As soon as King Yue heard that there was a Chu envoy coming to Yue, he muttered in his heart, why didn't he listen to the note from Chu State? Hmph, this Chu State, without Qin's beating, his head is cocked again, isn't it? He thought so in his heart, but his feet still involuntarily climbed up to the teahouse.

The king of Yue sat down, and after the guests and hosts greeted him, Zhuang Ji spread his hands and said to the king of Yue that the current trend is today, and Chu and Qin divide the world. But now the Qin royal family is busy fighting for the throne, and it will not be able to fight for a few years, even if the king has a lord, he is also a little child who does not know the matter, and his mother is regent, whether he can protect himself is still unknown, let alone expand outward.

And what about the state of Chu? The mother of the Qin regent, the Empress Dowager Xuan, is the sister of the palace of Chu......

When King Yue heard this, cold sweat broke out all over his body. He nodded yes and said yes, expressing his willingness to surrender to Qiang Chu.

Zhuang Ji, with his three-inch tongue, easily won the Yue Kingdom without spending a single soldier. He returned to Jiangling, the capital of Chu, with the sword of King Yue and King Yue, to report to King Huai of Chu.

King Huai was overjoyed, and then Zhuang Ji returned to Yuedi and became the supreme administrator of Dongdi.

After subjugating the land of Wu Yue, the territory of Chu nearly doubled outward. It is said that the Chu State is getting stronger and stronger. However, under the control of the Empress Dowager of Qin Guoxuan, the eighth son of Mi Bazi, established her son as the king.

Soon, the situation took a turn for the worse. Although Qin Zhaogong, the new king of Qin, is young and has little experience in governing the country, he has the teachings of his mother, and the old ministers are supportive, and what is even worse is that this King Qin Zhao is bent on working hard to achieve great things and dominate the world. And his mother is precisely the extraordinarily capable princess Mi Yue of the Chu Palace.

That year, King Qin Zhao, who was full of pimples, knew that after the former king died in the west, the Chu State had expanded greatly. If he continues to use the old method of shooting with a hard bow against the Chu State in the past, it will not be easy to do it.

Fortunately, King Chu Huai is his uncle's family, and family affection is the best anesthetic. He listened to the advice of the old minister, and personally repaired a letter to his uncle of Chu State, the Great King, and couriered Chu State with the honor of "National Letter".

When King Chu Huai received a letter from his nephew from a foreign country and the new King of Qin, he was naturally overjoyed.

Qin Guo's letter said that he asked the two countries to reconcile, become good relatives, good neighbors and good partners to communicate with each other, and value peace, so that the world is not harmonious? How wonderful! And sincerely invite King Huai of Chu to meet at Wuguan, and Qin and Chu form an alliance to show the world.

To be honest, King Chu Huai didn't want to play a game of fighting with Qin for a long time.

Not to mention that the Qin State is strong, the most important thing is that the relationship between the two kings is that of an uncle and a nephew.

As the saying goes, the nephew gives the uncle a lantern - according to the uncle (old), this can be played. But if you want to fight, you will break your bones and still have tendons, so it hurts to play like this.

Therefore, King Huai was very grateful to this sensible nephew and decided to go to Wuguan to regain family affection.

However, for the sake of prudence, King Chu Huai specially recalled Zhuang Ji, who was far away in the east, to discuss with the ministers.

Unexpectedly, a rare good thing was opposed by Qu Yuan and Zhuang Ji.

Jin Shang said to King Huai that Qu and Zhuang were originally comrades in a pair of pants, and they tried their best to dissuade the king, and they must have bad intentions, for fear that the king and Qin would reconcile, and as soon as there was peace, they would be reconciled, and they would not be useless?

And Qu Yuan and Zhuang Ji were resolute, dissuading King Huai from thinking carefully, it was best not to go, if he went, he would definitely not come back.

Why?

Qu Yuan said that because the Qin State had long been eyeing the Chu State, it was impossible to take the initiative to form an alliance with Chu. This letter is nothing but a smokescreen to cover the eyes of the king; It was an anesthetic that made Chu Guo's tense nerves unconscious; It was the bait that was thrown out, deceived the king into taking the bait, and finally annexed the state of Chu.

However, Jin Shang and Zilan, the two powerful ministers, urged King Huai to attend the meeting on time, saying that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the two countries to reconcile, and it was also an opportunity for his uncle and nephew to conclude an alliance. But if you don't go, it's the wrong thing about the Chu State, and if the Qin State calls again, it will be reasonable and legal, and it will be justified.

