Chapter 21 Chapter 21 Qi and Qin struggle for hegemony in the middle of the Warring States period

342 BC should be a watershed in the entire Warring States period.During this year, Qi State successfully led the strong enemy Wei State by the nose through the tactics of besieging Wei and saving Zhao, and induced Wei State to pursue it by reducing the fire. Finally, it successfully wiped out the Wei army in the Battle of Maling. Pang Juan was killed.The result of this battle marked the complete decline of Wei State, the most powerful country in the Central Plains in the early Warring States period.Wei Guo lost their most elite "martial soldiers" army and the most outstanding commander Pang Juan in this battle, and they no longer had the capital to compete in the Central Plains.

But what is ironic is that the biggest beneficiary of this war is not Qi, which has achieved great victory, but Qin, who is watching from afar at Hangu Pass.The complete decline of Wei State made Qin State lose the biggest obstacle to go east to Hangu Pass. In the next two years, Qin State continued to use troops on the Xihe area occupied by Wei State, successfully regained Xihe, and forced Wei State to surrender to Qin State. .Since then, the channel for Qin Guodong to go out of Hangu Pass to compete in the Central Plains has been completely opened up.This has been the dream of the people of Qin since Qin Mugong in the Spring and Autumn Period. In the subsequent Warring States turmoil, Qi State did not gain the dominant position among the princes because of its victory over Wei State. Qin State.

But in the early days of the Maling War, Qi still maintained their strong position and expansion momentum.During the 58 years from 342 BC to 284 BC, the successive kings of Qi State were King Qi Wei, King Qi Xuan, and King Qi Min.These 58 years were the most glorious 58 years for Qi State in the Warring States Period. They defeated Wei State, Chu State, and South Korea and Zhao State. They became the most powerful vassal state in the Central Plains at that time, and they were once Qin Guodong's greatest rival.The corresponding Qin State, the reigning monarchs are Qin Xiaogong, Qin Huiwang, Qin Wuwang, and Qin Zhaowang.In the past 58 years, Qi and Qin have successively defeated their common opponent, Wei.Then started the road of expansion at the same time, and once became the two most powerful forces among the princes.Then, facing the strongest opponent following Wei, how did Qin win it?

In the early days after the end of the Battle of Maling in 342 BC, the foreign policies of Qi and Qin were almost all busy in their own way, and there were few intersections. As for Qin, two years after the end of the Battle of Maling, Qin launched an attack on Xihe, captured Prince Wei alive, and annihilated Wei's 100,000 troops.Wei Guo's last vital force was exhausted in this way, and he was unable to continue to compete in the Central Plains after that.During this period, King Qi Wei also became popular in the Central Plains. In 334 BC, King Qi Wei and King Wei Hui joined forces in Xuzhou. King Wei Hui took the initiative to recognize King Qi Wei as king, and King Qi Wei also reciprocated. , Recognized King Wei Hui's status as king, this incident is the famous "Xuzhou Xiangwang" in history.In the process of becoming king in Xuzhou, King Wei Hui, who was powerful for a while, was extremely respectful to King Qiwei. After that, King Wei, King Han, and King Zhao met with King Qiwei in Dong'a, and King Qiwei "do things from the north" At this time, King Qi Wei seemed to have become the strongest among the princes of the Central Plains.

