In 506 BC, Wu Zixu assisted King Wu Lu to send an army to attack Chu and occupy the capital of the Chu State, and Wu Zixu deliberately excavated the tomb of King Chu Ping and whipped the corpse three hundred times. So, what kind of person was this King of Chuping who was whipped by Wu Zixu?
King Chuping was the younger son of King Gong of Chu.
King Gong of Chu had five sons, namely: Prince Zhao, Gongzi Wei, Gongzi Bi, Gongzi Jiao, and Gongzi Ren. When King Gong of Chu died, the crown prince took the throne as King chu kang; king Chu Kang died after fifteen years of reign, and his sons took the throne as Ao Ao. Ao Ao had his uncle Gongzi Wei (令尹) in charge of the military. In 541 BC, Gongzi Wai strangled Ao Ao and established himself as king, as the king of Chu Ling.
King Chu Ling reigned for twelve years, but was ousted by his younger brother Gongzi Bi and died in the deep mountains and old forests, but the news of his death did not spread for a while. Gongzi abandoned his illness and obeyed his subordinates' plans, pretending that King Chu Ling had killed back to Chudu, frightening Gongzi Bi to commit suicide, and abandoning his illness and thus ascending the throne for King Chuping.
At the beginning of King Chuping's reign, in order to consolidate his position, he could also "benefit the people", which was objectively beneficial to the people, but after only one year, the inferiority of King Chuping was exposed.
1. The father who snatches love with a horizontal knife
In 527 BC, the second year after King ChuPing ascended the throne, King Chuping sent the crown prince Fu Wujie to the Qin kingdom to marry the prince.
Fei Wuji was at odds with Crown Prince Fu Wu and could not be trusted by The Crown Prince, and when he saw that this Qin woman was beautiful, he twisted his mind. In order to curry favor with King Chuping, Fei Wuji persuaded King Chuping to marry a Qin woman himself and marry another woman for the crown prince.
In front of Mei Se, King ChuPing disregarded his status as a father, adopted Fei Wujie's suggestion, married Qin Nu himself, and made a son with Qin Nu, which was the later Chu Zhao King Xiong Zhen.
2. Indiscriminately kill innocent kings
Once the devil's door is opened, it can no longer be kept. Fei Wuji presented the Qin daughter who originally belonged to Prince Jian to King Chuping, and worried that in the future, Prince Jian would take the throne and his own life would not be in danger, so he constantly slandered and slandered Prince Jian in front of King Chuping.
However, King Chuping did not even take a deep look at it, and directly imprisoned the crown prince Fu Wuhao, and later listened to Fei Wujie's words and killed Wu Hao and his eldest son Wu Shang. Wu Zixu was the second son of Wu Hao, and the reason why he fled to the state of Wu and later excavated the tomb of King Chuping and whipped the corpses of three hundred was because King Chuping killed innocents indiscriminately.
Is King Chuping bad enough to snatch love from his son and kill the innocent Wu Hao and Wu Shang? It's bad enough, but it's not the worst. The worse thing That King ChuPing did was to allow for corruption and to betray the country for glory.
1. Allowing corruption to go
At the beginning, king ChuPing was able to successfully pretend that King Chu Ling killed back to Chu capital, frightening Gongzi Bi to death, and Man Chengran (ZiQi) had a certain merit, so after King Chu Ping took the throne, he appointed Man Chengran as Lingyi.
However, Man Chengran was proud of his achievements, colluded with the huge rich Yang Clan, was insatiable in greed, and did not know how to control. King Chuping felt that Man Chengran's actions were a potential threat to him, and it was convenient to kill Man Chengran and destroy the Yang clan in the first year of his reign (529 BC). Afterwards, King Chuping also enfeoffed Dou Li, the son of Man Chengran, as the Duke of Yun, in order to show that he did not forget the merits of the Dou clan, which not only appeased the elders, but also won the hearts and minds of the people.
In fact, the real purpose of King Chuping's killing of Man Chengran and the destruction of the Yang clan was only to consolidate his rule, with no intention of punishing corruption.
Through this incident, the nobles of the Chu State all understood a truth: corruption is harmless, as long as it does not offend King Chu Ping, everything will be fine.
Therefore, Lu Jia of the Western Han Dynasty said in the "New Language and Wuwei": "The king of Chuping was extravagant and indulgent, and could not be controlled, and the procurators were virtuous, and they rode a hundred horses, and wanted to make the people of the world spare wealth and profits, which was beyond reach, so the Chu state exceeded the luxury, and the monarchs and subjects were no different." This means that during the reign of King Chu Ping, corruption became common among the kings and subjects of the Chu state, even more so than during the time of King Chu Ling.
2. Selling the country and seeking glory
During the reign of King Zhuang of Chu, the State of Chu was once very powerful and became the hegemon of the world. After the death of King Zhuang of Chu, chu was in constant civil strife and weakened its national strength, but the kings of Chu Gong, Chu Kang, and Chu Ling were generally able to maintain their status as a great power. During the reign of King Chu Ling, the State of Chu successively destroyed the State of Cai and the State of Chen, and even showed signs of dominating the world.
However, after King Chuping ascended the throne, in order to curry favor with the princes of the world and consolidate his position, King Chuping actually allowed the kingdoms of Chen and Cai, which had been hard to fight during the reign of King Chu Ling, to restore the kingdom and let the descendants of the original monarchs of the two countries take the throne.
And that's not all. In order to tie up the State of Zheng, King Ping of Chu was also prepared to return to the State of Zheng the lands that the State of Chu had previously occupied. The two counties are important towns in the north of the Chu State, and if they are returned to the Zheng State in this way, it will obviously be very unfavorable to the Chu State. Later, fortunately, Zhi Ruzi, an emissary sent to Zheng Guo, "made up his own mind", and the Chu state did not return the two places to Zheng Guo.
In short, during the reign of King Chu Ping, the strength of the Chu state declined day by day, and not only lost the strong strength of the Jin-Chu struggle for hegemony, but also deliberately courted small countries, and even repeatedly violated by small countries. Such a king, who was whipped by Wu Zixu, really deserved it!