Chapter 48 Get on fire

Zhang Sui, a man of the Ming Dynasty, wrote a book called "Thousand Years of Eyes". It can be regarded as a "Cheats of Wulin" for the study of historiography.When evaluating Chao Cuo's cutting of the feudal clan, this book said: "Rush to cut the feudal clan will definitely force the princes and kings to rebel, but slowly dealing with the kingdom issue may not prompt the princes and kingdoms to finally rebel. Liu Bi was granted the title of King of Wu. The time is already in the prime of life, and by the time of Emperor Jing, he is already very old. Chao Cuo is in a hurry to cut down the vassal, but he doesn't know how to endure a few years to let the power of the vassal states collapse naturally. Even if you cut down the vassals, you should do it slowly, little by little. Doing something like Chao Cuo can only lead to his own death in the end, and he will be ridiculed by the world, and at the same time put his country in danger."

The feudal lords have already grown up, so they shouldn't be ruthless at this time. Chao Cuo's proposal to cut down the vassals during Emperor Wen's reign may have some reason and some operability.However, in the Jingdi Dynasty, blindly cutting down the feudal clan was forcing the princes to rebel. Chao Cuo lacked the awareness of advancing with the times in the ideological realm, and the best time to cut the feudal clan had already been missed. Until the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Zhu Fuyan advocated the "Tweeting Order", and he said to Emperor Wu: "Today's princes are either connected by more than a dozen cities, or the land is vast and thousands of miles long. It is easy for the princes to deal with them slowly. The kings are pampered and spoiled their own country. If you rush to deal with them, it will cause them to unite and send troops to Chang'an. Now the law is used to forcibly seize the land of the princes, which will eventually lead to the princes and kings They rebelled one after another and repeated Chao Cuo's mistakes."

Chao Cuo has become a "negative model" in later generations who blindly cut down the vassal and eventually caught fire. What is going on in all this? After Chao Cuo became the imperial censor, he worked overtime day and night to plan the plan to cut down the vassal.He wrote to Liu Qi, requesting that the crimes of the princes be investigated and punished, their fiefdoms reduced, and at the same time, the administrative power of some counties and counties originally under the management of many princes and kings be taken back. After the memorial was played, Liu Qi asked the princes, princes and nobles to discuss this matter.The ministers knew that their own words were useless, and the emperor only listened to Chao Cuo, so they kept silent. At the same time, they thought in their hearts that the emperor might just be showing off, and only Chao Cuo, who was "straight and deep" in his heart.

However, there is one person who is an exception. He clearly stands up against Chao Cuo's opinion, and this person is Dou Ying. Dou Ying dared to stand up and fight against Chao Cuo because his background was relatively tough. This person was the son of the cousin of the Empress Dowager Dou, and he was born as a relative.He used to be the prime minister of the state of Wu, but was later dismissed due to illness. After Liu Qi came to the throne, he was reappointed as Zhan Shi, in charge of the affairs of the crown prince's palace and the queen's palace.Although the relationship between Dou Ying and Empress Dowager Dou will be very bad in the future, Dou Ying and Dou Yifang have not turned their faces at this time, and this person himself is quite talented, so at this time, his speech in the court can still be reluctant. It poured into Liu Qi's ears that were almost full of Chao Cuo's thoughts.

Of course Liu Qi did not listen to Dou Ying's opinion in the end, but since then Chao Cuo has had a feud with Dou Ying.Chao Cuo has a very strong legal family's unique character traits, that is, he loves to hold grudges, and he can't rub the sand in his eyes.Fortunately, Chao Cuo died early, otherwise Dou Ying would definitely not end well. Chao Cuo revised more than 30 laws and regulations during his tenure as Yushi Dafu, which made all the ministers in the court hate Chao Cuo so much, but Chao Cuo turned a blind eye and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the reduction of feudal vassals and political reform. These two things are being planned and raised.

Chao Cuo's revision of the law caused dissatisfaction throughout the country. His father heard that his son was single-minded about reform, so he made a special trip from Yingchuan to educate his son.Chao Cuo's father said: "Son, you should be clear-headed. The current emperor is a new king who has just succeeded to the throne. He has little political experience. He speaks out of emotion. One day he repents, and you are waiting for bad luck." Right now. You hold an important position in the imperial court, and you want to reduce the fiefdoms of princes and kings, and alienate the feelings of other people’s families. Don’t you think it’s a bit immoral to do so? The common people in the world are pointing and talking about you, and they all hate you I hate you, you deliberately caused trouble for yourself when you were full, didn't you!"

