After King Ji of Zhou Wu founded the Zhou Dynasty, it was divided into the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou dynasties. After the fall of Hojing, western Zhou officially perished. Fortunately, the King of Zhou Ping migrated eastward, and the capital was in present-day Luoyi, Henan, and the Eastern Zhou Era officially began.
The Eastern Zhou Dynasty was the "Spring and Autumn Warring States" period. The Zhou Dynasty implemented a system of sub-feudalism, dividing the territory of land among the princes of various roads, leaving the princes themselves to manage and distribute land resources and human resources. However, in the later period, the various princes rose and no longer obeyed the instructions of the King of Zhou.
This also led to the Zhou Dynasty, although it was the "co-lord of the world", in fact, it did not have real power, and all the princes had the grand dream of chasing deer from the Central Plains and becoming the hegemon of one side. Therefore, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the war continued continuously.
More than a hundred countries, large and small, fought until the end, and the pattern of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States was revealed, and qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin, a total of seven countries divided the world.
At the end of the Warring States period, as the national strength of the Qin State gradually grew, catching up with and surpassing the states, and finally Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, and the world achieved great unification. After the First Emperor unified the world, the Zhou Dynasty Tianzi Family, which lasted for nearly eight hundred years, was not good.
The last king of the Zhou Dynasty was the King of Zhou Zhao. In the era of Qin Zhaoxiang,Qin Zhaoxiang's great-grandfather, it was already considered to exist in name only. King Zhaoxiang of Qin had always claimed to be the overlord of Xi Rong, and under his rule the State of Qin was already very strong, but he did not win the Nine Dings and waited for an opportunity to unify the Six Kingdoms.
King Zhao of Zhou reigned the longest, reigning for 59 years from 315 BC to 256 BC. In the time of King Zhao of Zhou, Eastern Zhou, which already had a weak sense of existence, had been further divided into two small states, known in history as the Principality of Eastern Zhou and the Principality of Western Zhou. And King Zhao of Zhou was the lord of the Principality of Eastern Zhou.
At this time, the power of the Qin State had been growing continuously, and the speed of its expansion had accelerated, and it already had the rudiments of destroying the Six Kingdoms. However, at that time, all the power of the King of Zhou was limited to the area around Wang Qi, which is near present-day Luoyang, Henan.
King Zhao of Zhou had always wanted to revive the Zhou Dynasty, but this was tantamount to a pipe dream. The Eastern Zhou Principality under his rule was too small in land area and human resources to be put on the table, and the King of Zhou Zhao did not even say that the zhou dynasty was revived, but the rule and continuation of the last zhou dynasty were in jeopardy.
After the State of Qin grew, the neighboring State of Chu felt that if Qin wanted to unify the Six Kingdoms, the first one would swallow itself up, so the State of Chu, after repeatedly attacking the State of Qin without success, hit the King of Zhou Zhao. The State of Chu persuaded the King of Zhou zhao to order the princes with the status of a son of heaven, and although the king of Zhou Zhao was already afraid of the strength of the qin state, he still wanted to give it a go and seek survival.
In the end, King Zhao of Zhou felt that chu's suggestion could be tried, so he began to order the princes to attack the qin state, and he also planned to send troops to help destroy qin. However, king Zhao of Zhou had long since run out of troops, so he borrowed troops from the Duke of Western Zhou and assembled an army of less than 6,000 men, planning to fight a fierce battle against Qin.
However, at this time, the King of Zhou Zhao not only had no soldiers and no land, but also had no money, and a penny could overwhelm the hero, so the King of Zhou Zhao began to borrow money from the rich people in The country. Tianzi borrowed money, but also to fight the IOU, this kind of advance loan behavior has been since ancient times, the King of Zhou Zhao thus took the borrowed money and soldiers and horses to attack the Qin state.
However, although King Zhao of Zhou had agreed with the Six Kingdoms to cut down Qin together, the Six Kingdoms did not respond to him. When King Zhou's army arrived at the meeting place, they found that only the State of Chu and the State of Yan had sent troops, and the other four countries felt that it was impossible to win the current state of Qin, so they did not take care of King Zhou Zhao.
King Zhao of Zhou looked at the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Qin State, and there was really no possibility of winning the war, so he could only return to China sadly. However, the money had already been spent, and the rich people in the country saw that the army had returned without success, and their money must have been lost, so they all ran to the palace to ask the King of Zhou Zhao for money. King Zhou Zhao could not afford to pay back the money, so he could only run to the high platform and hide, which is also the origin of the idiom "high debt".
From this incident of retreating without a fight, it can be seen that the Zhou Dynasty obviously existed in name only, and King Zhaoxiang of Qin did not destroy the Zhou Dynasty, but it was just an excuse to replace the "common lord of the world".
In fact, before the King of Zhou Zhao cut down Qin, the destruction of Eastern Zhou had already laid the groundwork.
In 308 BC, the State of Qin wanted to attack Korea, so the fierce Battle of Yiyang began. In this war, the Qin army defeated the Korean army, and beheaded nearly 60,000 soldiers, and the Qin state rose to fame for a while, shocking the other six countries.
