King Li of Zhou: Ji Hu (姬胡), surnamed Ji (姬胡), courtesy name Hu (姬胡), was the son of Ji Xie, the King of Zhou Yi.
In the sixteenth year of King Yi of Zhou (880 BC), King Yi of Zhou died and Ji Hu succeeded to the throne as King Li of Zhou.
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King Li of Zhou was nailed to the pillar of shame of history because he took benefits from the nobles and blocked the way of speech, especially not liked by the literati of later generations.
After his death, the history books record that his nickname was "Li", while the bronze inscriptions on the courtesy name were "thorn", "strong" and "thorn" are relatively bad evaluations.
Evaluation of the past
Mo Zhai's "Mozi": "The tyrannical kings, the tyrants, the tyrants, the people of the world, and the people who are evil in the world, lead the heavens to insult the ghosts, and there are many thieves, so that the heavens will be calamity, so that they will lose their country, and they will die for the sake of the world, and the descendants of future generations will destroy it, and it will not stop." ”
Sima Qian's "Records of History": "The darkness is chaotic, and it is lost." ”
"Wang Yizhengbu": "You, Li Lile collapsed, the princes exerted their power, turned and swallowed, virtue cannot be cherished, and wei cannot be controlled." ”
In the traditional historical narrative, Zhou Liwang is undoubtedly a very standard negative character. The two things he did have been criticized by everyone.
One was to stipulate the proportion of income that the Zhou royal family drew from the mountains and rivers, and the nobles and princes paid tribute and could no longer do whatever they wanted. King Li undoubtedly moved the "cheese" of the nobles and princes.
The other was the implementation of this economic policy, which blocked the way of speech and led to anger.
King Li of Zhou arranged in his regime for the eldest fathers of Rongyi And Gong Of Yu to replace Duke Zhou and Zhao Gong, hold high-level authority, and install personnel to serve in the fiefdoms of the princes, interfering with grass-roots power.
From the perspective of "the king of one country, the common destiny of heaven" to view the practice of King Li of Zhou, I personally feel that it is correct.
The policy system implemented by the Zhou Dynasty at that time was the system of feudal land and state construction, and the various princes and nobles had strong independent fiefdoms.
Successive Zhou kings laid down their administrative power, let the princes govern the world on their behalf, and had independent administrative and military powers, forming a relatively independent political and economic entity.
This move was accompanied by the failure of King Zhao's southern expedition against Jingchu, and Western Zhou ended its military expansion and began to be on the defensive and in decline. By the time of the sixth King Mu of Zhou, Huaiyi in the southeast and Inu Rong in the northwestern frontier began to harass the Zhou Dynasty. By the time of king Yi of Zhou (the tenth king of Zhou), the princes began not to worship.
Xiongqu, the ruler of the southern Chu state, followed the example of Zhou Tianzi and crowned his three sons as kings. Faced with this kind of "trespassing", King Zhou Yi could only pretend not to see it.
Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han Dynasty says: "The King of Yi is weak and weak, and he is not obedient. "After the tenth generation of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the country's power declined, and the system of heaven under the heavens it created was on the verge of disintegration.
King Yi's son Ji Hu took the throne, the king of Zhou Li. He is a powerful character full of dreams in his heart, and he is not willing to live his life like his father. He decided to rise up in pursuit of a more dignified life.
King Li of Zhou conquered the west and defeated Inuyasha, Huaiyi, and Suyi successively, which fully proved that he was a promising young man in the west who had the ability and dreams.
Those princely states with different intentions were greatly shaken, and they all said that they would begin to be honest in the future. The State of Chu removed the title of King.
As the saying goes: the economic base determines the superstructure. The Dynasty Pocket that King Zhou Li had inherited from his own nest father was empty.
The princes were indifferent due to blood relations and no longer paid tribute. Without money, it is impossible to use troops abroad, and if you cannot fight a war, you cannot bring new land and wealth to support the army and divide the meritorious men.
The feudal game of the Zhou royal family exchanging land for loyalty plunged itself into a suicidal vicious circle. King Li of Zhou did not have much time to carry out gradual reforms, because military pressure on the external border forced him to introduce policies immediately to solve the urgent need.
Patent system (Yamakawa Zelin's property law, the imposition of customs duties. After the policy was introduced, after the large and small nobles were cut off, the burden of Zhou Li Wang's transfer was transferred to ordinary people and low-level nobles, and publicized the evil deeds of Zhou Li Wang everywhere, in order to control speech, Zhou Li Wang set up a law enforcement agency headed by Wei Wu to monitor the "people" who attacked the reform.
In order to ensure the implementation of the reform, King Li of Zhou used rong yi and the eldest father of duke Yu as secretaries, respectively, responsible for the economy and military, breaking the practice of zhou gong and zhao gong as secretaries, and the central government changed blood on a large scale.
For the disobedient princely states, King Li of Zhou made a cruel move: on the one hand, he sent officials to serve in the princes, and on the other hand, he began to dismember the princely states. The division of a country into several kingdoms broke the system of the royal family not interfering with the fiefdoms of princes and nobles. The pain of everyone being cut is even stronger.
In order to prevent people from being unstable, King Li of Zhou ordered the killing of those who criticized the government. It is said that in public, people can only "look at the road".
The nobles and some of the common people could not bear it any longer, and felt that there was no need to endure it any longer. Directly launched the "National People's Rebellion".
The dilemma faced by King Zhou Li is that it is difficult to succeed in reform, but without reform, it will definitely become a mascot.
King Ping and Eastern Zhou, just as King Li had expected, became small princes. No matter how difficult the reform is, there will only be a dead end if the reform is not adhered to.
The reason for the failure of the reform was actually that the system left by the ancestors and the production technology conditions at that time stumbled.
When the princes and nobles had fiefs with strong independence, and when the strength of the Zhou royal family was not strong enough, there was no reason to be invincible against the princes and nobles at the same time.
From the personal point of view of King Zhou Li, the various measures of King Zhou Li were not fully realized in his hands, but it did not mean that he did not have super ability. His military excellence, as well as his daring to carry out acts of strengthening centralization, have shown that he was an extraordinary figure.