When Chao Cuo saw his father's words to educate himself, he immediately retorted: "Father, why don't you understand your son's heart. You and I are only very educated and rich, and you can't predict these things? The problem is mine. One heart has been completely dedicated to the country and the emperor. Without cutting down the vassals, the stability of the regime and the emperor's ruling position cannot be maintained. At that time, the Liu family's country will be in turmoil. I just think about the emperor wholeheartedly, and I am afraid that there will be troubles in his old Liu family. what."

When Mr. Chao heard this, he was very upset. He felt that it was a pity that his son had sold his whole heart to the emperor, so he couldn't help becoming worried, and said, "Son, you really have no heart. If you do what you do, he Liu The family's situation is stable, but our old Chao's family probably has no good fruit to eat. Alas, you are hopeless, and I am extremely disappointed in you, so I will leave you far away and say goodbye to you forever." Chao Cuo's father committed suicide by taking poison after returning home. Before his death, he made a prophecy for more than ten days: "I don't want to see catastrophe looming."

No one knows whether it is Chao Cuo, the Chao family, the entire Han Empire, or a combination of the three that he said is about to "imminent disaster"?The old man didn't want to see the tragedy happen. It seemed that the tragedy was more uncomfortable than death.Moreover, the tragedy is not far from Chao Cuo, from Chao's family, from the Han Empire, and from every commoner of the Han Empire. In the winter of the third year of Emperor Jing (154 BC), King Liu Wu of Chu, the grandson of King Liu Jiao of Chu Yuan, went to Beijing to have an audience.When Chao Cuo saw that there were princes and kings who came to his door, he immediately ran to Liu Qi to report that Liu Wu was in April of the second year of Emperor Jing (155 BC), and the princes went to Beijing to attend the funeral of Queen Mother Bo. At that time, he raped the maid in the mourning dormitory and asked Liu Qi to take advantage of Liu Wu's visit to Beijing to kill him.

Liu Qi did not do it, and Liu Wu was spared the death penalty, but the Donghai County of Chu State was cut off as a punishment.In the same batch, Zhao Wang Liu Sui, who committed a crime two years ago, was deprived of Changshan County. In addition, Jiaoxi Wang Liu Ang was also deprived of six counties because he violated the law by selling his nobles privately. Cutting territory without killing people is really stupid.Not to mention that Jiaoxi King Liu Ang, Zhao Wang Liu Sui, and Chu King Liu Wu had no intention of rebelling. Even if the central government wanted to deal with these three people, there is no reason to let them take power even if they only cut their territory.Under the influence of Chao Cuo, although Liu Qi would take certain measures to weaken the power of the vassal kingdoms, perhaps Liu Qi did not intend to kill all of his own people.However, at any rate, Liu Qi should remove the princes and kings from their thrones and recall them to Chang'an.To rectify it without pain or itching like now, apart from making the princes and kings who had no hatred for the central government have the idea of ​​​​rebellion, what good can it do?It seems that Liu Qi is also a master with an underdeveloped brain.

Chao Cuo basically offended the princes and kings who rebelled in the Wu-Chu Seven Kingdoms Rebellion in the future, as well as the people sent by the central government to put down the rebellion.Of course, Zhou Yafu's name was not included, at least not recorded in the history books.But it is estimated that since everyone in the court is very angry, Zhou Yafu must also stand in the camp against Chao Cuo. At this point, the prelude to the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion in the reign of Emperor Jing had been performed, and Chao Cuo was tossing on the stage alone until the sky was dark, and the entire empire was disturbed by him.From this, we can see how terrible a person who extremely admires dictatorship and national chauvinism is. Those who say they love the country and the regime often end up making the country restless.Chao Cuo succeeded in drawing those princes and kings who were not opposed to the central government to the opposite of Liu Qi with his own strength, and he was very proud of it.He never realized that Liu Bang was not a vegetarian, but he still implemented the "dual-track system of prefectures and states" back then. That was because the princes and kings were not vegetarians.