The only collision between Qi State and Qin State during this period occurred in the late period of King Qi Wei's reign.At that time, Qin Guodong went out of Hangu Pass and launched an attack on Qi State through Handi, but was defeated by Qi State's frontier army. The matter finally ended with Qin State sending envoys to apologize.But the huge threat of Qiang Qin has loomed in front of the equally ambitious King Qi Wei. Qin Xiaogong, who was in power at the same time as King Qiwei, died of illness in 338 BC, and his son Qin Huiwang came to the throne.After King Qin Hui came to power, he counterattacked and killed Shang Yang first. Modern people like to talk about King Qin Hui killing Shang Yang and using Shang Yang's calmness.In fact, at the beginning of the liquidation of Shang Yang, Qin Huiwang also thought about gradually abolishing Shang Yang's law. On the one hand, it was because Shang Yang's reform had a high prestige in the hearts of the people of Qin, and if it was easy to overthrow it, it would inevitably lead to chaos; second, the army On the one hand, they are very supportive of Shang Yang's new law. The system of rewarding farming and war and conferring titles for military merit has given benefits to many generals. The reality of power coming out of the barrel of a gun made King Hui of Qin have to acquiesce to the established facts.However, in the early days of Qin Huiwang's reign, he was very negative about inheriting Shang Yang's new law, and even expelled talents from all over the world who came to Qin because of resentment against Shang Yang.However, after a brief setback, the rising trend of Qin's national power is still unstoppable.In the early days of Qin Huiwang's reign, the targets of attack were mainly the three kingdoms of Han, Zhao and Wei that were close to Qin.At this time, Han Zhaowei's strength has been weakening day by day. It is controlled by Qi State in the east and threatened by Qiang Qin in the west, and its strength is weakening day by day.Another major move of King Qin Hui during this period was to go south to the Bashu area. After years of bloody fighting, Qin State pacified Bashu, destroyed the Bashu regime at that time, and obtained a rear base for later marching into the Central Plains.This move enabled the Qin State to truly gain the strategic advantage in the Warring States period. The Bashu area, which is rich in products, will become the natural rear of the Qin State in the future.

After Qin Huiwang liquidated Shang Yang for a short time, he soon began to forge ahead again.In the early days of his ascension to the throne, he once expelled the guests from the countries of the Central Plains who were stranded in Qin, but he soon realized his mistake and began to recruit a large number of talents from the six countries.Compared with Qin Xiaogong who only used Shang Yang, King Qin Hui of this period was surrounded by talents. Diplomats Zhang Yi, Gongsun Yan, famous generals Wei Zhang, Sima Cuo, and Gan Mao all shined during this period.After the Battle of Maling, Qin State took advantage of Wei State's weakening opportunity to continue to advance eastward and captured Wei State's Shangjun. into Qin's hands.

Compared with King Qin Hui of this period, King Qi Wei in his later years was much inferior.Although King Qi Wei defeated the State of Wei, the monarchs and ministers of the State of Qi seemed to be more satisfied with the respect of the State of Qi from other countries. As for things like expanding the territory and obtaining strategically important places, the people of the State of Qi were not very interested.The concept of Qi's monarchs and ministers still stays in the "hegemony era" of the Spring and Autumn Period, believing that as long as they obtain the hegemony that everyone respects on the surface, they will restore the glory of their ancestors.This lagging concept has become a key factor for the Qi State not to take advantage of the victory in the Battle of Maling, but to take advantage of the situation to rise.

In terms of personal morality, King Qi Wei, who created the hegemony of the Qi State, has one thing in common with the two generations of Qin Kings Qin Xiaogong and Qin Huiwang at this time, that is, creditable talents.When King Qi Wei was in power, he selected a large number of talents and used Jixia Academy to recruit heroes.However, the employment of Qin State is even more eclectic. The biggest difference between Qin State and Qi State is that Qin State is a new country, without the constraints of moral concepts, let alone the constraints of the old system, so when it comes to employing people , Qin can recruit talents in an eclectic manner.Qi State is far behind on this point. After all, Qi State is a feudal country born out of the old slavery country. Such a country's nature inevitably leads to their transition from the old era. All kinds of traces, the concept of clan and family status of Qi people is more important than that of Qin people.All these things made King Qi Wei enjoy the glory period of being the overlord in his later years, which became an important period when the national strength of the two great powers of Qi and Qin grew rapidly.

In 319 BC, King Wei of Qi died of illness, and his son Pijiang came to the throne, who became King Xuan of Qi in history.It was at this time that the gap in national strength between Qi and Qin became obvious.In the first year of King Qi Xuan's reign, the six countries launched the Hezong movement, electing King Huai of Chu as the leader of the alliance, and attacked Qin from the west.But both Chu State and Qi State took a wait-and-see attitude towards this.As a result, only the three families of Han, Zhao, and Wei came to Hangu Pass. As a result of the battle, the three kingdoms of Han, Zhao, and Wei were defeated. More than 82,000 people were beheaded. King Qi Xuan woke up suddenly, and he had to deal with it.

