Chapter 46 5. Destroyer of Empires

To be precise, it was not Zhao Gao who cooperated with Liu Bang in destroying the Great Qin Empire, but Qin Shihuang. What does this mean? Let's take a look at a passage in "Historical Records": The king of Qin heard that Gao Qiang was familiar with the prison law, and he thought it was the order of the CRRC government.Gao Ji's private affairs son Hu Hai, Yu Zhi sentenced to prison.He committed a serious crime, and the King of Qin ordered Meng Yi to rule it by law.If you dare not be a Fa, you will die for a high crime and get rid of your eunuch status.The emperor was honest with others with high standards, pardoned him, and restored his official rank. ("Historical Records: The Twenty-eighth Biography of Meng Tian")

Here it is said that Qin Wang Yingzheng heard that Zhao Gao was extremely capable and proficient in prison law. The so-called proficiency in prison law means mastering the laws and regulations.So Qin Wang Yingzheng promoted Zhao Gao to be the official of CRRC.Since then, Zhao Gao has become the tutor of Hu Hai, the youngest son of Qin Wang Yingzheng, specializing in teaching Hu Hai's theory of punishment and prison.But somehow, Zhao Gao committed a serious crime. Although he didn't know what the crime was, Qin Wang Yingzheng attached great importance to it and ordered Meng Yi to punish him by law.Qin Wang Yingzheng personally took charge of this case, how dare Meng Yi neglect it?Zhao Gao was sentenced to death and expelled from his eunuch status.When the verdict came down, Qin Wang Yingzheng canceled it all, and Zhao Gao's violation of the law was not pursued, and the official was reinstated.

This turned out to be a trap maliciously designed by Qin Wang Yingzheng! Due to the arbitrariness of the laws and regulations of the Qin State at that time, the words of King Qin Yingzheng were the law, so it was completely nonsensical for the officials and the people to violate the criminal law.The reason why Qin Shihuang deliberately arrested the case himself was to make Meng Yi sentence Zhao Gao to death, and then he would give an amnesty. He would be a kind and kind person and let Meng Yi be a villain. The purpose of Qin Shihuang's doing this is to make Zhao Gao feel grateful to him - I gave you life, why should you not be grateful?Now that you are grateful, you will no longer have two hearts, and you will be determined.But at the same time, doing so also brought a negative effect: Zhao Gao and Meng Yi became enemies.

And Meng Yi's older brother, Meng Tian, ​​is also the confidant of Fusu, the eldest son of Qin Wang Yingzheng, and belongs to the princeling party.So the personal enmity between Zhao Gao and Meng Yi became the deadly enmity between Hu Hai, the youngest son of King Qin, and Fusu, the eldest son.It is precisely because of this layout of Qin Wang Yingzheng that after his death, the younger sons Hu Hai and Zhao Gao launched a sand dune coup, killing their elder brother Fusu and brothers Meng Yi and Meng Tian.Immediately afterwards, the remaining sons of Qin Shihuang were killed, and ten daughters of Qin Shihuang were torn apart.

If it is said that all this is what Qin Shihuang wanted to achieve, that is not necessarily the case.But Qin Shihuang was the beginning of all events and the maker of the rules of hatred, which is a fact. Qin Shihuang, who is well versed in the secrets of power, knows best that the reason why he is superior is because the people suppressed by him hate each other and kill each other.Therefore, he always incited his subordinates to hate each other without losing the opportunity, and created hatred out of thin air without hatred. The eldest son Fusu and the youngest son Hu Hai had no hatred at first.The Mengshi brothers did not have any enmity with Zhao Gao either.But no hatred does not conform to the law of power, so Qin Shihuang set up a subroutine of hatred between the Meng brothers and Zhao Gao.Once this program is running, it will naturally reach the final result-the Great Qin Empire is swallowed by the law of hatred regulated by Qin Shihuang.

Those who destroy the Six Kingdoms are the Six Kingdoms themselves.And the person who destroyed the Great Qin Empire was Qin Shihuang himself. you get what you sow.Qin Shihuang had sinister intentions and sowed the seeds of hatred in the crowd, like wildfire that engulfed his family in the hatred of hatred—if he had known, he had witnessed his own ten daughters being dragged to the market Lively decomposed into corpses, I don't know what he will say.Would he say, "Daughters, you sacrificed yourself just to let Daddy have fun..." This is so against human nature, but power has the effect of subverting human nature!

In short, Zhao Gao is just a hatred subprogram carefully designed by Qin Shihuang. The reason why he destroyed the Great Qin Empire is just the final result of the program.Zhao Gao really cannot be blamed for this matter. Liu Bang knew this well, so he sent an envoy to Zhao Gao, expressing his high praise for Zhao Gao's behavior, and hoped that Zhao Gao would make persistent efforts, make new achievements, and cooperate with Liu Bang to complete the final process.But Zhao Gao did not cooperate with Liu Bang, nor did he cooperate with Qin Ershi.He hid and pretended to be ill. According to history books, this is because Zhao Gao lied to Qin II, always saying that the rebel army was just a small group of thieves, and they were not good. Dare to show up.

In fact, Zhao Gao hid, just thinking about how to cooperate with Liu Bang to get rid of Qin Ershi. The end is approaching, and Qin II had a premonition.He had a strange dream, dreaming that a white tiger rushed up and bit the horse on the left side of his carriage, and killed the horse.This dream made Qin Er Shi worried and terrified, so he called the officials in charge of dreaming to find out what happened to the dream. After divination, the official said: "This is caused by Jingshui." Jingshui trouble?This conclusion is really a bit puzzling.But Qin II believed it, thinking that it was the God of Jingshui who had an opinion on him.

So Qin II decided to talk to the God of Jingshui.He drove away from the palace and came to Wangyi Palace. Wangyi Palace is far away from Xianyang. It was built for looking north to Yi when Qin Shihuang was alive.Think about it, this palace can see the nomads in the north, which shows how far Qin II was from the center of power control.Although Wangyi Palace is far from the center of power, it is on the edge of Jingshui, which can satisfy Qin II's request to talk to the God of Jingshui. After arriving at Wangyi Palace, Qin II took a bath and fasted, and he did not approach women, eat meat, or eat big meat, lest the God of Jingshui hate him.He planned to build an ancestral hall for the God of Jingshui on the Jingshui. First, he tied up four white horses and sank them into Jingshui as a gift to the God of Jingshui.

I was busy talking to the gods, and I don't know who reported the battle report from the front line to him.Qin II found out that all the troops on his side had become rebels. He was very angry, so he sent an envoy to Xianyang to criticize Zhao Gao, and asked Zhao Gao to give him some refreshments to solve this problem quickly. After sending the envoy away, Zhao Gao ordered his son-in-law Yan Le and younger brother Zhao Cheng to be called. Zhao Gao's son-in-law Yan Le—isn't it said that Zhao Gao is a eunuch?How could he have a son-in-law? This matter is actually an interesting problem in the history of Qin and Han Dynasties.