The time came to 389 BC, which was the second year after the Battle of Yin and Jin and the Marquis of Huze. A generation of Zhongyuan Xiong lords, Wei Wenhou Wei Si died of illness, and the crown prince succeeded to the throne, that is, The Marquis of Wei Wu.
Wu Hou's talent and mind were not as good as his father Wen Hou,but were mainly manifested in his employment of people. We know that as a monarch, the strength of personal business quality is actually in a secondary position, and the key depends on the ability of the owner to control talents. WenHou was a skillful king, and during his reign, a large number of capable officials would be excavated and gathered around Wenhou, and Wenhou could also make good use of them and distribute them reasonably. And these capable generals can follow the dispatch of Wen Hou and engage in their current work with satisfaction and sincerity. I have to say that this ability of Wen Hou is actually a rare and valuable character as a leader.
After Marquis Wu succeeded to the throne, he chose a man named Tian Wen to serve as minister of state. This caused Wu to be unhappy. Tian Wen here is not the Meng Yujun, one of the four princes of the Warring States later, but the minister of state of Wei. After learning that Tian Wen had become minister of state, Wu Qi came to Tian Wen to comment and argue about the merits. Wu Qi said: If we lead the three armies to fight, let the soldiers kill the enemy fearlessly, and the enemy country does not dare to fight the idea of our Wei state, who is stronger in this regard? Tian Wen said, I am not as good as you. Wu Qi said: Governing hundreds of officials, getting close to the people, enriching the government treasury to develop the economy, mr. Talent in this regard, who is stronger than me? Tian Wen said: I am not as good as you. Wu Qi said: Holding the land of Hexi, the Qin state does not dare to develop to the east, and the Republic of Korea and the State of Zhao all obey our State of Wei. Tian Wen said: I am not as good as you. Wu Qi then said: If this is the case, then why do your officials sit on my head? Tian Wen said: Now that The ancestor has just died, the lord is suspicious of the country, the ministers are all worried about each other, and the common people are also watching with trepidation, at this time, do you want you to be the minister of state, or let me be the minister of state? After Wu Qi listened, he was silent for half a day, and finally said reluctantly: Or you do a good job!
It can be seen from this that at that time, there were already signs of disputes in the State of Wei, and if Tian Wen had been the Minister of State of Wei, it would have been fine, but unfortunately, Tian Wen had only been the Minister of State for less than a year before he died, and the gong uncle seat that succeeded him had become a key fuse that caused Wu Qi's tragic fate.
Uncle Gongzuo was a storm figure in the world at that time, and to say that he was a hero was not how much ability he had, but that he had only done two big things in his life, and each thing had far-reaching influence and great significance. One thing was to design and drive out Wu Qi; the other was to hide Shang Martingale in the snow, and finally make Shang Martin defect to the Qin State. We will talk about the martingale later, and now we will only talk about Wu Qi.
Gong Shuzuo was very repulsive to Wu Qi, because he did not want Wu Qi to threaten his position. It was not until more than twenty years later that Gong Shu saw through Shang Martin's talent, but he was still reluctant to recommend Shang Martin to King Hui of Wei when he was alive, but insisted until he was about to die, and only told King Hui about this matter, which showed that the weight of Gong Shu's personal selfish desires had indeed exceeded the national interests of the State of Wei.
Gong Shu wanted to drive Wu Qi away, but he was bitter that he did not have a suitable opportunity. At this time, a courtier under the uncle's door offered him a plan. The family minister said: "Wu Qi is a very easy person to deal with, Wu Qi is a strong and self-respecting person. Sir can first say this to the monarch, just say that Wu Qi is a great person, and our Wei country is a small country, I am afraid that I can't keep his heart. The monarch will surely ask, what then? The gentleman said to the monarch that he could try to marry a princess of our Wei kingdom to Wu Qi to see how he reacted, and if he was devoted to the State of Wei, he would certainly be happy about this family affair; if he resigned, it must be with two ambitions. Then sir then ask Wu to come to you, let your princess and lady humiliate you in front of him, so that Wu Qi has this experience in advance, and the monarch will tell him about the affair, he must not agree, is it not just our plan? "Here is another explanation, the lady of the uncle's seat is a princess.
