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Among the Seven Heroes of the Warring States, the country with the longest history is the Qi State. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

But as a Chu State that has become a great power since the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, there are many things that have to be said.

The monarch of Chu was surnamed Xiong, and his ancestor claimed to be the descendant of Emperor Xuan, and as a tribal leader who was once subordinate to the Xia Dynasty, after the fall of the Xia Dynasty, because he was expelled by the Shang Dynasty and gradually went south to the Yangtze River basin to multiply.

Although the later monarchs of the Chu State mostly claimed to be princes, according to the corresponding records of the "Spring and Autumn Zuo Biography", the vassal states of the Central Plains thought that the monarchs of the Chu State could only be called barons.

The origin of this title should be based on the following: In the last years of the Shang Dynasty, the leader of the Chu people, Manxiong, assisted Ji Chang, the king of Zhou Wen, to raise troops to destroy the Shang and became a hero. Xiong Yan, the descendant of the bear, when Zhou became the king, raised the heir of Wen and Wu Diligent, and sealed Xiong Yan in Chu Man, and sealed the son of the man's field, surnamed Mi, lived in Danyang, and founded the country at the beginning of Chu.

It can be seen from here that the founding period of the state of Chu should be the period when King Cheng of Zhou was in charge of the land around Danyang as a baron.

But after that, although the State of Chu had repeatedly competed with the Jin State and the Qi State for dominating the world, its official title was more of a baron. Many of the titles of the kings of Chu are more of their own self-absorption.

Of course, the strength of the Chu State has nothing to do with the somewhat narcissistic monarch of the Chu State in this regard. At the time of the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the national power of the state of Chu had already begun to become quite strong.

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In the history of the Spring and Autumn Period, there is one person who has to be mentioned, that is, Guan Zhong, the protagonist of the famous idiom "Guan Bao's Friends".

And the state of Chu in the period of Guan Zhong was already quite powerful, and even this famous minister in the pre-Qin period had to resort to some tricks when facing the threat of the state of Chu.

This ruse is known as the "Deer Scheme".

The king of Qi wanted to attack Chu, and the generals also asked for battle, but Guan Zhong did not agree. He ordered men to scavenge copper coins day and night. and ordered more than 100 people to buy deer in Chu State. It also made people preach everywhere in the Chu State: Qi Huan is a good deer and buys it with a lot of money. The state of Qi began to sell deer, first three copper coins at one, and later five. So the Chu people actually went to the mountains to hunt deer, and the deer did become less and less, and it rose to forty copper coins after a month.

A year later, the copper coins of the Chu State were like mountains, but the grain source was decided. Guan Zhong also ordered the princes not to trade with Chu. Chu is in chaos, and there is money that can't buy food. When the famine started, people fled in all directions, and the Chu soldiers were thin and thin. Guan Zhong gathered the princes of the Eight Roads to crusade against the Chu State. King Chu Cheng sued for peace, respected Chu, lost land and the treasury was empty.

Of course, there is a big loophole in the authenticity of Lu Zhimou, that is, it is impossible to be effective within a year, after all, as a country whose national strength can make the Qi State at that time fearful, it is impossible to think about it if you want to consume the inventory of the Chu State in a year and a half.

Of course. This strategy also illustrates the fact that the state of Chu at that time already possessed a strength that was difficult for most of the princes of the Central Plains to match.

After all, for the sake of safety, Guan Zhong still launched the Princes' Alliance after using the deer's strategy to weaken the Chu State, and it can be seen that the troops of the Nine Kingdoms attacked the Chu State from the south of the Zheng State.

At that time, the land between the state of Chu and the state of Qi should not be bordering. In such a situation, if the Qi State wanted to attack the Chu State, the best way was to attack south along the land of the Zheng State.

And the construction time of the Great Wall of Qi also shows that the land border between Chu and Qi is bordered. It may be the late Spring and Autumn period or even the Warring States period.

In the history that followed, the development of Chu's national strength became stronger and stronger:

When Chu became the king, the state of Chu became stronger under the governance of Ling Yin Ziwen, resisting Duke Huan of Qi in the north and defeating Duke Xiang of Song in the south.

King Chuzhuang's martial arts are brilliant. He also made great efforts to govern the country, selected Sun Shuao to implement Wenye, and defeated the Jin State in the Battle of Yi to dominate. It made the Chu State economically prosperous and culturally prosperous, and created the most prosperous era of the Chu State in the Spring and Autumn Period.

In 606 B.C., the king of Chuzhuang conquered Lu Hun Zhirong (in the southwest of Luoyi) and sent people to ask Zhou Tianzi about the importance of Jiuding.

In 611 B.C. (the third year of King Chuzhuang), Yong and the barbarians rebelled, and the king of Chuzhuang "Zhenqi ate together". Open the grain depot of the state reserve, ensure the food of the army, and put down the rebellion.

Of course, during this period of time, there was another thing that made King Chu Cheng very helpless, that is, the first major battle between the Jin State and the Chu State, known as the Battle of Chengpu in history.