Practice has proved that the king's promotion of democracy and the discussion of ministers is only a formality. He had already made up his mind that democracy could not be stopped. Because he especially believes in the Empress Dowager Xuan of Chu, who is honest and obedient to the government and holds the real power of the Qin State.

On that day, King Chu Huai went to the meeting as promised, and arrived at the meeting place - Wuguan early to meet King Qin Zhao, the half-brother of King Wu of Qin.

Who knows, after the two kings met, they hadn't yet shushed the cold and asked for warmth, and King Chu Huai hadn't had time to pour out his thoughts about King Qin Zhao's nephew, but he was proposed by King Qin, and your Chu State must give all Wu and Qianzhong County to Qin State for free.

King Chu Huai was shocked and asked forcefully, "Why are you?" ”

King Qin Zhao said calmly, not on the basis of anything, just rely on the martial arts meeting between you and your nephew now, uncle. If you don't agree, you will always be here, and don't go back to Chu to be the king.

King Chu Huai was so angry, so angry that his ribs hurt. But it was too late to regret it, so I had to continue to say angrily, I didn't agree, I didn't agree, I didn't agree, I didn't agree. It can be seen that King Chu Huai still has backbone. He really died until he died, and he died in the Qin State, and he never promised to give Qin half of the land.

King Chu Huai was detained by Qiang Qin, and the country cannot be without a king for a day. What's more, if the state of Chu has no monarch for a long time, and the state of Qin really detains King Huai as a good dish and messes up the state of Chu, what should it do?

The youngest son of King Chu Huai's youngest wife, Zheng Sleeve, was named Zilan, who happened to be in Yingdu (now Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province), and he was not sad at all about his father's detention, but that excitement, which was indescribable. Why? There is also a past worth telling.

When King Chu Huai, in the face of the powerful Qin State, he was afraid that he would be weak and weak, so he wanted to engage in horizontal contact and form an alliance with the Qi State. In order to show his sincerity, Huai Wang had a heart and sent Xiong Heng, the prince of Chu, who had been appointed, to Qi as a hostage.

But later, because of the trade-offs between their own interests, King Chu Huai repeatedly made stupid moves, offended the Qi State, and even severed the alliance. The people of Qi are interesting enough, and they did not kill the prince Xiong Heng.

At this time, King Huai of Chu was detained by Qin, and the successor prince was pledged in Qi State. Therefore, it is strange that Zilan, the youngest son of King Huai, can't sleep at night when he is not excited. His mother, Zheng Sleeve, jumped up and down to win over the minister. She and Zilan conspired with Jin Shang and asked him to preside over the establishment of the new king. But Princess Jingyin, the daughter of King Huai, stopped her and said, you all wait, it is not a trivial matter to establish a new king, and you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry.

Qu Yuan learned that King Chu Huai was detained by Qin, and regarded this as a major matter pressed down by the heavens, so he quickly sent people to the east to ask Zhuang Ji to return to Ying.

Zhuang Ji is in charge of half of the territory of Chu in the east, has 300,000 soldiers in the east, and is an important minister of the Chu state.

When the ministers held a meeting to study the establishment of a new king, Jin Shang first said: "King Huai was detained, and Prince Xiong Heng was kept as a hostage, and he may not be able to save his life, and the country cannot be without a king for a day." ”

"Well, yes." Zilan continued.

Qu Yuan said solemnly: "What does Doctor Jin ......mean?"

"Isn't that obvious? The only one who can take on the heavy responsibility today is the little prince Zilan, oh no, Prince Zilan. The old minister proposed that Lizilan be the king, which would definitely stabilize the Chu State, recover the lost land, and make the people healthy. Jin Shang really showed his feet.

Princess Jingyin, who was busy behind the scenes, couldn't bear to step out of the curtain wall after hearing this: "Who said that? Isn't the eldest brother of this princess good in Qi now? Why don't you take him back, but set up a new king? ”

Zhuang Ji said solemnly: "Yes, now the king and the crown prince are trapped in other countries, and today you have disobeyed the king's order and set up another concubine, which is not in accordance with the king's law." ”

"That's right, we should take the initiative to go to the country of Qi, explain the situation, take the crown prince Xiong Heng back to China, and make him the king. Junzheng is obedient, the words are obedient to the people, the people are obedient, and the strength can be gathered. You should understand this. Qu Yuan took the lead in agreeing with Zhuang Ji's opinion.