After Qin Huiwang defeated the Six Kingdoms for the first time, Qi Xuanwang finally began to realize the threat of Qiangqin.The Qin State at this time is no longer the Qin State where King Qi Wei was beaten and fled in his later years, and had to send envoys to apologize for his sins. The speed at which their power expanded was beyond the understanding of Qi people. Qi State also has its own advantages at this time, and Qi State's advantage is his status as a "Prince of the Central Plains".For the princes of the Central Plains, what Qi wants is the glory of the overlord, but what Qin wants is your land and political power. This difference caused most of the princes at that time to still fall to Qi This side of the country.In the early days of King Qi Xuan's accession to the throne, he still continued his father's policy of "meeting the princes of the alliance". He often held alliances with South Korea, Wei, and Zhao, and accepted their pilgrimage. During this period, he had wars with Chu and Wei.However, the strength of Qin made King Qi Xuan make an important decision to unite with Chu in 313 BC.

The state of Chu in this period was also in its heyday in terms of territory. At this time, the state of Chu had completely occupied the Jiangdong area and annexed the old land of the state of Yue. At that time, Qi State had rich economic conditions. One of the two families had a man and the other had money, so naturally they hit it off.In 313 BC, King Xuan of Qi and King Huai of Chu held an alliance to deal with Qin.But this wishful thinking was quickly dispelled by King Qin Hui. King Qin Hui only sent Zhang Yi, who with his skillful tongue and six hundred miles of land as bait, let King Huai of Chu easily renege on the alliance. Tore up the covenant with Qi.Annoyed, King Xuan of Qi made a wrong decision instead. He took the initiative to contact Qin State and proposed to form an alliance to deal with Chu State. This wish came true in the second year.Only after Chu State tore up the agreement with Qi State did it realize that it had been fooled by Qin State. The so-called 600-mile land promised by Qin State was completely just to trick you.In a rage, King Huai of Chu sent 80,000 troops to attack Qin, and fought fiercely with Wei Zhangbu, the famous general of Qin in Danyang. Unexpected things happened. The country was defeated.King Xuan of Qi vented his anger, but the consequences of venting his anger were serious. The alliance between Qi State and Chu State broke down, and neither of the two families had the strength to fight against Qin State alone. King Xuan Xuan of Qi and State of Qin jointly defeated Chu State. As a result, Qin State took the opportunity to seize Chu State's land in Lantian, and King Qi Xuan was busy with nothing. Through contact with Qin State, Qi Xuan Wang really realized the strength of Qin State, and what made him deeply moved was that all the talents from the six countries went to Qin State.In order to attract talents, King Qi Xuan increased his investment in Jixia Academy. As a result, heroes from various schools of thought gathered here, including representatives of Mohism, Taoism, and Legalism. The most famous is Mencius, an outstanding Confucian thinker.When Mencius first arrived in Qi State, he was very excited. He declared to the outside world: "Guan Zhong only made Qi State the overlord, and I want Qi State to unify the world." King Xuan Xuan of Qi was not interested in the Confucianism Mencius insisted on. Ruthless, Confucianism is not popular.Mencius left sadly after studying in Qi State for several years.Compared with the practical talents recruited by King Qin Hui, the heroes around King Xuan of Qi are mostly scholars and cultural figures. He himself also likes to sing poems and prose, but there are very few talents in Anbang Dingguo. In the early days of King Qi Xuan's reign, King Qin Hui completed an important step in his external expansion in his life, and completely defeated the Xiongnu Yiqu tribe in 312 BC.The Yiqu tribe was a branch of the Xiongnu, and they often invaded the Central Plains in the early Warring States period.In this year, King Qin Hui decided to solve the problem of Yiqu intrusion and eliminate the worries of going eastward to the Central Plains. Qin adopted a scorched earth policy and pushed forward layer by layer, and finally severely damaged the Yiqu tribe.It was also in this year that King Qin Hui and King Qi Xuan had two "dialogues", both of which ended in the failure of King Qi Xuan.One time, Qin State united South Korea and Wei State, which had once respected Qi State, to attack Chu State. A large area of ​​land in northern Jiangsu was lost and suffered setbacks.Another conversation was initiated by King Qi Xuan himself.Taking advantage of the