In the five hundred years of the Qin Kingdom, the smoke was fought, and the sand was broken and the wine was consumed. In the journey of Qin to destroy the Six Kingdoms and unify the world, Fan Ju, Bai Qi, Gongsun Yan, Wang Qi, Wei Ji, Li Si and other Wen wuqing all played an important role.
However, the most popular thing is the Shangjun Shang martingale who laid the "Ten Thousand Ancestral Dragon Law" and Zhang Yi, who crossed the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the attack on the Qin Alliance.
Shang Martin had to meet Qin Xiaogong and die at the time of King Huiwen of Qin. Zhang Yi served King Huiwen twice, and assisted King Wu of Qin to protect himself.
Two courtiers who were rewarded by the monarch, but who were in the same position as the crown prince. In the end, a five-horse corpse was divided, and the life and death clan was destroyed. One died peacefully in the position of the Wei state phase. What led to the very different endings of the superstars of these two eras?
In short, there is still a conflict of interests with the Great Qin ruling clique and the difference in the historical positioning of the two.
Shang Martin's way to death
In ancient times, the drama of a dynasty of heaven and a courtier, the drama of the new monarch and the power of the courtiers, just like the traffic lights flowing on the road, was not uncommon. However, with his own strength, the weak Qin state turned the offensive and suppressed the mighty Shang Martingale, and his death was really regrettable.
Shang Jun's death is mainly related to the following three major conflicts of interest.
(1) Conflict of Interest 1: The conflict between the monarch and the courtiers
We often say that King Huiwen of Qin killed Shang Martin in order to avenge the fact that "the prince broke the law and committed the same crime as the common people". At best, this can only be regarded as the fuse for the death of the martingale.
Shang Martin did kill The King of Huiwen's face by torturing two of his teachers, but more importantly, the power that Shang Martin held in the Qin State had seriously threatened the new King's royal power.
Although Shang Martin was a courtier of Duke Jian of Qin, he was not just a vassal of Fang Xuanling and Du Ruyi to Emperor Taizong of Tang.
Qin Xiaogong did not have the ability to formulate a strategy for changing the law, and could only push Shang Martingale to the center of the stage of the major event of changing the law, making Shang Martin an absolute protagonist of this historical event.
With the success of the Shang Martingale Transformation Law, the power he wielded threatened the position of King Huiwen of Qin as the future master of the country.
In the late Qin Xiaogong era, Shang Martin, who received unlimited trust and support from Xiaogong, had already mastered the administrative, law enforcement, military, diplomatic and other aspects of the Qin State, and was a standard ruler.
Shang Martin's merits and high power seriously damaged the prestige of the Qin dynasty. For example, Gongzi Qian, who hated Shang Martin to the bone, once said, "Now the women and babies of Qin all speak the law of the Shang King, and the law of the Great King."
If filial piety was still like this, how could the fledgling King Huiwen control such a powerful subject? This kind of dualistic monarch-vassal relationship similar to that of bismarck and Wilhelm II in later Germany naturally made Shang Martin a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh of the new king, King Huiwen of Qin.
Just when ShangMartin was on the cusp of the storm, the old and dying Duke Xiao of Qin naively imitated the "Tang Yao Yu Shun" and passed the throne of the Qin State to Shang Martin. The "Warring States Policy" records that "in the eight years of filial piety, he was sick and could not afford it, and he wanted to pass it on to the Shang Emperor, but he could not resign." ”
Yes, Duke Xiao of Qin actually wanted to pass the throne to a prince with a foreign surname during the rise of the Qin State, whether it was to test Shang Martin's loyalty or not, which was tantamount to a thunderbolt on a sunny day for the Ying si clique that was eagerly awaiting the throne, and directly led to shang martingale's death.
Moreover, Shang Martin did not have the military prestige that Bismarck had established in the three dynastic wars, and it was much easier for King Huiwen of Qin to kill him.
(2) Conflict of Interest II: The conflict between the military merit system and the interests of the old nobility
The death of Shang Martin is also inseparable from the impact of the military merit system on the interests of the old nobles of the Qin State. With the spring and autumn "the end of the games of war", the high-intensity war of the Warring States "fighting for land and killing people in the wilderness" came into being.
Shang Martin integrated the military merit system of Wei and Chu and other countries, and formulated the military merit standard of "those who can get the first one, reward the first rank, yitian one acre, and nine acres of yi house" in the qin state.
This set of standards for improving military merit was the basis for the Great Qin Empire to sweep away the Liuhe and unify the world. But it also seriously damaged the interests of the old nobles who relied on blood to obtain knighthoods naturally.
Wu Qi's military merit system allowed the State of Wei to dominate the world, but he was killed by the elders and nobles of the State of Chu.
Because the new upstarts who rose from the military had irreconcilable contradictions with the old nobles, the old nobles hated them and made them lose the martingale who had the opportunity to get more land. Therefore, the "Anti-Shang Movement" led by The Son of Gong Xian, the son of King Huiwen's master, was successfully completed.
Since Shang Martin had offended the old aristocratic forces throughout the Zhou Dynasty, when King Huiwen killed him, it was difficult for him to go into exile even in other princely states, and the old nobles of the Six Kingdoms did not welcome him.
(3) Conflict of interest three: the conflict between the strict Qin law and the military and civilians of the Qin state
The fundamental reason for the Shang martingale transformation method is to "fool the people" in order to turn the people into a war machine of the Qin state, and once the war is stopped or suspended, this high-pressure policy will inevitably cause a rebound from the people.
Shangmartin's strict "sitting together" law further bound the people of the Qin State. So much so that after Gongzi Qianshang asked King Huiwen to kill Shangmartin, Shangmartin raised an army from Shangdi to attack Zheng (Shaanxi County), but was captured and killed by the Qin army without any support.
The "Biography of Shang Martingale" records a well-known story, that is, "Shang Martingale was refused to be arrested", which shows the fierce contradiction between Shang Martin's policy of "weak people to strengthen the country" and the people of Qin.
Zhang Yi's way of survival
Unlike Shang Martin, who focused on Qin's internal affairs, Zhang Yi could be described as both the heart of the monarch of the world and the world's most wanted criminal. The monarchs of the six countries admired their talents and feared that this talent would be used against their own countries.
Such an identity allows Zhang Yi to walk freely among the Seven Heroes of the Warring States and flexibly protect herself, thus avoiding the same death end as Shang Martin. Among them, there are four main reasons to ensure the survival of Zhang Yi.
(1) Zhang Yi's historical positioning:
Before talking about the ending between Shang Martin and Zhang Yi, we must first make it clear that Shang Martin is a heavyweight historical Hall of Fame player who is gao Zhang Yi.
If it is said that the civil servants and martial generals who founded the Qin Dynasty will be ranked in contribution value, Weiren Shangmartin is definitely the undisputed first place. Even in the entire history of contributions to Chinese civilization, Shang Martingale can rank among the best.
It was he who laid the foundation for the continuation of the "rule of law" rule model for the whole world, and who pried the entire axis of Chinese history.
Zhang Yi was different, although Zhang Yi traversed the six kingdoms and used a three-inch uncorrupted tongue to skillfully take the fertile field for thousands of miles, leaving a dashing posture in the Warring States history books for a thousand years. However, in addition to its contributions to the Qin State and historical legends, it has not left a deep imprint on the entire Chinese civilization.
One of them is the first of all generations, the other is the master of the world, and the difference in historical positioning determines how many enemies they will encounter when carrying out their own policies, and how many cakes of interest classes they will offend.
The change of the martingale promoted the development of China's historical process from the splitting of the land and feudalism to the feudal landlordization, which offended the interests of the old nobles of the entire slave society, and finally forced to die by these old nobles.
