Chapter 13 6. Why Chu

For Chen Sheng's rebellion, Xiao He succeeded and Xiao He failed. This "Xiao He" is Chu. Chu is the name that Chen Sheng once borrowed.At the beginning of the uprising, his banner was called "Da Chu".After becoming king, his country name was "Zhang Chu".Therefore, Chen Sheng is also the king of Chu.However, in order to distinguish King Huai of Chu established by Xiang Liang from Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, historians often call Chen Sheng King Chen. It's not bad to be called King Chen.Chen Sheng's surname is Chen, and the capital of the country is also in Chen.

In fact, the king of Chen is the king of Chu, because Chen was once the capital of Chu.In 278 BC, Qin general Baiqi captured the capital of Chu State, Yingdu. King Qingxiang couldn't resist, so he had to move the capital to Chen.After that, the capital of Chu continued to move eastward.In 253 BC, the capital was moved to Juyang; in 241 BC, the capital was moved to Shouchun. Obviously, the meaning of Chen Zhiyu Chu is extraordinary. Where is the meaning? Just look at the map.Ying, in present-day Jingzhou City, Hubei Province; Chen, in present-day Huaiyang County, Henan Province; Juyang, in present-day Fuyang City, Anhui Province; Shouchun, in present-day Shouxian County, Anhui Province.What is this indicating?

It is very clear that from Ying to Chen, it is going northeast; from Chen to Juyang, and then to Shouchun, it is going southeast step by step. This is a graph. What the graph marks, happens to be Chu's national destiny. In fact, after Chu State moved its capital to Juyang, the momentum has been declining day by day.However, at the time of the capital, it once recovered the decline.King Qingxiang regained the lost fifteen cities, and King Kaolie also destroyed Lu.In this way, isn't Chen the "capital of revival" that can be built as a base for "anti-Qin and restoration of Chu"?

That's probably what Chen's noble gentry, elders and folks think so. Therefore, they advocated that Chen Sheng should become king in Chen, and their "persuasion table" spoke highly of Chen Sheng's "restoration of the state of Chu".Chen Sheng also followed the wishes of the people and was named "Zhang Chu", which means Zhang Da Chu State. Unfortunately, this is not Chen Sheng's sincerity. In fact, Chen Sheng is known as "Great Chu" or "Zhang Chu", but "backdoor listing" plus "buying people's hearts".Therefore, he did not restore the state of Chu.On the contrary, whoever really establishes a king of Chu will be killed by him.

This is of course disappointing. Chen Sheng's failure was also considered to be what he deserved. The person who said this was Fan Zeng. Fan Zeng is also an important figure in this period of history.He was originally a hermit and also a strategist. He was seventy years old when he came out of the mountain.It was because of his suggestion that Xiang Yu's uncle, Xiang Liang, went to the field to find a grandson named Xin of King Huai of Chu, and made him King of Chu, also known as King Huai of Chu. As a result, Xiang Liang's prestige increased greatly. On the contrary, Xiang Yu later killed King Huai, and his hearts were lost.

what about this? Fan Zeng's explanation is: Qin destroyed the six countries, and Chu was the most innocent.King Huai of Chu was deceived to the state of Qin, where he died under house arrest.Therefore, the people of Chu held a grudge, and threatened that "although Chu has three households, if Qin dies, Chu must die."Therefore, whoever is happy will be able to succeed.Chen Sheng did not set up a descendant of the king of Chu but established himself as king, of course "its power will not last long". There is a problem with this statement. What is "Qin destroys the six countries, Chu is the most innocent"?Are the other five countries guilty?nothing.If there is, it is because wolves drink water upstream, and sheep should not drink water downstream.Yes, there was no righteous war in the Spring and Autumn Period, so what morality was there in the war of the Warring States Period?Sin and innocence are not reasons.

Then, why is the saying that "the death of Qin must be Chu" widely circulated, and most of the people who rebel against Qin are in Chu territory?Is there no reason for this? Of course there is.However, in Qin not in Chu. In other words, the real reason was that people hated Qin deeply.They hated Qin Shihuang, hated Qin II, hated Qin's military officers and local officials, hated Qin's system and politics even more, and wished that the Qin system and Qin government would perish early. Why are the Qin government and the Qin system so hateful? Because the Qin system is autocratic, and Qin government is tyranny.This kind of system and politics can be implemented in Qin State, which has its historical reasons and special reasons.To put it simply, it is the consensus of the Qin people to make a rich country and a strong army; but under the conditions at that time, a strong country had to centralize power, a strong army had to be autocratic, and a rich country could not care about rich people.With centralization, autocracy and agglomeration, the law enforcement is bound to be strict, and the people can only restrain themselves and make sacrifices.Yes, bear's paw and fish cannot have both.The country is the bear's paw, and the people are the fish.Fish, is it okay to gossip about politics too?

What's more, sacrifices are compensated.The material compensation is to increase officials and ranks and share the spoils of the war of aggression; the psychological compensation is to be able to call oneself a "big citizen" in front of other countries.Therefore, the harshness of the Qin Kingdom can be tolerated by the people of Qin.This point is not difficult to understand when thinking about Japan in the era of militarism. But after the unification of the world, there is no material and psychological compensation.Without annexation wars, there would be no spoils; without an international community, there would be no great nation.If you live a hard life at this time, who will do it?

It turned out that the citizens of the six countries didn't do it, they didn't live this kind of life before.Although the Six Kingdoms also reformed, most of them were "feudalized in counties and counties", and they were less centralized and less autocratic.Especially in Chu, the mountains are heavy and the rivers are complex, the land is vast and the population is sparse, and the people are relatively free and undisciplined. How can they stand Qin's way? Obviously, even if the Qin system and Qin government are applicable to Qin (even if it is), they are not applicable to the world.Therefore, the four dynasties of Gao, Hui, Wen, and Jing in the Han Dynasty all abandoned the legalist idea, praised Taoism, governed by doing nothing, and rested with the people. Emperor Wu even changed the Qin system to the Han system.All of these can be said to happen for a reason.

But that's another story. At that time, only the people of the six countries were full of hatred for the Qin system and Qin government. If you are dissatisfied with the new system, you will miss the old system and selectively forget all its faults.If you are dissatisfied with the new monarch, you will miss the old monarch, and also selectively forget all kinds of faults.For example, King Huai of Chu, how could Fan Zeng be as good as they said?He's actually an asshole too. It is very clear that missing Chu is because of hating Qin; carrying out King Huai of Chu is to fight against Qin Shihuang.This is not surprising.Just as Marx said, at every critical moment of the revolution, people will always invite the undead with trepidation, wear their clothes, shout their slogans, and perform new scenes of history.

Chen Sheng is like this, he even borrowed the banner of Chu general Xiang Yan.It's just that this person crossed the river and demolished the bridge as soon as he succeeded, threw away the clothes, and crowned himself.In the end, the crown was taken off by someone else. No, head. Six months after the Daze Township Uprising, Chen Sheng, who lost the support of the Chu people, was defeated by the government army led by Zhang Han, and Chen County fell.Chen Sheng himself first fled to Ruyin (now Fuyang City, Anhui Province), then fled to Xiachengfu (now Guoyang County, Anhui Province), where he was finally murdered by his driver. At this time, can he still think of the "borrowed clothes"? It doesn't matter if you think about it or not.Because Xiang Yan's descendants have already appeared on the stage, and there will be even bigger scenes to come. This person is Xiang Yu.

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