Since Su Qin successfully received the seal in the Zhao Kingdom, the Zongheng family has successively stepped onto the historical stage of the Warring States and opened up a clear barrier between the Seven Kingdoms, mainly the Qin State against the Six Kingdoms and the Six Kingdoms against the Qin State, and finally these debaters dominated the situation in the Warring States Era with three inches of uncorrupted tongues.
The representative figure of Hezhong is Su Qin. This Eastern Zhou man studied hard in the midst of his downfall, gained the true meaning of speculation, and arrived in the Yan Kingdom after several turns. He arrived at the State of Zhao after receiving funding from the State of Yan, and on the grounds of the great threat of the State of Qin, persuaded Marquis Suhou of Zhao to unite with the princes against the State of Qin, and then traveled around the countries with the support of the State of Zhao, successfully incorporating Han, Wei, Qi, and Chu into the alliance, forming the first alliance of the Warring States.
Su Qin stills
After the Shang martingale transformation method, the State of Qin began to show a vigorous upward momentum, posing a great threat to the Han, Zhao, and Wei families, especially the Wei State suffered heavy losses. The Yan state was forced by the threat of Zhao and Qi and was eager to join this system to avoid the encroachment of the two countries. The State of Chu faced the potential threat of the State of Qin, because the State of Qin had the heart to occupy Bashu, thus forming a strategic offensive advantage against the State of Chu. Therefore, after using the Qin state as an imaginary enemy, Su Qin successfully organized the six kingdoms, established a weak alliance, and contained the Qin state for fifteen years.
The success of the alliance stems from the concern of various countries about the threat of the Qin state, regarding the Qin state as a common imaginary enemy, and taking the maintenance of the status quo as the premise of each country, so the threat to the Qin state is also a great constraint on the countries. This bondage greatly restricts the desires of powerful countries, and it is difficult to balance the interests of all countries, and finally the combination forms a fragile spider web, which has succeeded several times and failed several times. For example, during the period of King Qin Zhao and King Qi, Qin and Qi were powerful, and the monarchs of the two countries briefly claimed the title of emperor and formed a situation of two emperors in the East and West, while the two countries turned their guns around, resulting in an incident in which the five kingdoms joined forces and almost destroyed the state of Qi.
However, the combination of the Six Kingdoms caused great trouble to the Qin State, so it produced a Lianheng debater represented by Zhang Yi. Lian Heng was much simpler than hezhong, although they were all alliances, but Zhang Yi advocated that the Qin state should ally with the princes as much as possible to break up the six kingdoms. The most successful typical case of Lian Heng is the Zhang Yi deception incident. Zhang Yi first promised to give King Huai of Chu six hundred miles of land to promote an alliance between Qin and Chu, and when he returned to Qin, he pretended to be ill; after waiting bitterly, king Huai of Chu felt that the relationship between Chu and Qi had not been broken before he could get the land, so he sent people to scold the king of Qi, causing the alliance between Qi and Chu to break down completely; then, Zhang Yi came forward to tell the emissaries of the State of Chu that he only gave the six miles of his fief to the State of Chu; the King of Chu Huai, in anger, led an army to attack the State of Qin, and the result was a complete defeat.
However, in the end, the biggest damage to the Six Kingdoms was the emergence of Fan Ju. In view of the policy of the Qin state at that time, Fan Ju suggested changing the policy of sending troops everywhere to a strategy of "long-distance friendship and close attack", encroaching on the countries bordering the Qin state and befriending the countries that were far away from the Qin state. This policy divided the determination of the six eastern countries to jointly resist Qin and eased the external pressure of the Qin state; the Qin state had a clear strategic goal, effectively implemented military operations to open up territory and expand the territory, and strengthened the strength of the Qin state. The six eastern countries still attack each other for short-term interests. For example, after the Battle of Changping between Qin and Zhao, the State of Yan took advantage of the fire to loot when it saw the elite soldiers of the State of Zhao die in Changping, but was beaten by the State of Zhao to seek peace.
Unity is essentially a group of weak countries united against the powerful, but it limits the expansion ambitions of these weak countries, which is typical of self-interested people, and this alliance is beneficial to the weak country and unfavorable to the strong country. In essence, the strong countries pull the weak countries together to weaken other countries, which is much simpler and more easy to operate than the combination of vertical and vertical, which is typical of self-interest, and this alliance is beneficial to the strong countries and the weak countries that follow the strong countries do not suffer losses. Therefore, after Fan Ju proposed a long-distance and close attack, the State of Qin resolutely changed direction, while the State of Qi and the State of Yan rarely mixed things after experiencing the internal filth of the Six Kingdoms. The result of the struggle between the united vertical and the continuous horizontal was the victory of the Qin state, which, on the basis of its own strength, successfully disintegrated the alliance of the six kingdoms, continuously weakened the power of the bordering four kingdoms of Han, Zhao, Wei, and Chu, and successfully laughed to the end.