domestic turmoil in Yan, King Xuan of Qi launched a blitzkrieg against Yan, and took down the capital of Yan in only 50 days.But Queen Yi of Yan State at this time is the daughter of King Qin Hui, which just gave King Qin Hui an excuse to send troops.As a result, the Qin State's two armies, one attacking the Yan State's mainland and the other attacking the Qi State, both won victories.After the Qi army briefly occupied the Yan State, not only were they driven out, but their own country was also invaded by the Qin State.In the Qi and Qin struggle for hegemony during this period, King Qi Xuan was at a disadvantage. When Qin Huiwang used troops year after year, he died young in 311 BC, only 46 years old.Afterwards, King Wu of Qin, who came to the throne, was a skilled warrior, born with supernatural power, and played the role of overlord.In terms of being a monarch, he was meticulous in his roughness, and temporarily stopped the large-scale use of troops in the Qi Kingdom, and began to divide and disintegrate the six countries.For the king of Wei, he took the initiative to repair it and win over the state of Wei to the state of Qin; for the state of Chu, he supported the tribes of the Yue state under the rule of the state of Chu, and restrained the state of Chu.During this period, King Qi Xuan, after two defeats in the war against Qin, began to focus on the development of internal affairs. In the last five years of his reign, he developed production internally, advocated culture and education, trained soldiers, and externally Wei Guo, South Korea, and Zhao Guo adopted a policy of fighting or pulling, and pulled them as far as possible to Qi's side.In the later years of King Qi Xuan, King Qin Wu died young, and King Qin Zhaoxiang came to the throne. In the early days of his accession, the power was in the hands of the Queen Mother and Ranghou Wei Ran.In the penultimate year before the death of King Xuan of Qi, that is, in 302 BC, under Wei Ran's running, an alliance between Qi and Qin was formed.At this time, the Qi and Qin countries temporarily achieved "harmony". In 301 B.C., King Xuan of Qi passed away, and his son King Min of Qi came to the throne. The 17 years that King Qi reigned was not only the last swan song of Qi’s hegemony, but also the beginning of Qi’s decline. After King Qi Xuan recuperated in his later years, the early King Qi Min possessed great strength.At this time, the two major teams of "Lianheng" and "Hezong" ran around the countries, either united against Qin, or attached to Qin, which became a "choose one" problem that most princes had to make a choice. The state of Qin was unable to go north, and the state of Wei had already weakened, and the banner of "combined verticality" was carried by King Qi Min. In the early days of King Qi Min's accession to the throne, he encountered a situation similar to that of King Qin Zhaoxiang. At this time, the power of Qi State was controlled by Lord Mengchang, one of the four gentlemen of the Warring States Period. The enterprising Lord Mengchang began to frequently launch foreign wars and actively intervene in the internal affairs of various countries. in business.In 301 BC, King Qi Min first intervened in South Korea's internal struggle for power. With the help of Qi's military power, he supported South Korea's crown prince Jiu to ascend the throne, making South Korea a puppet regime under Qi's orders.Afterwards, they sent troops to Chu State. On the grounds that Chu State and Qin State formed an alliance and violated the joint vertical agreement, they confronted Chu State in Chuisha. The two sides faced each other along Chu State's square city for six months. In this battle, more than 20,000 Chu troops were wiped out, and Chu general Tang Mei was killed. For a while, it was difficult for Chu to pose a threat to Qi. Qi's series of military operations were to prepare for a large-scale attack on Qin.After expanding in the Central Plains, Qi State finally established an anti-Qin alliance with itself as the core.In 298 BC, the State of Qi and the coalition forces of Han and Wei stormed Hangu Pass, and Qin State desperately resisted relying on favorable terrain. The two sides fought fiercely for 3 years.As a result, General Kuangzhang of the State of Qi sent a death squad to carry out a sneak attack, and finally occupied Hangu Pass in 296 BC.The Guanzhong Plain of Qin State is already flat in front of Qi State.But at this critical moment, Qi State once again accepted it as soon as it was good, satisfied that Qin State apologized to Qi State, and then withdrew its troops eastward.The best chance to defeat Qin State since the establishment of the Hezong Alliance was just given up by Qi State itself. King Qi Min obviously didn't think so. On the contrary, he