On April 16, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage released the progress of the major project "Archaeological China". Among them, the most concerned is the new archaeological discovery of the tomb of King Wu, which is also the highest-level tomb of Chu State so far in mainland archaeological excavations.
The cemetery here is located in Huainan City, Anhui Province, the age is the late Warring States period, although the history has been disturbed by tomb robbery, a number of stolen cultural relics were recovered in the past few years, this time still unearthed thousands of pieces of lacquered wood and bronze and other cultural relics, including the 1.92-meter-high phoenix bird and tiger seat drum frame, the rough diameter of more than 88 centimeters of the big ding, the book has nearly 1,000 words of the coffin room cover......
The coffin chamber of the No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun is divided into nine chambers, which is the most sub-chambers of the Chu tomb seen so far
Although no empirical evidence has been obtained, it is speculated that the identity of the owner of the tomb is likely to be Xiong Wan, the king of Chu Kaolie, the "last stubbornness" of the Chu State during the Warring States Period - he united the five kingdoms of Zhao, Chu, Wei, Han, and Yan in 241 BC to launch the last joint attack on Qin in the Warring States Period.
The coalition forces encountered the main force of the Qin army at Hangu Pass, which ended in defeat. In order to avoid the advance of the Qin army and seek strategic depth, King Chu Kaolie moved the capital to Shouchun, which is now Huainan, Anhui.
Three years later, King Chukaoli died. In the following ten years, the Qin army was invincible, and successively destroyed Korea, Zhao and Wei. In 223 BC, the Qin army broke through Shouchun, and the state of Chu was destroyed. Soon, the Yan State and the Qi State also fell one after another, and the Warring States Period ended forever.
In the 800 years of the Chu State, from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, from barbarians to civilizations, from overlords to declines, it witnessed the evolution of the most heart-wrenching civilization in Chinese history.
The state of Chu was the largest vassal state in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and soon after its rise spanned the Danshui (Danjiang), Huai River and Yangtze River basins, "the land south of the Yangtze River is all Chu soil, and the people of Jiangnan are all Chu people" - according to statistics, the land ruled by the Chu State successively accounted for about half of the entire land of the Zhou Dynasty.
Almost all traditional historical books and documents insist that the state of Chu originated from the orthodox Chinese bloodline of the Central Plains. Qu Yuan's famous article "Lisao" begins with saying: "I am a descendant of the ancient Emperor Gaoyang!"
The "Emperor Gaoyang" mentioned by Qu Yuan is the 颛顼 in ancient mythology. Legend has it that he was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor and one of the "Five Emperors" of the "Three Emperors and Five Emperors", and was known for his defeat of Gonggong. According to the literature, combined with the speculation of some scholars, about 3,600 years ago, at the beginning of the Shang Dynasty, the ancestors of the Chu people passed through the Dabie Mountains and entered the Yangtze River basin from the Yellow River basin to multiply.
The tiger seat bird drum unearthed in Ji Nan Castle
But in the eyes of the Shang Dynasty, the Chu people were out-and-out "Jing barbarians". Merchants conquered the Chu people like hunting, using captives as sacrifices or as slaves. "The Book of Poetry, Shang Song, Yin Wu" specifically recorded the scene of Shang King Wuding sending troops to attack Chu: "Tart against Yin Wu and fight against Jing Chu...... In the past, there was a soup, since the other side of the Qiang, don't dare not come to enjoy, don't dare not come to the king. ”
Throughout the Shang Dynasty, the Chu people had to submit to this powerful dynasty. Finally, after the rise of the Zhou people, the leader of the Chu people at that time, Mane Xiong, defected to King Wen of Zhou in the process of the Zhou people looking for allies. His name is mentioned in the "Historical Records of Zhou Benji". "Tai Dian, Hong Yao, San Yisheng, Mane (Mane Bear), and Xinjia Doctor are all returning to it. ”
Part of the ink script found on the cover plate of the coffin chamber of Wuwangdun No. 1 tomb
However, perhaps because this tribe was too remote and backward at that time, there was no Chu leader on the list of the early Zhou Dynasty. It was not until the reign of King Cheng of Zhou that Xiong Yi, the great-grandson of Mane Xiong, was given a lower viscount title.
At that time, compared with the princes of the Central Plains, the state of Chu was indeed still a wild and poor "barbarian" land, and at first it was even so poor that it was necessary to go to neighboring countries to steal cattle to sacrifice ancestors, for fear of being discovered by the owner of the cattle, and only dared to sacrifice at night. When Xiong Yi participated in the "Qiyang Alliance", the only tributes he brought were thatch, mahogany bows and thorn arrows.
A bronze tripod related to the Qiyang Alliance
After the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a power vacuum in the Central Plains without the "co-master", and the large and small vassal states fought endlessly, and the Chu State also took this opportunity to expand rapidly in the Yangtze River Valley. ”
After the Duke of Qi Huan became the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period, the strong momentum of the State of Chu was still unabated, and several times attacked the old vassal state of Zheng, so the Duke of Qi Huan organized a coalition of princes and went south to attack Chu in 656 BC. King Chu Cheng saw that the situation was unfavorable, so he had to temporarily stop his pace of going north.
By the time of the "blockbuster" King of Chuzhuang, the state of Chu was not only strong, but also began to move closer to the Central Plains in terms of culture. After arrogantly asking the weight of Jiuding and being refuted by the envoy of the king of Zhou, the king of Chuzhuang vigorously rectified the system of discipline and etiquette, studied the Zhou rites, and studied the classics, and finally convinced the princes and became one of the "Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons".
When did the Warring States period begin? There is no unanimous conclusion, some of them start from the first year of King Yuan of Zhou (475 B.C.), and some start with the "three families of Zhao, Wei, and Han" (453 B.C.); some scholars believe that from 473 B.C., when Yue destroyed Wu, history has already entered the Warring States Period.
In contrast to the graceful and honor-oriented "power games" of the Spring and Autumn Period, the wars of the Warring States Period were truly brutal wars aimed at annexing countries and destroying the enemy's living forces.
The old system of etiquette quickly collapsed, and new changes gave birth to new powers. Chu was the first to implement the county system, developed foreign trade, and was originally an "advanced country". However, in the process of all-out "Central Plains", the feudal monarchy implemented by the Chu State in accordance with the Zhou rites also led to the continuous expansion of the power of the aristocracy, which eventually became a huge obstacle to reform.
The Chu Jibao bell and the inscription on the bell unearthed from the Wanfuyuan site in Yichang
The fundamental reasons for the failure of Wu Qi and Qu Yuan's reforms are the same.
In the first year of King Chu Huai's accession to the throne, Zhang Yi went to Qin and offered his own strategy. In the eleventh year of King Huai of Chu (318 BC), the six kingdoms jointly attacked Qin, led by the state of Chu. Considering that Qin Chu had been friends for many years and had been in-laws for generations, King Huai only symbolically sent a small number of troops. The armies of the six countries, which were discordant, arrived at Hangu Pass, and dispersed before they could fight.
After a few more years, Zhang Yi took the initiative to come to the door and used "six hundred miles of business in the land" as a bait to persuade Chu to break off relations with Qi State. King Chu Huai was overjoyed and agreed to come down. Doctor Chen Zhen persuaded him that it was not too late to break off relations after the land was in hand first, but King Chu Huai did not listen, was convinced of the Qin State, and sent a general to follow Zhang Yi to collect the land.
After Zhang Yi returned to Qin, he pretended that he was drunk and injured in a car crash, and he did not leave the door for three months. Anyone with a little bit of heart can see that there is fraud in this matter. But King Chu Huai's reaction was: Does the State of Qin feel that our severance with the State of Qi is not firm enough?
So he sent a warrior to the north to insult the king of Qi...... No specific details are written in the historical sources, but the angry King of Qi quickly broke off his friendship with Chu and joined forces with Qin. At this time, Zhang Yi said to the general who was waiting to receive the land: What he promised before was not six hundred miles of land, but six miles of land.
Samurai armor excavated from the tomb of Masanchu in Gangneung
Qin and Chu broke off diplomatic relations, the war broke out again, and the state of Chu was defeated again and again, and when the state of Qin changed to a new king, the relationship between the two countries "improved" again, but the price was: the prince of the state of Chu had to go to another country as a hostage.
This prince, who was later the king of Chu Qingxiang, first went to Qin as a hostage to exchange for rescuers, but later fled back to China because he killed the other party's ministers, which attracted the attack of the Qin army, so he was sent to Qi as a hostage to exchange for rescuers......
In the thirtieth year of King Huai of Chu (299 BC), Qin sent troops to capture eight cities of Chu, and King Zhao of Qin wrote to King Huai of Chu, asking him to come and form an alliance in person. The minister Zhao Ju strongly persuaded King Huai not to go, but King Huai still decided to trust Qin for the last time.
The result of this belief is that the monarch himself has become a hostage. The Qin State wanted to use this to coerce the Chu State to hand over Wu and Qianzhong again, but the King of Chu Huai resolutely refused. At this time, the fate of the Chu State was hanging by a thread, and the monarch and the crown prince were all hostages in foreign countries. Fortunately, King Qi Shu finally released the crown prince back for King Chu Qingxiang.
The painted phoenix pattern stone chime unearthed in Ji Nan City
King Chu Huai once escaped from Qin, but in the end he was still arrested and soon died of depression. The State of Qin sent someone to return his body. When King Huai's coffin arrived in Chu, the people of Chu along the way wept bitterly, "like sad relatives". Qu Yuan wrote "The Conjuring" for King Huai, "The eyes are extremely thousand, and the heart is sad." The soul returns, mourning Jiangnan!"
This King of Chu, who has received a strict aristocratic education since childhood and is obsessed with honesty and courtesy, although he has been a failure all his life, is an out-and-out "big injustice" in the eyes of conspirators. But at the last moment, he defended the interests and dignity of the Chu State with his life and honor, did not bow to the Qin State, and did not cede an inch of land.
After the owner of this tomb at the beginning of this article, King Chu Kaolie (Xiong Wan), ascended the throne, the 800-year glorious history of the Chu State has gradually turned into an afterglow.
It is said that after King Chu Qingxiang ascended the throne, he also made friends with Qin again and restored peace between the two countries. But everything was like a helpless delay. Beginning in 280 BC, the Qin state invaded Chu for three consecutive years. In 278 BC, the Qin army invaded Yingdu, the capital of Chu, and the former capital that the Chu people had operated for hundreds of years was wiped out.
After Qu Yuan learned the news, on the fifth day of May of this year, he jumped into the Miluo River. In the second year (277 BC), the two counties of Wu and Qianzhong, which King Huai of Chu had defended with his life, also fell into the hands of Qin.
Hubei Jingmen Baoshan No. 2 Chu tomb unearthed painted lacquer
King Xiang of Chu moved the capital to Chencheng (present-day Huaiyang District, Zhoukou City, Henan Province), and made some final efforts: gathered soldiers from the east, obtained more than 100,000 people, recaptured the fifteen cities captured by Qin in the west, negotiated peace with Qin again, and sent the crown prince to Qin as a hostage, which was ten years.
After learning the news that King Xiang of Chu Qingxiang was seriously ill, the crown prince Xiong Wan, with the help of Chunshenjun Huang Xie, fled back to the state of Chu for King Chu Kaolie. In the first year after his accession to the throne, King Chu Kaolie had to cede land to the Qin state to sue for peace.
Although under the assistance of Chun Shenjun, the state of Chu once showed a trend of rejuvenation, and even united with the other five countries to launch the last joint attack on Qin, but in the end, the national strength of the state of Chu continued to weaken irretrievably. On the other side, King Yingzheng of Qin also stepped onto the stage of history.
The phoenix bird and tiger seat drum stand unearthed from the No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun
In "Historical Records of the Chu Family", Sima Qian condensed the 800-year history of the Chu State into a synopsis of the careers of the 42 leaders and kings, which also included the names of Zhou Tianzi, monarchs of other countries, and many princes and nobles. The common people are collectively referred to as "national people" and "Chu people", and occasionally appear.
Painted lacquer image unearthed from the No. 2 Chu tomb in Baoshan, Jingmen, Hubei Province (detail)
Seventy years after Qu Yuan surrendered to the river, the Chu people Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled. Xiang Yu, the general of the Chu State, entered Xianyang and burned down the palace of the Qin Dynasty. Liu Bang, who replaced him on the throne of the emperor, was also a native of Chu. Fan Zeng said: "Fu Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, and Chu was the most innocent. Since King Huai entered Qin, he has not rebelled, and the people of Chu have pitied him until now ("Historical Records: Xiang Yu Benji"). ”
Later generations have commented on the merits, but many scholars have indeed imagined that if the Chu State had succeeded in reforming and finally unifying the Six Kingdoms, it is likely that the burning of books and Confucianism would not have occurred, and we may have seen more exquisite bronzes, silk fabrics, and romantic poems.
Source: WeChat public account "Red Star New Culture"
Author: Xue Yang
Editor: Pan Xi
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