However, Zhang Yi only offended the interests of the upper group of the Three Kingdoms of Wei Qichu and did not reach the point where the old nobles "everyone was punished", which was the fundamental reason why the two had different endings.
(2) King Huiwen's art of checks and balances:
Since King Huiwen of Qin eliminated Shang Martingale in order to strengthen his royal power, he naturally would not cultivate another uncrowned king for the Great Qin Empire.
Although Zhang Yi was the prime minister of the Qin State, he was a hundred officials. However, King Huiwen promoted shu chang li (樗里樗) and Sima Que (司馬錯) to take control of the military, and Zuo Cheng (左丞相甘茂) divided the power. Zhang Yi was not allowed to become the second supreme shangjun.
Moreover, in order to achieve the purpose of Lianheng for King Huiwen, Zhang Yi went out many times to serve as a minister, and did not have a deep foundation in the Qin State, and even because of the art of vertical and horizontal, he was ridiculed by the Qin officialdom as a person who "betrayed the country", naturally he could not threaten the king's power.
As a result, after King Wu of Qin ascended the throne, there was no need to seize power with Zhang Yi, so he allowed Zhang Yi to leave the Qin state safely.
(3) Zhang Yi's strategic value:
Before discussing why Zhang Yi did not die, we should look at what Zhang Yi did.
In his lifetime, Zhang Yi destroyed the Six Kingdoms alliance, blackmailed Wei Shiqin, captured Bashu, weakened the Chu state, merged Chu Han, persuaded Han Zhao, and beat the Six Kingdoms of Shandong to pieces with a set of diplomatic combinations. The people who really stirred up the general trend of the world at that time had unparalleled strategic value.
Although many people were offended in the Central Plains, Zhang Yi did not follow in the footsteps of the assassination of King Buwu and Qingji, and even a monarch like King Qi, who hated Zhang Yi to the bone, also sent a large army to fight.
Because the Six Kingdoms of Shandong, under Zhang Yi's diplomatic combination fist, have changed from "combining vertical attacks on Qin" to "lianheng pro-Qin". Zhang Yi's loyalty to the Qin State also made the Tiger and Wolf Division of the Qin State act as his backing to a certain extent, and improved his strategic value.
Secondly, Zhang Yi was enough to change the diplomatic ability of the chess game in the world, and Wei Guo knew that Zhang Yi "wanted to make Wei xian qin and the princes follow suit", but still appointed the out-of-favor Zhang Yi as Xiang Guo after the death of King Huiwen. King Huai of Chu was teased by Zhang Yi, but he was still willing to exchange Zhang Yi for the land of Qianzhong.
These examples. It fully explains how valuable Zhang Yi's talent is in the context of the Warring States' "natural selection of things and survival of the fittest". Talent is Zhang Yi's biggest talisman.
(4) Zhang Yi's escape technique:
The above analysis of the important conditions for Zhang Yi to get out, but the most important thing is the appropriate escape technique.
As a Zongheng family, Zhang Yi was very good at grasping the psychology of the monarch, and although the new King Wu of Qin was not like himself, the Wu King, who worshipped force, was also disgusted by his zongheng strategy.
Zhang Yi duly proposed that King Wu of Qin send himself to the Six Kingdoms of Shandong to stir up the situation and buy time for the further expansion of the Qin state.
This was the reason why King Qin Wu could not refuse.
On the one hand, eastward expansion has become the national policy of the Qin state, and Zhang Yi is needed to create opportunities. On the other hand, the Six Kingdoms of Shandong took advantage of the death of King Huiwen to prepare to form a joint alliance once again, and Zhang Yi once again broke the alliance of the Six Kingdoms.
In this way, Zhang Yi escaped safely as a "business trip" and left the Qin State.
summary:
The difference between the death of GuanShang Martingale and Zhang Yi's peaceful old age is not only because of whether the interests of the two people and the royal power and the old aristocratic group conflict, but also because of the difference in the historical positioning and strategic values of the two.
But in any case, they have all left a glorious mark in the history of Chinese national reunification with their own lives.