Jin Shang poured his heart into Chen and said: "But, who will go to Qi Country to be a lobbyist? Besides, the king of Chu was detained by others, what a shameful thing, which one has the face and which one says it, anyway, the old minister will not go to Qi to do such a shameful thing. ”

Princess Jingyin stood up and said: "You feel embarrassed and don't go, this princess is not afraid of making a fool of herself, and she is willing to go to Qi to pick up her brother." ”

"No, no." Qu Yuan stopped, "If you want to take the prince back to China, it's not that you can pick it up." It is necessary to find a suitable reason to make it difficult for Qi to shirk. It is even more necessary to send the right person, so that Qi Guo has nothing to say. ”

At this time, Zilan was sitting on the king's chair, shaking her head, just waiting for the minister to come and worship.

Jin Shang said with bad intentions: "According to Qu Lao'er's words, there is no reason, and there is no suitable candidate, in fact, I still don't want to take the prince back to China, why do you have to go around, and in the end, you don't want to establish Zilan as the king?" He turned to Zilan and said, "The king is above, please bow to the old minister." ”

Zhuang Ji looked at it and said angrily: "Okay, nonsense, do you really want to do the opposite?" Although the state of Chu belongs to the Xiong family, there are prescribed procedures for establishing a prince, and it is not something that can be counted by anyone who says it. What's more, Prince Xiong Heng is the prince who has been set by the previous king, and he is still alive, why should he set up a new king? You don't want to make Qi, the eastern land where Ji is located is not far from Qi, I am willing to go out to Qi to pick up the prince. ”

Qu Yuan stopped: "Hey, no. You are an important minister of the Chu State, how can you take this risk? It's better to send an envoy who can speak well, Qu Yuan's method is to convince the king of Qi that it will not work if he does not let the prince return to China. ”

Jin Shang sneered disdainfully: "Hmph, you have a way? You only have the only way to rectify my great Chu. ”

After the envoys of Chu entered Qi, according to Qu Yuan's arrangement, they found the best reason to take back the prince, saying that King Chu Huai had passed away, and he went to Qi to report the prince's funeral.

When King Qi Min heard this, he was very happy, and discussed with the minister of the country and said: "It is better to take this opportunity to blackmail Chu and ask them to hand over the land of Huaibei before agreeing to let the prince of Chu go back." ”

The prime minister is a person with brains, he thought for a moment and said: "No, if they don't want the current prince and set up a new king, then we will leave hostages empty, and we will have nothing left, and they will say that Qi Guo has done unkind and unrighteous things, cheated and abducted, despicable and shameless, and has been laughed at by the people of the world, and the gains outweigh the losses." ”

"Oh? So what to do? King Qi asked.

The minister said: "It's better to let the prince of Chu go back, and when he becomes the king, I will thank the king of Qi for your great kindness." However, you can take this opportunity to ask him to sign a contract first, and promise to cede the land of Huaibei to us. The king let him return to the country and become the new king, and in the future, if we have any trouble, go to him, and he will not be able to refuse. ”

It is conceivable that Xiong Heng, the prince of Chu, lived a life of anger and longing in the country of Qi, once he had the opportunity to return to his motherland, and there was still an empty throne waiting for him to sit. He agreed to King Qi's request without hesitation, and without saying a word, he signed his name on the agreement.

Xiong Heng, the prince of Chu, returned to Chu State, and before his ass sat on the throne chair, the envoys of Qi State followed him to Chu State in a hurry, urging him to honor the land cession.

Xiong Heng spread his hands and said, "You see that I am not a king yet, how can I have the right to allocate land to you?" Go back quickly and say to King Qi, tell him to be calm and calm and calm down, it is not good to publicize this matter of cutting the land, it will mess things up, if you leak the secret of heaven, the minister is against it, and the land is cut up, I have no other way. ”

When King Qi heard this, it was this reason. He was really calm, and he waited for two years.

Two years later, Xiong Heng had already sat on the chair of the king of Chu, and according to the rules of the Chu royal family, he was renamed King Qingxiang.

The king of Qi was always thinking about the land cession of Chu, and constantly urged the king of Qingxiang to cede the land of Huaibei as soon as possible.

King Qingxiang saw that Qi was very important to Huaibei, so he decided to fulfill his promise and assign that piece of land to Qi. I thought to myself, anyway, it is also the land brought by Wu Yue, and one more piece of land or one less piece of land has little to do with the Chu State, so just give it.

When Zhuang Ji heard that the new king was going to cede the vast territory of Huaibei to Qi without compensation, he was furious and went to Yingdu to stop the king's decision.

