As a legendary figure in the history of the Qin State at the end of the Warring States period, Lü Buwei can be described as a frequent guest in the film and television dramas of this period. In a recent hit drama "The Legend of Hao Lan", Lü Buwei "appeared" again and fell in love with Li Hanlan (based on Zhao Ji) in the play, and Lü Buwei even wanted to give up his family business for her at one point. What was the relationship between Lü Buwei and Zhao Ji in history, and what was Lü Buwei's pursuit in his life?
Lü Buwei's first appearance in the history books was already a successful businessman with a lot of money. Because of his business, Lü Buwei traveled from place to place and met the most unfavored of the many sons of Prince An Guojun of the Qin State in Handan. Yiren was placed under house arrest in the Zhao Kingdom as a hostage and was not welcomed, but as soon as Lü Buwei saw him, he thought that he was a strange commodity and decided to make a big deal - to establish Yiren as the monarch of the Qin State in exchange for endless wealth.
After Lü Buwei successfully persuaded the yiren, he went to the Qin state to further lobby a group of close associates around Lady Huayang, An Guojun's favorite, and successfully persuaded the childless Lady Huayang to recognize the yiren as a son. After this, yiren fell in love with Lü Buwei's concubine Zhao Ji, and Lü Buwei was reluctant to cut love, but after weighing the pros and cons, he finally gave Zhao Ji to Yiren.
Yiren successfully ascended to the throne, and he and Zhao Ji's son, Qin Shi Huang, yingzheng, even after ascending the throne, honored him as "Zhongfu" on the basis of the chancellor.
The wealth that Lü Buwei sought most in the first half of his life reached its peak at this moment, after which Lü Buwei began to fight for his own fame, recruited a wide range of customers, and wrote "Lü's Spring and Autumn". After the double harvest of fame and fortune, Lü Buwei wanted to retire with peace of mind.
However, lü Buwei's intimate relationship with Zhao Ji was always a hidden danger, and in order to keep himself out of the matter and cut off contact with Zhao Ji, he deliberately arranged for Concubine Yi to enter the palace. However, after Yin Zheng discovered the two illegitimate sons of Zhao Ji and Concubine Yi, Lü Buwei was still hard to blame.
Remembering his past merits, Ying Zheng demoted Lü Buwei to his fiefdom. In his own fiefdom in Henan, the number of guests who came to visit Lü Buwei was still endless, which Yin Zheng could not stand, and he further demoted Lü Buwei to Shudi and questioned Lü Buwei what qualifications Lü Buwei had to let Yin Zheng call him Zhongfu. Lü Buwei saw that the general trend had gone, so he drank the dove and committed suicide.
In the more than ten years after Lü Buwei's death, with the help of his former protégé Li Si, Yingzheng successfully pacified the Six Kingdoms and achieved the feat of unifying the world. Lü Buwei, on the other hand, did not have the privilege of witnessing this historic moment.