For the entire Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and even the Eastern and Western Weeks, the State of Chu was a very alternative country.

As we all know, the Chinese nation also calls itself the descendants of Yan and Huang, and the origin of the word Yan and Huang is precisely because in ancient times, the two joined forces to defeat the Emperor Chiyou, the chief of the Jiuli tribe, the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor.

The bloodline of the Chu royal family comes from the grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Emperor Gaoyang.

Gaoyang has a great-grandson named Chongli, who was named "Zhurong" by the then emperor Gaoxin because of his merits, which is the origin of Zhurong, the god of fire in Chinese mythology.

During the reign of Emperor Yu, the Gonggong clan launched a rebellion, and Zhu Rong Chongli led troops to suppress it, and the two sides fought in Buzhou Mountain, which gave rise to the myth of the fire god Zhu Rong and the water god Gonggong war.

Chongli was executed by Emperor Yu for suppressing the Gonggong clan, and Chongli's younger brother Wu Hui took over as his elder brother and was still called "Zhurong".

Wu Hui's descendants passed down the line for the next thousand years, from the Three Emperors and Five Emperors to the Xia, Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, and also served as princes in the Xia and Shang dynasties, but eventually they all declined, and their descendants were scattered all over China.

Until the reign of Zhou Cheng Wang Ji Yu, the son of King Ji Fa of Zhou Wu, the son of the Zhou Dynasty, sealed one of Wu Hui's descendants, Xiong Yi, in the land of Chu Man, and the state of Chu was established from then on.

From a long-standing point of view, among the seven heroes of today's Warring States, the Chu State is undoubtedly the longest. But it is this Chu State that has always been regarded as a "Southern Barbarian" by other vassal states and disdained to be in the company.

Why is that? Mainly because the people of Chu are really bold, as early as seven hundred years ago (about 1000 BC), the state of Chu has officially raised the anti-flag and no longer recognizes the suzerainty of Zhou Tianzi over the state of Chu.

In the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou (977 BC), King Zhao of Zhou, the Son of Heaven, drove his own expedition to Chu State, and was annihilated by the whole army of Chu people, and King Zhao of Zhou also died on the battlefield, after which Chu State and Zhou Dynasty officially broke up.

When Xiong Qu was inaugurated as the monarch of Chu, the monarch of Chu even openly said, "I am a barbarian, and I don't speak to China." Then Xiong Qu made all three of his sons kings.

You must know that at this time, only Zhou Tianzi can be the king in the world, and there are still more than 600 years before the Warring States Period, when the etiquette collapsed and the princes of the Zhou Dynasty each claimed king! The deviance of the state of Chu can be seen.

It is precisely because of this that the state of Chu has been excluded from the Central Plains civilization circle for a long time and is not recognized by other vassal states, even after more than 600 years, this discrimination has not changed much.

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On September 3, 260 BC, the capital of Chu, Chencheng.

The people of Chu have a very interesting habit, that is, they like to call their capital "Yingdu", so this Chen City is also called "Chen Ying".

Although it is said that the territory of Chu at the moment is still in the forefront of the Warring States, second only to Qin, the capital of Chu State, Chen Ying, does not look very majestic, but shows a bit of gloom, just like the Chu State that has gradually become weaker.

Since the Qin State Wu'an Jun Bai Qi led his army to break through the capital of the Chu State, Yingdu, nineteen years ago, the Chu State was forced to move the capital to Chencheng.

Although nearly twenty years have passed, and although the King of Chu Qingxiang, who was as stupid as his father King Chu Huai, has been dead for three years, the country still seems to have no signs of revival, and it is still like a wounded giant beast, silently licking its wounds.

A team of carriages and horses slowly came northwest, gradually approaching Chen Cheng, escorting the convoy was a group of soldiers from Zhao State, and the middle-aged celebrity sitting in the carriage at the front of the convoy with fluttering sleeves was the envoy of Zhao State, Zhao State Secretary Yu Xin.

When Yu Xin looked at the silent city standing on the ground in front of him, he couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "The scenery of Chen Ying... Far inferior to Handan! Recalling the past years of Jin and Chu competing for hegemony, I don't expect that the current Chu country has fallen to Si! ”

Yu Xin's sentiment is justified.

The Warring States Period was preceded by the Spring and Autumn Period, and the theme of the Spring and Autumn Period was "Fighting for Hegemony", and there were a total of five overlords in this era.

Because including Qi Huan Gong Lu Xiaobai, the other overlords and their countries are only prosperous for a while, and the time for hegemony is also intermittent. During the Spring and Autumn Period, there were only two countries that really stood on the stage of hegemony, that is, the Jin State in the north and the Chu State in the south.

If Spring and Autumn is a game world, then the Jin Chu hegemony is the real main task of implementing this game world.

Let's look at the Jin State in the north first, the Jin State has risen strongly since the Jin Wen Gong Ji Chong'er, replacing the original Central Plains leader Qi State in one fell swoop, and becoming the well-deserved boss of the Central Plains at that time.

