When did Su Qin die?

The record of the Zizhi Tongjian is quite brief, but it only says that a certain Qi guo doctor and Su Qin competed for favors and sent assassins to assassinate Su Qin. According to Sima Qian, Su Qin set out from the Yan state to plot and conspire, turned around in the international community, relied on one mouth to be invincible, returned to the Zhao state after successfully completing the mission, was crowned wu an jun by Zhao Suhou, and then gave the Qin state a copy of the shandong six-kingdom alliance, so that the qin state was honest for 15 years.

Later, the State of Qin sent rhinoceros to deceive the State of Qi and the State of Wei, and agreed to go together to fight the State of Zhao. The State of Qin did this in order to destroy the relationship between the two sides. Of course, King Zhao did not do it, and blamed Su Qin for not doing a good job. Su Qin, fearing that he would be held accountable, requested an envoy to the State of Yan, saying that he must take revenge on the State of Qi. Su Qin left the Zhao Kingdom in this way, and with his departure, the relationship between the two sides collapsed.

All of the above things are unreasonable in all aspects, and there are many contradictions with other records, and the timeline cannot be sorted out clearly, so When Sima Guang compiled the "Zizhi Tongjian", he had to make a big deletion and major change, and also gave a reason in the "Tongjian Examination", saying that the contradiction between the "History" was too serious, and the so-called "Qin Bing did not dare to spy on the fifteen years of Hanguguan" was just an exaggeration by the wanderers and could not be trusted.

Although Sima Guang was suspicious and did the research, the research was not done thoroughly, so when he wrote about the year of the Battle of the Fish, he mistakenly believed Sima Qian and wrote Su Qin to death. In fact, Su Qin was not dead at this time, and he had not even had time to really shine, but now we may as well follow the records of the "History" and "Zizhi Tongjian" to see the cause of Su Qin's death.

The first thing that needs to be understood is why Su Qin appeared in the State of Qi?

The Zizhi Tongjian has an explanation: Su Qin and Yan Wengong's wife had an adulterous affair, and this adulterous affair was known to his successor, King Yan Yi. Su Qin was afraid and did not dare to stay in the Yan kingdom for a long time, so he applied to the King of Yan Yi, saying that it was of little use to stay in the Yan kingdom, but if he went to the state of Qi, he could bring a lot of benefits to the Yan kingdom. King Yan Yi agreed.

Therefore, Su Qin pretended to have committed a crime in the Yan kingdom, absconded in fear of the crime, and defected to the state of Qi. King Xuan of Qi asked Su Qin to serve as a guest secretary, and Su Qin persuaded King Xuan of Qi to expand the size of the palace and gardens and display himself in a high profile. Su Qin wanted to use this method to drag down the economy of the State of Qi and help the State of Yan alleviate international pressure.

However, all the above records about Su Qin are actually unreliable, at least at this time, the State of Qi was still the reign of King Qi Wei, and King Xuan of Qi had not yet entered the stage of history. Whether it is The Duke of Yan Wen or the King of Yan Yi, it is likely that there is no relationship with Su Qin, and the King of Yan that Su Qin really serves is likely to be the future King of Yan Zhao.

According to the "Chronicle of Su Qin", Su Qin was very open in the State of Qi, and naturally it was very popular with others, so there were no high-ranking officials in the State of Qi who competed with Su Qin for favors. In the end, Su Qin was seriously injured by the Assassins. King Qi sent men to hunt down the Assassins, but they were not caught. Su Qinqiang held his breath and gave the King of Qi an idea, saying that he was going to die soon, and simply waited for his death, and asked the King of Qi to split his body and show it to the public, accused of being a traitor to the Yan Kingdom, so that the murderer would definitely appear.

The King of Qi acted according to the plan, and the murderer saw that there was still a chance to ask for credit, and he really stepped forward, but he did not expect to throw himself into the net, and was killed by the King of Qi, and Su Qin had to repay the great revenge.

But after all, Su Qin was really a traitor installed by the State of Yan in the State of Qi, and suddenly this death, the secret could not be hidden. The King of Qi later learned the truth and hated the State of Yan to the point of gritting his teeth, which made the State of Yan fearful, afraid of the retaliation of the State of Qi, so Su Qin's brother Su Dai appeared to help the King of Yan to come up with advice and succeed Su Qin in stage this treacherous power drama.

