed at the actual political needs of a country, and then shuttles between the major forces, confusing the opponents through the achievement of political needs, or harvesting the interests of their own country.
But the problem is that the best living environment for such a form is when the major forces compete with each other, so that there are the basic conditions for strategy, and only then can there be the benefits brought about by constantly changing the interests of various countries, which is why the Zonghengjia was very popular in the Warring States period.
Because the Warring States period was a battlefield in which the seven princely states competed together, whether it was war or diplomatic relations, the stakes involved were huge, which provided a necessary place for strategy, and also gave the Zongheng family a stage to affect the situation and the pattern of the times.
However, after the establishment of a unified dynasty, there was only one unified dynasty or country in the entire Central Plains, which made the strategy of the Zongheng family difficult to try, could not travel among the major forces, could not reflect the value of strategy, could not obtain benefits through eloquence or power, and lost the interest of the monarch in them, so naturally there would be instability in development.
Even, not only will the Zonghengjia lose the market after the establishment of the Great Unification Dynasty, but in the era when the stakes are not good and complex, the Zonghengjia will rarely have a market.
For example, in the last years of the Qin Dynasty, after the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the division between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu was very fierce, and Han Xin under Liu Bang was a key to Bang Qi's surprising victory, and Han Xin's military talent was also recognized by everyone, plus Liu Bang was once just a city, which allowed some Zongheng family to see the market.
There was once a person named Qu Tong who went to lobby Han Xin and almost made the Chu-Han rivalry into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but Qu Tong did not succeed in the end, because the disputes in the world at that time were not chaotic, although fierce but not complicated.
The forces led by Liu Bang and the forces led by Xiang Yu were the choice of the kings in the subconscious of the people of the world, and at this time, if Han Xin really rebelled, he might not be able to gain the recognition of the people of the world, and he might not even be able to succeed.
Therefore, the Zongheng family actually only has a place in the era when the conflict of interests is quite complicated, and the only one who really meets the conditions may be the Spring and Autumn Warring States.
Because at that time, not only did there be complex interests, the state was not fully formed, everyone was an absolute force under the common lord of the world, and the nature of the later Three Kingdoms or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was not the same, so the Zongheng family rarely had room to play in the future.
brief summary:
Therefore, we can combine the above narrative to find that the reason why the Zonghengjia can continue to shine in the future generations has a lot to do with their own school nature, starting from actual political needs and paying considerable attention to external forces, which allows them to exist only in the more complex era of interest disputes, and can be appreciated by achieving different political needs.
However, with the development of the times, the unification of the world and the national disputes under the unified dynasty became history, and the Zongheng family also became history.
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