In the east, the big brother Qi was beaten by the Jin State, and he was almost invincible against the Jin State. In the west, Jin Xianggong Ji Yu, the son of Jin Wen Gong Ji Chong'er, completely annihilated tens of thousands of Qin elites led by Zhao Renhao, another Spring and Autumn overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period, in the Battle of Kunshan, thus achieving a decisive victory over Qin and completely shattering the Qin people's dream of competing for hegemony.

After that, the powerful Jin state suppressed the Qin state within the Hangu Pass for more than a hundred years, and it was not until the Jin state disintegrated into the three kingdoms of Zhao, Wei, and Han that the Qin state once again saw the hope of eastward expansion and put it into action.

Excluding the barbarians in the north, the Jin State can be said to have achieved decisive victories in the east and west directions, and both of them trampled the two main opponents of Qin and Qi under their feet.

It was only when expanding to the south that the Jin State encountered an extremely difficult opponent, and this country was, of course, the Chu State.

If it is said that as a branch of the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty, the Jin State, one of the vassal states surnamed Ji, is a typical second-generation official, rich, handsome and domineering president, then the Chu State, which has been called the "Chu Barbarian" by the Central Plains for hundreds of years, its rise is undoubtedly a model of Diaosi's counterattack.

Don't talk about anything, the ancestors of the Chu State are also wide, go up to 5,000 years, whose ancestors are not Emperor Yan and Emperor Huangdi?

Just when Duke Ji of Jin Wen was in high spirits to accept the courtship of the princes, he suddenly found that the Chu barbarians in the south were coming.

At this time, the state of Chu was no longer the state of Chu that had been suppressed by the Hanyang Zhuji for nearly two hundred years. At that time, more than a dozen vassal states surnamed Ji in the Hanyang region, which were like an iron chain that locked the northward route of the Chu State, have now been annexed by the Chu State and are no longer a threat to the northward movement of the Chu State.

With great ambitions, the people of Chu crossed the Dabie Mountains under the leadership of the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chuzhuang, the king of Xionglu, and went north to the banks of the Yellow River, vowing to win the Central Plains.

After that, countless battles broke out between Jin and Chu.

The Jin state, plagued by civil strife, was defeated in the Battle of Yi in 597 BC and was forced to recognize the hegemony of King Chu Zhuang.

But the victory of Chu was short-lived, after solving the civil strife, the rich and handsome Jin State made a comeback, and successively defeated Chu in the Battle of Chengpu, the Battle of Yingbei, the Battle of Yanling, the Battle of Zhanhan and other battles, and in the Jin Expedition Cai attacked Chu Poshen Battle, Jiaoyi Battle and Zhanhan Battle many times into Chu proper, and even Xiong Xian, the son of King Zhuang of Chu, was once blinded by the Jin people.

But the people of Chu just don't admit defeat.

The State of Qi was subdued by the Jin State, gave up the idea of fighting for hegemony, and was willing to be the second after the Jin State for most of the Spring and Autumn Period, and occasionally came out to make trouble when the Jin State was in decline. The Qin State was subdued by the Jin State, and for more than a hundred years, the turtle shrank in Guanzhong, not daring to take a step east.

Only the state of Chu was not convinced.

I could have lost, but I was not convinced.

Throughout the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Chu was defeated and defeated against the Jin State for most of the time, and was defeated again and again, but it never bowed its head.

The State of Chu is like a small strong man who can't be killed, no matter how the overlord Jin State ravages and tramples, but he will always make a comeback, and then stand in front of the overlord Jin State again, loudly proclaiming the world.

I! No! Wear!

I just don't fucking accept it!

Again!

The war between Jin and Chu lasted so long, and the intensity of the battle was so fierce and brutal, that it could only be compared with the Hundred Years War between France and England a thousand years later.

If it weren't for the fact that the Chu State had firmly contained the Jin State on the frontal battlefield for more than 100 years and nearly 200 years, it is very likely that the Jin State, the protagonist of the Spring and Autumn Period, would have dominated the world before it was completely split into the Three Kingdoms of Han, Zhao and Wei due to civil strife.

In 546 B.C., after finding that it could not completely defeat the Chu State, the Jin State finally allied with the Chu State under the mediation of the Song State, which was known as the "Soldier Killing Conference" in history.

Since then, Jin and Chu have equally divided the hegemony of the Central Plains, and the small and powerful Chu State from the south has obtained the status of being equal to the overlord of the Central Plains, the rich and handsome Jin State, and has become the co-CEO of the Spring and Autumn Period.

It was also the last gorgeous performance of the Jin and Chu countries on the Spring and Autumn stage, because not long after, the Warring States period arrived.

Since then, it has been almost 300 years. The Jin State, the overlord of the Central Plains of that year, was replaced by the "Three Jins" Zhao Wei Han, and the small strong Chu State that could not be killed at that time fell from the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period to be beaten by the Qin State in a fancy way, and became the small sand bag of the Qin people.

This situation really made Yu Xin, the secretary of Zhao Guo, who was familiar with history, have to sigh with emotion.

"The Jin Kingdom has passed away, could it be that this Chu State is also going to follow in the footsteps of the Jin Kingdom?"

In Yu Xin's sigh, the convoy of the mission from Zhao slowly approached the gate of Chen Cheng.