What is the reason that this superpower, which dominates the world, has fallen to such a state? Let's review the international pattern of the past, which also has reference significance for today.

First, the land of the four wars is lacking in skill; Make enemies on all sides and grudge the world. The reason for the decline of Wei is very important because of its geographical location, although Wei inherited the richest territory of the Jin Dynasty, but also brought itself the dilemma of being surrounded by foreign powers. As can be seen from the map of the Warring States Period, the other six kingdoms of the Seven Heroes, except for Yan in the north, bordered the Wei State. Located in the Central Plains, the Wei State has Qiang Qin in the west, Han and Chu in the south, Zhao in the north, and Qi in the east. With such a geographical location, the country is strong and fashionable and can attack from all sides, and once the strength is weak, it will face siege from all directions. After the fiasco of Maling, the Wei State, which was greatly injured, was immediately attacked from all sides by Qi, Qin, Chu and Zhao, and was exhausted to deal with it, and finally the national strength was exhausted and collapsed. More than 2,000 years later, the German Empire, which was unable to fight on two fronts in the world war, must have felt the same way. Europe's sandwich biscuit Germany, with the same disease as Wei. Wei's blind expansion also led to the defeat of Wei's hegemony. During the era of Marquis Wu of Wei, although the Wei State made great achievements in military affairs, it also made extremely serious strategic mistakes. As early as the time of Wei Wenhou, Wu Qi put forward the idea of concentrating forces to destroy Qin, so that Wei could not only get rid of the situation of being attacked on all sides, but also get the danger of Guanzhong and seek the world. The expansion policy of Wei Wuhou's eagerness to achieve quick success and quick profit from all sides made the countries suffer from the land grabbing by Wei soldiers, and the Han and Zhao countries belonging to the Three Jin Dynasty also resented the suppression of the Wei State, which directly led to the collapse of the Three Jin Alliance, which Wei Wenhou painstakingly managed. The successor King Hui of Wei thought that he was able to dominate the princes with the strength of Wei alone, ignoring the dilemma that Wei was already under enemy on all sides, and frequently used troops abroad, fighting with Han and Zhao allies, or capturing Handan, or attacking Xinzheng, making Wei the target of the princes of the world. The miserable princes unanimously agreed: If we don't put this giant down, none of us will want to have a good life. Under the consistent group beating of Qi, Chu, Qin, Zhao, and Han for decades, no matter how strong the Wei State is and how big it is, it will eventually be outnumbered one day.

Second, the loss of talents, Wei Cai Qin use. In a world of frequent battles such as the Warring States, the talent of helping the world is undoubtedly an important resource for all countries to compete for. After the death of Wei Wenhou, Wei Wuhou was suspicious of Wu Qi and forced him to leave Wei and go to Chu, which was already a big failure, and the mistakes made by King Wei Hui in employing people were as good as those of his father. King Wei Hui did not listen to his uncle's words, let Shang Yang go, and made his old enemy Qin Guoyi strong. King Hui of Wei believed Pang Juan's words and asked Sun Bin to blame, so that Wei was severely damaged by Guiling and Maling, and the elite division was lost. In the later years of King Wei Hui, Sun Yan and Zhang Yi of Wei were successively reused by King Huiwen of Qin, the former broke the Wei army and beheaded 80,000, and the latter deceived King Wei Hui to cede Shangjun to Qin by virtue of his three-inch tongue...... The talents of Wei are not reused in their own country, but they can exert their strength and show their ambitions in Qin, and the stubbornness of King Wei Hui has brought disaster to the country, and Wei has become strong because of the reuse of talents, and has declined due to the loss of talents.

Third, move the capital to the beams, taking care of one and losing the other. Moving the capital from Anyi to Daliang was another fatal mistake made by King Wei Hui. King Wei Hui's original intention should be to consolidate his authority in the East in order to compete with Qi and Chu for hegemony in the Central Plains. However, the eastward shift of the strategic center of gravity greatly reduced Wei's control over the western territories, giving Qin, which had long been contained by Wei, an opportunity. After the Battle of Maling, the Qin State took the opportunity to attack Wei, captured Wei Gongzi, and broke through the shore gate, captured Wei General Wei Cuo, and even the old capital Anyi was lost for a time. Before Wei moved its capital, Qin was powerless to intervene in the land west of Hexi, and at most could only capture a small amount of land in Henan through the Hangu Pass key road. Among them, in addition to the Shang Dynasty's reform of the law to greatly increase the national strength of the Qin State and the Battle of Maling to weaken the strength of the Wei State, the relocation of the capital to the Great Liang did bring a turnaround to the Qin State. King Wei Hui was obsessed with dominating the Central Plains, and never regarded the Qin state as a key strategic goal, intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the threat from the West. However, after the change, Qin is already a country of tigers and wolves that cannot be underestimated. In 319 B.C., King Wei Hui, who was over eighty years old, died with great regret and remorse. At this time, the hegemony created by Wei Wenhou had long since disappeared, and Wei was reduced to a second-rate state that vacillated between Qin, Qi and Chu. 94 years later, the Qin army flooded the Great Liang, and the King of Wei surrendered under the pretense of offering the city, and the Wei State, which once dominated the world and made the princes fearful, withdrew from the historical stage.

Why did the Seven Heroes of the Warring States first dominate the Wei State, which was surrounded by strong enemies, rather than the Chu State, which had a wider territory?

In 403 B.C., King Weilie of Zhou Tianzi officially canonized the kings of Han, Zhao and Wei as princes, and the pattern of Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin was formed, and Chinese history entered the Warring States Period. Among the seven vassal states, the country with the widest desert, the longest history, and the most talented people in China is Qin, Chu, and Qi, but the first to dominate among the seven heroes is the little-known Wei state.

From the beginning of the founding of the country, Wei is the most powerful national force in the Seven Heroes, to the second monarch Wei Wuhou era, Wei national strength reached its peak, at this time Wei has been in the west from the Qin State to seize a large area of land, but also united Han and Zhao to attack Qi and Chu, at this time Wei State has become the political center and economic center of the Central Plains.

Wei is located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, surrounded by strong enemies. With Qin in the west, Chu and Han in the south, Qi in the east, and Zhao in the north, the geopolitical situation is bad, and the land area and population are less than one-third of the Chu state.

First, we need to re-reform the country.

In Chinese history, from the autumn to the Warring States period, various princely forces carried out various degrees of reforms in order to win the fierce war for hegemony. Now we know that the Warring States Period was a turning point in China's transition from feudalism to the county system, and on this bend, whoever can first move towards the county system will win the battle for hegemony among the princes and unify China. Of course, we also know that the final winner in this reform race was the Qin state, which relied on the Shang Dynasty to reform the law and became a county state. If the Shang Dynasty reform is the end of this reform, then where is the starting point? In the state of Wei.

Wei Wenhou, the first monarch of Wei, worked hard and forged ahead, and after listening to a large number of suggestions, he decided to appoint Li Kui as the prime minister to be responsible for changing the law. Li Kui used to be a county warden, had profound grassroots work experience, and knew well where the contradictions hindered the development of Wei. He believed that if Wei wanted to become rich and strong, it must operate on the following aspects: first, land; second, the economy; third, the law; Fourth, politics.

In terms of land policy, Li Kui abolished the traditional well-field system and established a fiscal system in which taxes were levied proportionally according to grain production. Under the traditional well field system, the land was artificially divided into small plots belonging to peasants and nobles. The land that is divided into small plots looks like a tic-tac-toe from a distance, so it is called the Ida system. These lands are cultivated by farmers, and the harvest is distributed according to the actual yield of the plots. This created two problems, first, the carelessness of the peasants in cultivating the land that belonged to the aristocracy, resulting in a low grain yield on the aristocratic plots. Second, because the land is divided into small plots, it causes a waste of land resources. As a result of Li Kui's reforms, the land of Wei was maximized, the production of Wei peasants was actively improved, and grain output increased year after year.

After the implementation of the new land policy, Wei faced another problem: because the grain harvest season was extremely certain, so when the harvest time came, every household was in a hurry to sell grain, and the price of grain inevitably fell. When the season is planted, there is a shortage of grain due to winter consumption, and the price of grain rises again. This has caused the problem that Li Kui said, "Gu Ji àn) hurts the peasants, and Gu Gui hurts the people." Therefore, in terms of economic policy, Li Kui implemented the law of opening up the grain, and stabilized grain prices by purchasing grain at a high price when the state was stimulating grain and selling grain at a low price when it was expensive. The opening method created a very good economic atmosphere for grain production and opened up a situation for the further development of agricultural production in Wei.

After solving the land problem and the economic problem, Li Kui began to focus on social order. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, all countries were governed by etiquette, but in the Autumn Era, etiquette collapsed, and relying on non-compulsory etiquette to govern the country was no longer feasible. During the Warring States Period, various countries began to use coercive means to punish "thieves" who committed crimes, but because there were no laws that could be used throughout the country, the punishment measures were highly uncertain. If one official is sentenced to prison, another official may be sentenced to prison. The people cannot predict what the consequences of their actions will bring to themselves, which directly affects the further improvement of social security. As a result, Li Kui promulgated China's first systematic legal code, the Book of Laws. The "Book of Laws" not only stipulates in detail the punishment measures for specific criminal acts, but also lays down practical rules and regulations for officials to investigate and try cases.

At the political level, the problems faced by Wei were also the problems faced by all vassal states. The traditional feudal society implements the Shiqing Shilu system, in which titles, official titles, and salaries are passed down from generation to generation. Li Kui said that this is "the father has merit and he eats it", and the problem caused is that the incompetent aristocracy consumes a lot of political and economic resources of the country, and affects the use of capable scholars. So Li Kui, with the promise of Marquis Wei Wen, abolished the social privileges of the aristocracy, took back the titles that had been passed down from generation to generation, and rewarded the political and economic resources of the state-owned to the new ones who had made meritorious contributions. By abolishing the Shiqing Shilu system, Wei established a new type of bureaucracy. Under the new system, only those who have made outstanding contributions to the country in practical work can be rewarded, and the titles, official titles, and salaries bestowed on officials are no longer hereditary. Due to the abolition of the Shiqing Shilu system to the detriment of the interests of the old aristocracy, the reform at the political level encountered unprecedented resistance, but thanks to the determination of Wei Wenhou and the political wisdom of Li Kui, the conflict was invisible, and the reform was finally carried out smoothly.

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