thought he had avenged his father King Xuan Xuan.Another reason why King Qi Min voluntarily gave up was that these wars were mainly initiated by Mengchang Jun Tian Wen, who was in charge of the state affairs of Qi State at this time. For King Qi Min, he did not want to see Tian Wen expand his power through these wars. The conflict between the two has become increasingly public.In order to deal with Tian Wen, King Qi Min reused Su Qin who defected from Yan State.Su Qin is an important figure in the Hezong Movement, he is best at eloquence, and he has no foundation in Qi State, so in the eyes of King Qi Min, he is easy to control.But King Qi Min didn't know that Su Qin came to Qi State to work as an undercover agent for Yan State. Yan State was almost destroyed by Qi State in Qi Xuangong's era. Yan State in this period was always determined to take revenge when King Yan Zhao was in power. , Su Qin is the most important part of it.Through Su Qin, Qi's internal conflicts and military situation were continuously learned by Yan.Moreover, Yan State also has in-laws with Qin State at the same time, so when King Qi Min continued to attack Qin State, he didn't know that there was already a murder weapon hanging on his head. In 294 BC, internal strife broke out in Qi State, which was striving to expand.Because the aristocrat Tian Jia launched the kidnapping of King Qi Min, King Qi Min took the opportunity to suppress the nobles of the Tian family in Qi State, and Meng Changjun Tian Wen was also deprived of his position as Prime Minister.It was Su Qin who succeeded Meng Changjun.Different from Meng Changjun's national policy of wooing the six eastern countries and trying his best to deal with Qin, in order to complete the undercover mission entrusted by King Yan Zhao, Su Qin did the opposite, trying his best to persuade King Qi Min to expand everywhere, especially with his own allies.This period was also the period when Zhao Wuling Wang Hufu rode and shot, and Zhao State rose. In the next few years, Su Qin tried his best to provoke the relationship between Qi State and Zhao State, making these two hard-core allies gradually turn against each other. Song and other countries.The victories of King Qi Min's series of military campaigns forced Qin State to look sideways at Qi State.This period was a period when Qin State was on the defensive and Qi State was aggressive. In order to win over Qi State, King Qin Zhaoxiang took the initiative to ask to be called emperor with Qi State. King Qin Zhaoxiang was called Western Emperor, and King Qi Min was called Eastern Emperor. It is a replica of Chu State's equal share of hegemony.King Qi Min was very happy with the request for equal hegemony, but Su Qin knew that if this move was successful, Qi and Qin would join forces, and their strength would be even stronger.Therefore, under Su Qin's persuasion, King Qi Min took the initiative to cancel the emperor's title, and "flashed" King Qin Zhaoxiang firmly. Qin, who failed to show goodwill, would inevitably have an enemy with Qi. King Qi Min from 287 to 286 BC felt very good about himself.During this period, through the war against Zhao and South Korea, he defeated the increasingly powerful Zhao State after Hu Fu rode and shot, and further weakened South Korea. This was actually a favor for Qin.In 286 B.C., King Qi Min destroyed the Song State again. The annihilation of the Song State aroused the fury of the Qin State. The Song State was an important ally of the Qin State in the Central Plains at that time. nails.During this period, the neighbors around King Qi Min, whether it was the Yan State and Zhao State in the north, or the Wei State and Qin State in the east, were all beaten by him, and King Qi Min, who had offended all his allies, quickly recruited Nemesis.In 286 BC, just after the state of Qi destroyed the state of Song, the state of Qin launched an attack on the western front, using the road of South Korea to raid the state of Qi and defeated the state of Qi. After that, the states of Qin, Yan, Zhao, and Wei The five countries of China and South Korea jointly attacked Qi and fought a decisive battle with Qi at the edge of Jishui. After years of fighting, Qi, which was at the end of its strength, collapsed.Afterwards, King Qi Min was killed by General Chu, and more than 70 cities in Qi State fell. Although Tian Dan used the Fire Bull Formation to repel the coalition forces and supported King Qi Xiang to restore the country, Qi State, which suffered this round of extinction, also Completely lost the capital of the hegemony.Qin State, after 58 years of "bipolar structure" with Qi State, finally borrowed the hands of the princes of the Central Plains to remove the biggest obstacle to their eastward advance to the Central Plains.