Let's refer to the "History of Zhang Yilie", which says that Zhang Yi stayed in the State of Wei for 4 years, until King Xiang of Wei died and King Wei Ai succeeded to the throne. The King of Wei did not listen to Zhang Yi's words, so Zhang Yi quietly contacted the State of Qin and asked the State of Qin to fight the State of Wei. Sure enough, the Qin army came from the west and hurt the State of Wei a little, and the next year the Army of the State of Qi came from the east again, and hurt the State of Wei again. Then the Qin army cut down Wei for the second time, first crippled the Korean general Shen Cha, beheaded 80,000 ranks, the princes were terrified, Zhang Yi took the opportunity to make a verbal argument, and finally pulled the King of Wei into the Lianheng camp.

Did you hear something was wrong? Shen Cha was defeated and beheaded at 80,000 levels, this is not a defensive counterattack fought by the Qin State after the Five Kingdoms cut down Qin, how was it counted on the head of the King of Wei, and there was nothing zhang Yi here? How did the timeline get all messed up?

There is even more chaos, in the "History of Zhang Yilie", a few years later, when Zhang Yi was fooling King Chu Huai in the Chu Kingdom, he heard the news of Su Qin's death, and quickly took this news as an argument, and then fooled King Chu Huai. Zhang Yi described Su Qin's death as follows:

"Su Qin, the number of people, was obviously the host of the connivance, but after becoming the prime minister of the State of Yan, he secretly plotted with the King of Yan to destroy the State of Qi and divide the land of the State of Qi, so he pretended to commit a crime in the State of Yan, fled to the State of Qi, was trusted by the King of Qi, and became the premier of the State of Qi. Two years later, Su Qin's plot was exposed, and King Qi was angry and showed Su Qin's car to the public. If such a sinister and devious person as Su Qin wants to manipulate the international situation and form a grand alliance, how can it be done? ”

Zhang Yi's implication is: Su Qin engages in collusion, belongs to unreliable people to do unreliable things, smart people are best not mixed, only LianHeng is the right way in the world.

In the book "History" alone, there are too many places in the "Biography of Su Qinlie" and "Zhang Yilie Biography" that cannot be combined. This is not to blame Sima Qian, because as mentioned earlier, at the end of the "History of Su Qin", Sima Qian said this passage: When the world talked about Su Qin, the statement was very confusing, and many things similar to Su Qin's style were attributed to Su Qin, even if these things did not happen in the era when Su Qin lived.

This means that when Sima Qian wrote the "Biography of Su Qin", although he had done his best to fake the truth, he actually did not dare to be sure of what the truth really was.

In any case, Sima Qian's record of Su Qin's death became one of the two classic cases of revenge after death in history.

The first case, as already mentioned earlier, was in the twenty-first year of King An of Zhou (381 BC), when King Chu mourned the death of Wu Qi, who had offended a large number of elderly nobles by presiding over reforms in the Chu state, lost his protective umbrella, and was besieged by the opposition.

According to the "Spring and Autumn of the Lü Dynasty", when Wu Qi was attacked, he was hit by an arrow, and knowing that he would die, he shouted to the rebels: "Let you see my art of war!" Then he pulled out an arrow that was shot at his body, inserted it into the corpse of King Chu Mourning, and planted the booty for the rebels. The corpse of the injured monarch is a felony of exterminating the clan, so "Lü Shi Chunqiu" admires Wu Qi's urgency and wisdom, and when he is dying, he can still lay down this bureau to avenge himself. When the King of Chu mourned, King Su of Chu succeeded to the throne, and all the rebels were destroyed, and more than 70 nobles were beheaded.

Wang Shizhen, a Ming Dynasty man, heard about the strong memories and combined the death of Wu Qi and the death of Su Qin, saying that these two were powerful figures who could avenge themselves after death.

Various records about Su Qin and Zhang Yi are always easy to mess up people, although the "Zizhi Tongjian" recorded Su Qin's death in the year of the Battle of The Fish, but Su Qin not only did not die at this time, but would also jump around alive for many years in the future.