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In 632 B.C., in order to rescue the siege of the Song State, the Jin State defeated the Chu army in Chengpu (now southwest of Juancheng, Shandong), and opened a precedent of "soldiers and tricks". In April, the Jin and Chu armies fought at Chengpu (southwest of present-day Juancheng, Shandong) in order to compete for hegemony in the Central Plains. The Chu army was at the advantage, and the Jin army was at a disadvantage. The Jin State united with the Qi and Qin States and went south to rescue the Song capital Shangqiu. Cheng Dechen, the marshal of the Chu army, ignored the admonition of King Cheng of Chu and led his army to advance, but was annihilated by the Jin army on both wings. The Chu army was defeated.

Before this great war, there was also an allusion between King Cheng of Chu and Duke Wen of Jin, which was fulfilled in this great war.

In the Spring and Autumn Jin Dynasty, the prince Chong'er died in Chu, and the king of Chu Cheng treated Chong'er with courtesy, and asked: "If the prince is against the Jin Kingdom, why can't he repay the grain?" "She, the army marched thirty miles. After Chong'er returned to the country to govern, the battle of Jinchu Chengpu, the Jin army "retreated to refute it".

This allusion to retreating, in a sense, is more of a psychological tactic of Duke Wen of Jin in dealing with the relatively powerful Chu army. After all, the matter between King Chu Cheng and Duke Wen of Jin should not be clear to many people at that time, maybe Cheng Dechen, the commander of the Chu army, has long forgotten this kind of thing that sounds quite childish.

This is also the main reason why the Chu army was careless because of the retreat of the main force of the Jin army.

The Battle of Chengpu was the beginning of a century-old rivalry between the Jin State and the Chu State, although the Chu State lost the opportunity to dominate the princes for the first time, but it made the strength of the Chu State once again show in the eyes of the Central Plains princes.

There is a saying that the great god fights, and the little ghost suffers. In the century-old rivalry between the Jin and Chu states, the unfortunate ones were mainly the small vassal states with the three territories of Zheng, Song and Wei in the main combat areas of the two countries.

In 597 BC, Chu besieged Zheng and forced Zheng to surrender, Jin sent troops to rescue Zheng, and the two armies fought at Yi, and Jin was defeated. After that, Chen, Cai, Xu, and Zheng Ju were from Chu. 594 BC. Chu surrounded Song, Song told Jin to be anxious, Jin could not be saved, Song Sui made peace with Chu Yan, and respected Chu. At this time, in addition to Jin, Qi and Lu, the countries of the Central Plains respected the king of Chuzhuang as the overlord, and established the historical position of the king of Chuzhuang in the five hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period. History. Through the war, the state of Chu successively annexed forty-five weaker vassal states.

After the Battle of Yi. The king of Chu Zhuang dominated for a while, but the state of Jin could not be ignored, and the two sides of Jin and Chu formed a confrontation between the north and the south, and each dominated one side. In 546 BC, the ruler of the Song State proposed to suppress troops to the Xu, and ran between Zhao Wu, the ruler of the Jin State, and Yin Zimu, the commander of the Chu State, so that the 14 kingdoms of Jin, Chu, Qi, Qin, Song, Lu, Zheng, Wei, Chen, Cai, Cao, Xu, Di, and Teng held a military conference in the Song Dynasty. As a result, the aforementioned ten countries signed an alliance, stipulating that except for large foreign countries such as Qi and Qin, small countries must be both Jin and Chu, and the hegemony was divided equally between Jin and Chu. Respect the two countries as common hegemons. The history is called 'Xiang Xu's soldiers'.

Because of the war between Jin and Chu, the domestic political turmoil was not very rare in the history of the Three Kingdoms.

The idiom "Chao Qin and Twilight Chu" should actually explain more of the dilemma between the Three Kingdoms between the Jin State and the Chu State. After all, the territories of Jin and Chu are not bordering, and if these two countries start fighting, the countries that are buffer areas will naturally have to resign themselves to fate.

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The struggle for hegemony between the Chu State and the Jin State can actually be regarded as a chronic drain on the national strength of the Chu State. Because when the state of Chu was fighting for hegemony in the Central Plains, one of his neighbors to the east, the state of Wu, had gradually developed into a country that posed a great threat to the state of Chu.

Naturally, the State of Chu could not turn a blind eye to such a situation, and their plan was to strangle the still weak State of Wu.

However, after a Chu state named Qu Shen was given to death by the then king of Chu, the Chu state no longer had the ability to attack the state of Wu on a large scale, and in the end, it even led to the state of Chu almost not being destroyed by the state of Wu.

506 BC. During the reign of King Zhao of Chu, King Wu Lu sent Sun Wu and Wu Zixu to lead an army to attack the state of Chu, and the Chu army was defeated and the state of Chu was almost destroyed. At this time, Goujian, the king of Yue, took the opportunity to attack Wu, and Qin also sent troops to help Chu, and Chu was preserved.

