Turning the gaze of history to the Pingyu at the end of the Warring States period, hundreds of thousands of troops from the Qin and Chu states each lined up here, launching a decisive battle about the survival or destruction of the Chu state.
The Chu army, which had been holding out for a long time, took the lead in loosening due to the long battle line and lack of supplies, and the Qin general Wang Qi ordered the Qin army, which had gathered enough will to fight, to attack immediately, and the Chu general Xiang Yan was killed. A year later, the entire Chu state entered the pocket of the Qin state, and the Qin state took a crucial step on the road to sweeping through the six kingdoms.
Judging from the map of power at the end of the Warring States period, the State of Chu was vast and occupied almost the entire south, and the country once dominated the Central Plains. "Winning the Central Plains" was when the Chu State first dominated, openly provoking the authority of Zhou Tianzi, behind which was its own powerful and incomparable strength.
How did such a powerful country decline? This is inseparable from the deep-rooted nature of the three major clans within the Chu state, Qu, Jing, and Zhao.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the history of the development of the three major clans</h1>
"Although Chu has three households, qin will perish will be Chu", after the fall of the Chu state, everyone in the world said so. These three households refer to the three major clans of Chu Guoqu, Jing, and Zhao. Speaking of Qu Shi first, I think everyone will soon be able to remember a person - Qu Yuan. Yes, Qu Yuan was a nobleman of the Qu clan of the Chu State, who had served as an official to the Third Lu Doctor, but there was a cultural common sense involved here. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, surnames and surnames were separated, of which surnames represented blood origin and could not be changed; clans represented family groups and could be changed.
Taking the great poet Qu Yuan as an example, Qu Yuan's surname is Xiong, the clan is Qu, and Xiong is the surname of the monarch of the Chu State at that time, which shows the nobility of Qu Yuan's bloodline. Because men in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period were called surnames but not surnames, Qu Yuan was not called Kumahara. Qu Yuan once wrote in "Leaving the Troubles" that "Emperor Gaoyang's Miao descendants are Xi", which means that his ancestors can be traced back to the Chu Dynasty, which is also the ancestor of the entire Chu State.
When the State of Chu developed into King Wu of Chu, its power was already very strong, and King Wu of Chu had a son named Xiong Feng. At that time, the Zhou Dynasty implemented a system of sub-fiefs, as the son of King Wu of Chu, Xiong Feng was divided into Qu Yi, which led to the later Qu clan, named after the fiefdom of the ancestor Xiong Feng.
The origin of the surname is more interesting, which is related to the national fortune of the Chu state. Friends who know some history must know Wu Zixu as a person. His father, Wu Hao, was an official in the Chu state before his death, and was the crown prince at that time.
When the crown prince and a courtier named Fei Wuji in the court were very incompatible, Fei Wuji ran to the king of Chu every day to say bad things about the prince and beat the prince's small report, and over time there was a gap between the king of Chu and the prince, and the prince was forced to flee. However, the King of Chu listened to his rumors and killed Wu Hao's family, but Wu Hao's son Wu Zixu successfully escaped to the state of Wu.
Wu Zixu was reused in the State of Wu, but he never forgot his blood feud with the State of Chu, and often advised King Wu to lead an army to cut down Chu. King Wu agreed to him, and Wu Zixu not only won a great victory in the war against the State of Chu, but also cut the coffin of his father's murderer, King Chuping.
However, the State of Chu had not yet completely lost its qi machine, and Zi Shen, the son of King Chu Ping, eventually restored the land of Chu, and this person was the ancestor of the Jing clan, and the word "Jing" was derived from King Chu Ping's nickname "Jing Ping".
Another son of King Chuping was the ancestor of the Zhao clan, named Zi liang, and the word "Zhao" was derived from the title of King Chu Zhao, and it can be said that these two clans are related to the hero Zi Shen who restored the Chu kingdom.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > second, the decay of blood politics</h1>
The upper-class rulers of the Spring and Autumn And Warring States period were all ruled by blood nobles, and as the name suggests, most of them were governed by some people who were related to the monarch by blood, and the closer the blood relationship, the better they were to become officials. However, such aristocratic politics has inherent drawbacks, and it becomes more and more decayed as the reign is extended, which is one of the reasons for the decline of the Chu state.
In the first aspect, blood relations will become more and more diluted over time. There are many descendants of a large clan, and in the long run, not only will the blood relationship be very chaotic, but the dilution of the blood relationship will cause many family conflicts.
The Zhou Dynasty implemented a system of divided feudalism, some of which divided the land among the heirs according to blood relations, and the princes of each fief in wartime should fight for the Zhou Dynasty. But the fate of the Zhou Dynasty in doing so is obvious, and it was precisely because of this that the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period came about.
The State of Chu also implemented such a system, once the blood relationship was diluted or the clan was only for its own interests, it was difficult for the entire country to gather all its strength for development or to resist foreign enemies.
In the second aspect, blood politics will make it difficult for the upper and lower classes to flow, and make the upper ruling class solidified. The upper echelons of power are firmly controlled by several major clans, and such a door valve politics makes it difficult for the talents of the lower classes to be reused, and over time, the quality of the entire ruling class will decline, and the efficiency of work will decline.
At the same time, people always tend to overprotect their vested interests, especially such political interests, so some reforms are difficult to promote in the Chu state. In the Qin Kingdom, the King of Qin reused the Shang Martingale and implemented the Shang Martingale Transformation Method, which made the Qin State change its face. The reformed political system also made the Qin state continue to grow stronger, laying the foundation for the Qin state to sweep away the six countries.
The State of Chu has not been without a change of law, the most famous of which is the Wu Qi change method. This change has also achieved certain effects, making the Chu state continue to grow stronger, but the problem is that this change involves the noble interests of the clans, and they are required to distribute the titles fairly, and they can be recovered under certain conditions.
This has caused resentment among the clans, which have been so entrenched for so many years that they cannot be destroyed without a powerful change. The Wu Qi reform method was difficult to advance under the resistance of the clans, and in the end it could only be declared bankrupt with the death of the King of Chu. Without changing with the times, the failure of the Chu state, which had deep-rooted clan power, was inevitable.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > the internal friction of the three and three clans</h1>
As the three most powerful political forces within the Chu state, qu Jingzhao's three major clans fought political struggles for political interests, so the respective forces of the three clans also traded each other. Among the three major clans, the earliest to make a fortune is the Qu clan, and the Qu clan is also the first to be reused.
As early as the time when King Zhuang of Chu "conquered the Central Plains", the Qu clan was one of the largest clans in the Chu kingdom. As mentioned earlier, after this, the rise of the Jing and Zhao clans, the continuous court wars and the Chu-Wu war consumed the Qu clan very much, and it was impossible to form an absolute advantage over the two major clans that grew after this war.
However, the Qu clan has always been an important means used by the King of Chu to contain the forces of other clans, so the three major clans have also been fighting openly and secretly. During the reign of King Huai of Chu, which was also the era in which Qu Yuan lived, the monarch was faint and incompetent, and successively fell into the treacherous schemes of the Qin Dynasty, resulting in a significant weakening of the national strength, and the Qu clan also suffered great losses, and the forces of the Jing and Zhao clans at this time gradually overshadowed the Qu clan.
Although political struggles are very common in a country, the struggle between the three major clans that is so deeply rooted involves the entire Chu state, forming a huge internal friction, and it is difficult to bring the hearts together, so that when the Qin army is about to destroy the Chu state, the three major clans are still competing for the position of chancellor.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > summary</h1>
A country like the State of Chu, which can develop and grow and continue for eight hundred years, the contribution of the major clans cannot be ignored. However, with the changes of the times, such a blood politics is not suitable for the continued development of the country, but the three major clans of the Chu State have long been deeply rooted, and in order to maintain and compete for political interests, they have become a force that prevents the progress of history, so that the demise of the Chu State is inevitable.