In this war, it has to be mentioned that there are two Zhou kingdoms in the east and the west. The State of Qin borrowed the road from the Zhou Royal Family to attack Korea, and after a great victory, because the Zhou Royal Family secretly funded Korea during the war, the State of Qin turned its eyes to the two principalities of Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou.
The State of Qin originally wanted to swallow the lingering Zhou Dynasty at this time, but the famous Incident of Carrying Ding in history occurred at this time - King Wu of Qin died unexpectedly in the process of carrying Ding.
After the tragic death of King Qin Wu, the matter of destroying Zhou was also delayed. However, this delay was delayed until 50 years later, when the Qin state felt that the time had come to strangle the co-lord of this world and conquer the Central Plains in the name of righteousness, so in 256 BC, the Qin army attacked the Western Zhou Principality, and seven years later, the Army pointed to the Eastern Zhou Principality, and the Zhou Dynasty officially collapsed.
If it weren't for the fact that the State of Qin was busy with the raids of the other six kingdoms, king Zhao of Zhou would not have been able to sit on a high position for 59 years. With the weak foundation of the state and the inaction of the King of Zhou Zhao, the Zhou Dynasty should have perished long ago.
However, after the unification of the Six Kingdoms by The Qin, the fate of the Tianzi family of the Zhou Dynasty has always been controversial, and two of them are more recognized.
The first is from the "Records of History" written by the Western Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian, one of which is "Zhou Benji", which details the rise and fall of the entire Zhou Dynasty for eight hundred years. Among them, for the outcome of the Zhou Dynasty, Sima Qian said: "The Eastern and Western Zhou dynasties all entered the Qin, and the Zhou dynasty was neither worshipped. ”
This means that after Qin conquered the two principalities of Eastern and Western Zhou, the Zhou Dynasty was cut off from then on, but it did not explain the whereabouts of the descendants of the Zhou Dynasty's Tianzi.
However, after that, the "Records of History" also said: "Qin extinguished the Zhou." After the nineties of Hanxing, the Son of Heaven will seal Mount Tai, tour the east to Henan, ask for zhou Miao descent, seal the thirty miles of jia after him, and call him Zhou Zi Nanjun and Bi Liehou to worship him first. ”
That is to say, after the Qin Dynasty destroyed the Zhou Dynasty, it was not until 90 years after the founding of the Han Dynasty that the Western Han Dynasty found the descendant of the Tianzi family of the Zhou Dynasty, "Jia", and gave him a fief of thirty miles. At this time, it was already the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but in the period from the qin's destruction of the Zhou Dynasty to the 90 years of the founding of the Western Han Dynasty, the ups and downs experienced by the descendants of the Zhou Dynasty Tianzi were not recorded in the annals of history.
The second theory comes from the Northern Song Dynasty historian Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, which holds that after the surrender of King Zhao of Zhou, he moved to Xiangcheng. However, this statement was not recognized, because if King Zhao of Zhou surrendered to the State of Qin, then the King of Qin did not have to wait until the death of King Zhou Zhao to seize Jiuding.
King Zhaoxiang of Qin was obviously not the one who would save face for King Zhou Zhao, and with the national strength of the Qin State at that time, there was no need to look at anyone's face, the whole world was in the bag, who would care about the thoughts of the weak? Therefore, Sima Guang's record is rumored to be made out of nothing, and it cannot withstand scrutiny at all.
Therefore, at this time, the King of Zhou Zhao was either dying of his life or was killed on the way to Xiangcheng, and he was inseparable from a dead word.
Here for the descendants of the Zhou Dynasty, there is also a saying that is most in line with the King of Qin.
After the State of Qin unified the world, it moved the nobles of the Six Kingdoms to the distant Longxi. From this, it is inferred that the descendants of the Zhou Dynasty may also have been sent by the King of Qin to a distant and ruined place. Some people speculate that it is today's Gansu or Shaanxi.
This policy of forced relocation is actually a symbol of centralized power, and it is also the courage that a prince who seizes the world should have.
In the qin dynasty, he did not pay attention to the nobility for a long time, and the concentration of royal power was what he wanted. The King of Qin deeply realized that the patriarchal system and the sub-feudal system would only threaten the royal power, and the centralized power system was what the current Qin state needed.
Only by ensuring the centralization of power can the Qin state stand firm and the world truly achieve stability. However, the aristocratic Yu Wei is still there, and instead of turning them into a hidden bane, it is better to use them for their own use and let them play a role in politics.
With this in mind, the King of Qin drove the nobles of the Six Kingdoms, as well as the Tianzi family of the Zhou Dynasty, to remote areas to prepare for his centralized system. Therefore, the overthrow of the Zhou Dynasty is actually just a symbol of the continuous strengthening of the royal power.
If the King of Qin chose to exterminate the descendants of the Zhou royal family, it would not affect his rule at all. This trick can be there, but it is not necessary.
After the death of King Zhao of Zhou, the entire Zhou family ceased to exist. There are only three endings: death, escape, and distribution. The vigorous eight-hundred-year history of the Zhou Dynasty officially ended here in the Qin King.
Text/Lamb
Resources: 1. Zizhi Tongjian, Sima Guang 2. "History", Sima Qian