But King Qingxiang said with full reason: "The lonely king signed the agreement when the Qi country was leaving, if he didn't sign it, the lonely king would not be able to return to the Chu country, and he would take the life of the lonely king." If you sign it, you have to talk and count, and you can't ask the lone king to be a treacherous hypocrite. ”

Zhuang Ji saw that the king of Chu cut the land and had nothing to say, so he quickly returned to the east in a fit of anger, wanting to be his king of the east again.

Seeing this, Jin Shang immediately secretly offered advice to King Qingxiang: "Don't kill Zhuang Ji quickly, otherwise, there will be endless troubles." ”

Obviously, King Qingxiang didn't understand the anger on Zhuang Ji's face, and didn't take Jin Shang's suggestion, saying that he wanted to go back to Dongdi, so let him go back. And he felt very credible and agreed to allocate a large area of Huaibei territory to the Qi State.

The news spread, like popcorn in a pot, and some ministers risked their lives to persuade the king to take back his order.

But King Qingxiang was unmoved, and insisted on forcing Zhuang Ji to comply.

The young and vigorous Zhuang Ji, as the supreme commander with 300,000 soldiers in the east, enjoys high prestige in the east. As soon as he gave an order, he led the soldiers to resist the takeover troops of the Qi State, and kept the Qi army out.

Whoever violates the king's decree is guilty of killing the head.

Zhuang Ji did not do anything, and simply announced the establishment of an autonomous government in Huaibei (now Shou County, Anhui) in the Chu State, and became the king of Yue.

This angered some of the ministers of the Chu State. Jin Shang immediately suggested that King Qingxiang send troops to recruit traitors and give an explanation to the Qi State.

King Qingxiang was angry, but right now the state of Chu was facing the most rigorous challenge in history, and it was faced with a difficult choice to do anything.

King Qingxiang chose to tolerate Zhuang Ji with difficulty.

But he did not make up his mind to forge ahead secretly and one day clean up the village, but thought that he had been to Qi, been a hostage, suffered hardships, been discriminated against, and suffered crimes, no one compared, and even the treatment of living in the cowshed was not as good.

Today's Xiong Heng, who has become a king, has turned over and is liberated, not to mention, he is still in power, and he has the authority to say everything about people and things. Thinking of this, he thinks that with a lot of energy spent on managing Zhuang Ji, it is better to eat, drink and have fun to catch up with the capital, and get back the lost youth, glory and wealth.

Not to mention his wanton leisure and enjoyment on the throne, he also built a large number of buildings and built a "summer resort" in Yan (now Yicheng, Hubei). At this point, the national strength of the Chu State has been consumed like a thin mule and horse, and only a skeleton remains. The surrounding countries, especially the Qin State in the northwest, adjusted their strategy and launched an attack on the Chu State from the northern, central, and western fronts.

Twenty years later, in the 20th year of King Qingxiang (279 BC), the state of Chu was already in danger and could not protect itself. Qu Yuan persuaded King Qingxiang to lower his body and surrender Zhuang Ji, a famous general of Chu who was far away in Huaibei.

When King Qingxiang heard this bad idea, his head became bigger. Think of this Zhuang Ji, a traitor who openly exposed the uprising, divided the Chu land, and entrenched the autonomy of the eastern land. Now, the lonely king wants to ask him to come out of the mountain and turn the tide, isn't this a big joke? If you don't kill Qu Yuan, it will be difficult to solve the hatred in the heart of the lonely king!

Although Qu Yuan saw that King Qingxiang had not yet lifted the scourge of killing himself, it was still difficult to accept the fact that he was secretly living, so he took the risk to persuade the king again: "The old minister understands the mood of the king, but the king should also think about it from another angle, although he Zhuang Ji has been cutting the land and governing for so many years, after all, this eastern land is in the hands of the descendants of the king of Chu, and it does not pose the slightest threat to the king. On the contrary, with Zhuang Ji's autonomy, the king of Qi could not get Huaibei, not to blame the king, but to blame him for the lack of this ability in the country of Qi. Zhuang Ji ruled the eastern land, that is, he kept half of the territory of Chu State, and also made the king not align and break his trust. Therefore, this is not the treachery of the king, but the fragmentation of my Chu country forced by the Qi State. Therefore, the king of Qi no longer had the face to mention the matter of cutting the land. As a result, the king not only saved the trouble of forcing the Qi State to perform the contract, but also held his head high in front of the people and had face. The autonomy of the Zhuang Ji base area cut off the territorial connection between the Qi State and the Chu State, making the northeast of Chu a worry-free place. It's a bad thing turned a good thing. ”

King Qingxiang tilted his head and said, "According to Qu Aiqing's statement, Zhuang Ji has become a meritorious minister for the Chu State?" ”