Such a situation can be regarded as a problem for the Chu State to raise tigers in a certain sense. After all, if it weren't for the fact that the Wu State was strong enough to almost destroy the Chu State, the Chu State's plan to nip the threat in the bud at the beginning would naturally have failed.

And the national strength of Chu was already quite weak before the Wu-Chu War, so it is naturally a very important issue. And with the two wonderful brothers King Chu Ling and King Chu Ping as monarchs, it is difficult for the national strength of Chu not to weaken.

Later, although the state of Chu was able to recover its national strength because the state of Wu and the state of Yue were weakened or even destroyed successively, what really made the state of Chu step into the ranks of great powers again was the change led by Wu Qi.

And Wu Qi's changes allowed the state of Chu to enter the most prosperous period of King Xuan of Chu and King Wei of Chu in history a few decades later, and the momentum of the state of Chu was unparalleled for a while.

In the first decisive battle of Qin and Chu - the Battle of Yanying, Bai Qi, the first general of Qin, led a small number of elite Qin troops to break the main force of Chu and successively broke through the two important cities of Yuncheng and Yingdu.

During this period, the state of Chu officially entered the countdown to its demise.

Of course, there is a very idiotic statement, that is, the Qin State invaded Yingdu by using beauties......

King Qin Zhaoxiang deceived the princess into marrying King Chu Qingxiang, and Qu Yuan knelt outside the city to no avail. In 278 BC, the Qin army took advantage of the opening of the city to welcome his relatives by King Xiang, drove straight forward, attacked the Chu capital Ying, and Qu Yuan committed suicide by throwing himself into the river. King Xiang of Chu moved his capital to Chen.

For such a statement, Zhang Jiashi once asked Bai Qi, and Bai Qi directly said a fact that made Zhang Jiashi have to think that this idea is absurd, that is, after Bai Qi repelled the Chu reinforcements that reinforced Yingdu, like Yuncheng, continued to use water attacks to attack Yingdu.

Zhang Jiashi only remembered one thing at this time, that is, Bai Qi was a commander who was quite proficient in using the geographical environment to fight.

In the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi also took advantage of the geographical situation to divide and surround the main force of the Zhao army that had to attack because of lack of food, and finally successfully defeated Zhao Kuo and eliminated the main force of the Zhao army in one fell swoop.

In other words, such an idea is really only very naïve people would think of it, that is, when Bai Qi was still attacking the Chu State, the Chu people would actually believe such a statement, and they knew that it was impossible to think about it with their knees.

But no matter what, the Battle of Yan Ying was the first decisive battle between Qin and Chu, and it was also the last good opportunity for Chu to be able to hold the initiative in his hands.

It's a pity that after the fiasco in the Battle of Yanying, the State of Chu was no longer able to fight against the State of Qin with the strength of one country, let alone seize the initiative in the Great War of Qin and Chu.

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After this, the state of Chu could only rely on the way of alliance against the state of Qin.

In 263 BC, King Kaolie of Chu succeeded to the throne and appointed Chun Shenjun as Ling Yin, who sent troops to help Zhao relieve the siege of Handan, and led troops to destroy Lu State, and Chu State was revived for a time. However, in 241 BC, Chun Shenjun organized the last alliance of the eastern states, but was defeated by the Qin army, and King Chu Kaolie, fearing the retaliation of the Qin state, moved the capital to Shouchun further east.

This means that after the last alliance, like the other countries of the Kwantung region, it will never be possible to form the only coalition army capable of defeating the Qin state again.

At this point, the demise of the state of Chu was only a matter of time.

In the War of Unification of the Six Kingdoms, although the state of Chu defeated the 200,000 troops under the command of Li Xin and Meng Wu with Xiang Yan, Changping Jun brothers and others, but in the face of the main force of the 600,000 Qin army under Wang Jian and the huge gap in the national strength of Qin and Chu, finally, the state of Chu was officially destroyed by the state of Qin in 222 BC, becoming another monument of Qin Shi Huang.

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Although the state of Chu was in the turbulent times at the end of the Qin Dynasty, it was briefly restored. But in this time and space, Xiong Xin, the last descendant of the Chu Huai family, was forced by Xiang Yu to commit suicide, making the Chu State officially disappear in the long river of history.

In fact, although Xiang Yu's Western Chu is also known as the Chu State, neither the world where Zhang Jiashi was originally located, nor the current Xiang Chu, which was reversed by Zhang Jiashi's fate of the Qin Dynasty, is not an orthodox Chu State that is recognized.

Because with the death of Xiong Xin, after Xiang Chu officially established his rule over Chu, the state of Chu surnamed Xiong had ended his historical mission and became the dust of history.

However, in many cases, if there was no existence or appearance of the Chu state in many parts of the history of the pre-Qin period, then everything is likely to change unpredictably.

It is also undeniable that Chu and many other countries have jointly composed a long historical song in this period of beacon fire...... (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )