Born as a master, dead as a ghost.
Still thinking about Xiang Yu, he refused to cross Jiangdong.
Li Qingzhao's "Summer Sentence" always makes people feel that Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, seems to be still alive, still in Jiangdong, and the knife is still standing, making people dare not look directly.
Indeed it is. Although separated by more than 2,000 years of history, almost every Chinese is still familiar with him. In particular, some of his deeds, such as the broken cauldron, the overlord Bieji, Wujiang self-destruction, etc., always make people feel more emotions after extreme regret.
Sure enough, as the ancients said, heroes cannot be judged by success or failure.
So, why is Xiang Yu called the Western Chu Overlord? What is the special meaning behind this title? Interested friends, may wish to take a look at it together.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > capital pengcheng, located in Western Chu</h1>
Pengcheng, now Xuzhou, is in the territory of Jiangsu Province. However, during the Warring States and the Qin and Han Dynasties, this was the territory of the Chu State. Sima Qian recorded in the Chronicle of The Chronicle of Cargo Colonization that at that time the State of Chu was divided into Western Chu, Eastern Chu, and Southern Chu, of which:
From Huaibei Pei, Chen, Runan, and Nan County, this West Chu also; east of Pengcheng, Donghai, Wu, guangling, this East Chu also; Hengshan, Jiujiang, Jiangnan, Yuzhang, Changsha, is the Southern Chu also.
It can be seen from here that Pengcheng is equivalent to the dividing line between Western Chu and Eastern Chu, and after crossing the boundary of Pengcheng and then to the east, it belongs to Eastern Chu.
Why hold on to a Pengcheng? This is because it is recorded in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji":
King Xiang established himself as the King of Western Chu, Wang Jiu Commandery (王九郡), and Du Pengcheng (都彭城).
That is to say, Xiang Yu established himself as king, known as the King of Western Chu, and set the capital at Pengcheng, with 9 counties under his jurisdiction.
This is actually the reason why the word "Xichu" was added in front of "Overlord". It was because Xiang Yu set the capital at Pengcheng, and Pengcheng was in the territory of Western Chu.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > emulates the Spring and Autumn Period and is the co-lord of the world</h1>
Why does Xiang Yu call himself the "Overlord"? This is because his original plan was to become the hegemon of "holding the Son of Heaven hostage to order the princes" like the "Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons". Later, although he killed the Chuyi Emperor Xiongxin, the situation he wanted was nothing more than to become the co-lord of the world like the Zhou royal family.
In other words, Xiang Yu did not intend to become emperor and implemented the county system throughout the country.
What he wanted to restore was actually the zhou dynasty's sub-feudal system.
It was precisely for this reason that Xiang Yu returned to Jiangdong after leading his troops into Xianyang and completely destroying the Qin Dynasty. Immediately after that, he established himself as the king of Western Chu, and then divided 18 princes in one breath, and even more regardless of his previous suspicions, he named Liu Bang the King of Han.
In other words, these 18 princes, in fact, like Xiang Yu, sat on an equal footing.
As a result, the drawbacks of this sub-feudal system soon became apparent, and not only did the various princely states fight wars as soon as they did not like each other, but they also slowly stopped listening to Xiang Yu's words. For example, when Xiang Yu fought against the State of Qi, he recruited Yingbu, the king of Jiujiang, and sent troops with himself. As a result, the Yingbu people did not come at all, but only sent a general, leading thousands of people, to cope with the matter.
This is actually the reason why Xiang Yu failed.
We in China have an old saying that the situation is stronger than the people. The biggest mistake Xiang Yu made was to go against the situation, and the result was that although he "pulled up the mountain and was full of qi", he could only kill himself in Wujiang.
This is as Luo Yin said in the poem "ChipPing":
When the heavens and the earth come together,
Shipping heroes is not free.
This article is the original "Suo Yan Chat Poetry", welcome to follow, like, comment.