"That's not what the old minister meant." Qu Yuan said with a smile, "The old minister just wants to ask the king to have a comprehensive consideration of Zhuang Ji's matter, which shows that he ran away in a negative mood, and he became the lord of the eastern land because he resisted the Qi State, and broke the rules of the Chu State." But objectively speaking, this incident is not good to say outrightly, but secretly it is beneficial to the Chu State. Qi Guo is dumb and eats Coptis chinensis on this matter - there are words of suffering. If the king takes the initiative to summon Zhuang Ji back to the palace, reconcile with him and reuse it, he has not only gained talents, but also restored half of the Chu State, what is wrong with this? What's more, if you harvest the village, you will get the eastern land. His army of 300,000 only took out 100,000 to resist Qin, and he could recover the lost territory of Western Chu, and he could continue to advance westward, expand the territory for the future of Chu, and gain strategic depth, what's wrong with this? ”

After hearing this, King Qingxiang thought about it. In desperation, he had no choice but to listen to Qu Yuan's words, send an envoy with the royal order, and Feng Zhuang Ji was named the "Great Sima" of Chu (that is, the highest military and political chief, no different from the prime minister. ), recall it back to Ying, and discuss the country.

Zhuang Ji saw the order of the king of Qingxiang, and thought about it. Whenever I think of today's King of Chu, who is arrogant and lascivious, doesn't think about state affairs, reuses traitors and villains, and likes to do things that deceive himself, he is not a good master. Therefore, he was unmoved, rejected the envoy, and insisted on holding on to the east.

The king of Qingxiang had nothing to do, so he had to sigh in the palace all day long: no one to help the lonely, the sky will be destroyed.

For Zhuang Ji's refusal, Qu Yuan did not lose confidence. He decided to personally go out to persuade Zhuang Ji.

Qu Yuan personally went to Huaibei to report the crisis of Chu State, and persuaded Zhuang Ji to take the responsibility that the descendants of King Chu Zhuang should bear, and dare to take responsibility for the sake of thousands of people in Chu State. You shouldn't sit back and watch yourself when the Chu State is in crisis, and even deliberately watch King Qingxiang's jokes.

As soon as Qu Yuan mentioned "watching jokes", Zhuang Ji quit. He angrily defended: "Today's king likes to rape villains, cruelty to loyal and capable ministers, and he is extravagant and wasteful, and he is a scumbag and garbage king who is not worthy of loyalty." Moreover, this person is narrow-minded and capricious, if he returns to Ying, he will definitely cut off his head for treason, so as to relieve his treachery to Qi Guo. ”

Qu Yuan knew that this was an expression of Zhuang Ji's indisputable hatred, and it was also a kind of worry. But Qu Yuan also felt that he couldn't find a suitable reason to persuade him. What can I do?

Suddenly, Qu Yuan clapped his hands, "Hey, there is." ”

Zhuang Ji asked curiously, "What's the matter?" ”

Qu Yuan ignored Zhuang Ji, but secretly said excitedly in his heart: "If the old minister says her, you are still indifferent, then the old minister will turn his head and leave, and he will never come to beg you Zhuang again." But he didn't say it, but pretended to be leaving, packed his bags, and went out.

Zhuang Ji took Qu Yuan's arm and asked, "You said you have it, what's the matter?" Don't want to say it to me? ”

Qu Yuan sighed and said, "Oh, please don't move, I'll rush back......"

Zhuang Ji stopped Qu Yuan's words: "Hey, what did you say?" Don't eat any food, want to go back? ”

"That person's temper, you don't know it, you don't remember her, she remembers you." Qu Yuan replied softly.

It has been almost twenty years since Zhuang Ji left Yingdu, and he immediately searched for memories in Jiangling and Yingdu, wanting to know what else is worth remembering there, but there is nothing.

So, he said to Qu Yuan with confidence: "If Doctor Sanlu can say something worth remembering, Doctor Sanlu will immediately follow the doctor back to Yingdu to assist the king in relieving the danger of Chu." ”

Qu Yuan stopped, stretched out his right palm and said, "Okay, this is what you said, come, we will high-five us as an oath, and we will not violate it." ”

Zhuang Ji stretched out his palm at the same time, and "snapped" together with Qu Yuan's hand and said, "Never regret it." ”

"Okay, you said it yourself, and it reassures me." Qu Yuan showed a happy gaze and put the luggage in his hand back to its place.

Zhuang Ji further reminded: "Don't be happy too early, even if there is someone who makes Ji nostalgic, but this time I go back is a matter of cutting off my head, and I won't be fooled." ”