This strategy can be called a poisonous plan, Wu Qi can command thousands of troops and horses, and the enemy is false, but he has not escaped the secret calculations of the people around him. Sure enough, Marquis Wu of Wei followed Gong Shuzuo's advice and said goodbye to Wu Qi, preparing to marry a Princess of Wei to Wu Qi; and Wu Qi had seen the princess lady of Gong Shuza so arrogantly in Gong Shuzuo's home that he instinctively resisted the word princess and refused Wei Wuhou's kindness to his face. In this way, Wu Hou thought that Wu Qi had two hearts and became estranged from him. Wu Qi was helpless, and fled the State of Wei and fled to the State of Chu that year, only two years after the death of Wei Wenhou.
Also in 387 BC, the Qin Huigong soldiers who had lost the land of Hexi at the hands of Wu Qi, Fa Hanzhong, occupied the southern Zheng of Hanzhong, and officially incorporated the land of Hanzhong into the territory of the Qin state, laying a good foundation for the later Qin state to enter Shu and unify the world. After completing this feat, it was still in this year that Qin Huigong died of illness and was succeeded by his son.
After Wu Qi fled to the State of Chu, King Mo of Chu received Wu Qi and appointed Wu Qi as the Minister of State of Chu, Ling Yin, and began to implement the change of law in the State of Chu.
In 386 BC, Wu Qi changed the law in the Chu state. At that time, the State of Chu was deeply influenced by the Western Zhou sub-feudal system, the king's power declined, and the Qing Dafu was powerful. These secretaries and masters all have their own estates, that is, territories, and enjoy independent administrative and financial powers within the territory, just like some independent countries within a country. The main contents of wuqi's reform law are: First, abolish the Shiqing Shilu system and reward military merit. The specific method is to "collect the knighthood": abolish the hereditary system of the nobility, "make the prince Sun III and receive the knighthood", that is, only retain the hereditary qualifications for the hereditary nobles for three generations, and after three generations, the state withdraws the knighthood reward for their families; "Equal Lord Pinglu": For the descendants of the nobles who have no merit, the "Equal Lord Pinglu" system is implemented, that is, to give some low security to the old nobles, and reward their surplus knighthood to the meritorious commoners, thus encouraging military merit and solving the problem of uneven distribution. 2. Rectify the administration of officials. Specifically, "plugging the private door" put an end to the trend of asking for support; "making private officials not harmful to the public and slandering the loyal" requires officials to distinguish between public and private, and to be correct in words and deeds; and the most important one is to "strike away incompetent, abolish useless officials, and donate officials who are not in a hurry" to reduce redundant personnel and reduce government expenditures. Third, tourists are prohibited, intensive cultivation war. That is, it is forbidden for ordinary people to become wanderers and idle, and the whole country is working hard to fight.
Through the above points, the originally dull southern power Chu State quickly burst into vitality, conquering the Baiyue region to the south, annexing the Chen and Cai states to the north, repelling the attack of the Qin state in the west, and curbing the expansion of the three kingdoms of Han, Zhao, and Wei in the middle principle.
In 381 BC, the State of Chu and the State of Zhao defeated the State of Wei in the west of Yuzhou, southwest of present-day Wuzhi, Henan, and the Chu army crossed the Liang Gate, garrisoned the forest, drank the Yellow River, and cut off the connection between the counties of Hanoi and the capital Anyi, and the State of Wei was defeated for a while, and the State of Chu was also greatly asserted among the states.
In the same year, just when Wu Qi thought that his cause would be further developed in the Chu state, the King of Chu who supported Wu Qi's change of law died. The old nobles immediately took action, and they could not wait for the mourning of the king to be over, so they besieged Wu Qi on the top of the mourning king's spiritual hall; Wu Qi was cornered, ran to the body of the mourning king, and lay on the body of the mourning king, hoping to save himself. Unexpectedly, the rebellious nobles actually disregarded the dignity of the former king's body and "shot" Wu Qi, and some bows and arrows and swords also stabbed the body of the king of mourning.
Poor Wu Qi, how he hoped that this King of Chu Mourning could protect himself again as before, but this time, no one looked at him again and protected him, and Wu Qi ended his magnificent life at the age of 60.
King Chusu, the son of King Chu of Chu, succeeded to the throne and killed the nobles who were in rebellion at that time, and more than seventy nobles were rebellious and implicated.