It is well known that Zhang Yi of the Qin state sent an envoy to the Chu state to tease the king of Chu and laid a strategic foundation for the victory of the Qin state. But it seems that everyone knows very little about Su Qin as a person. Maybe everyone has heard of the idiom "even horizontal and vertical", perhaps one of the protagonists of this idiom is Zhang Yi, but ignores the other protagonist, who is also Zhang Yi's brother in law, Su Qin. It was he who prompted Zhang Yi to defect to the Qin State, to become famous, and to leave a name in the history books. The object we want to understand today is the diplomat strategist of the Warring States period, the Zongheng family, and Su Qin. Life has gone through ups and downs several times, and it is finally a bad move. Maybe when he decided to use Zhang Yi, he should think about his fate.
Figure 1: Portrait of Su Qin
First of all, the origin of Su Qin that we can examine is to make a living from family affairs. Such a family, in such a turbulent era of great social change, must be a very difficult thing to even live in peace. The relevant deeds are no longer verifiable, and we only know so much about Su Qin's origin. In the early years, Su Qin went to the State of Qi to study and worshiped under the door of Theoguzi. The one who studied with him under the Ghost Valley Gate was Zhang Yi, who would become famous in the future.
Figure 2: Portrait of Oniguzi
After completing his studies, Su Qin naturally also had the ambition to be a Zongheng family. Especially in the Warring States period, the masses competed for hegemony and society
In the period of great change, the various princely states also need to change. Therefore, students of various schools like Su Qin went to various countries to persuade the people in power of the country to use their own schools of governance. If this country is strong, it can also make its own school long-standing and develop. And Su Qin, naturally, also holds such a passion. Embarked on the road of travel.
Figure 3: Map of the Warring States Period
However, his hesitation was full of ambition, but he could not exchange it for a Bole who knew him. Many years later, this is still the case, and it is precisely for this reason that after he was poor and poor during that time, he could not hold on, and he could only choose to return to his hometown. Returning in such a mess, the natural family members have no good feelings for this person in the family who can only talk quickly but do not produce, and will often secretly ridicule. Because Su Qin was so incompatible with their lives, they thought that Su Qin's appearance would only be profitable, but he would give up his life. Su Qin was very ashamed after hearing such a message, so he closed the door and looked at the collection of books. After studying the art of combining vertical and horizontal lines for more than a year, he thought that he could finally use this to persuade the emperor at that time, and after exchanging glory and wealth for himself, he went out of the mountain again.
Figure 4: Su Qin's hedgehog reading
The first person he wanted to lobby was King Zhou Xianwang in Luoyang, but the ministers around King Zhou Xian were very familiar with Su Qin's personality and looked down on Su Qin very much. Therefore, King Zhou Xianwang did not trust Su Qin, and Su Qin felt that there was no breakthrough on King Zhou Xian's side, so he traveled west to the Qin State. He took the State of Qin as his next target, but the State of Qin at that time also experienced the great event of the death of Qin Xiaogong, and the situation was unstable. At this time, he directly lobbied King Hui of Qin to annex the countries and rule as emperor. Moreover, at that time, the State of Qin did not have enough power to directly annex, the timing was premature, and the situation that the State of Qin had just executed Shang Martingale at that time, and King Hui of Qin hated lobbyists, naturally, Su Qin's suggestion was not adopted. Therefore, Su Qin wanted to show his grand plans to the Zhao Kingdom, but the Minister of State of Zhao, Feng Yangjun, did not like Su Qin, and naturally would not adopt Su Qin's suggestion.
Figure 5: Portrait of King Zhou Xian
The early stage of Su Qin can be said to have spent under the situation of hitting walls everywhere. The countries to which he wanted to be loyal were not impressed by his plans, and his ambition to be prosperous and wealthy was naturally far away. But at that time, there were many people like Su Qin, who were full of enthusiasm and wanted to practice their ideas, but most of them were not adopted. There are so many schools, but the emperor's requirements are very simple, to strengthen their own power, people's demands are also very simple, to make themselves live a better and more stable life. Therefore, under such and such obstacles, there are too many schools of thought that have not been practiced.
In the twenty-eighth year of The Duke of Yan, Su Qin came to the State of Yan. After waiting for a year, he met Yan Wenhou. And Su Qin also knew how to seize the opportunity, he lobbied Yan Wenhou to first analyze the situation from the geographical location, pointing out the situation of the dependence of the Yan state and the Zhao state, and then pointed out the failure of the Yan state's strategy, the Yan state blindly guarded against the Qin state thousands of miles away, but did not fortify such a close Zhao state, which is really not quite right. Finally, it was suggested that Marquis Wenhou of Yan could unite with the Zhao Kingdom and unite into one.
Figure 6: Portrait of Yan Wengong
After listening to Su Qin's advice, Yan Wenhou felt very reasonable, so he promised Su Qin that if he could successfully use the strategy of combined connivance to maintain the stability of the Yan state, then he was willing to use the strength of the state to repay Su Qin. After that, he funded Su Qinjin's carriages and horses and went to the Zhao Kingdom to lobby. Su Qin's dream of wanting to be prosperous and rich finally began to see some signs.
This was Su Qin's second visit to the Zhao Kingdom, and Feng Yangjun, who had previously disliked him very much, had died, and the resistance to lobbying Zhao Suhou had become even smaller. He analyzed the current situation in detail for Zhao Suhou, and also analyzed the relationship between the Zhao state and other princely states, and also pointed out the strategic interdependence of the Zhao state for the two countries of Han and Wei, and then began to clarify his strategy of wanting the six countries of Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi to unite together against the Qin state. Moreover, the six countries could jointly form an alliance, so that the Qin state naturally did not dare to invade Hangu Pass again, and the great cause of the Zhao state could be planned.
Figure 7: Portrait of Marquis Zhao Su
Marquis Suhou of Zhao was successfully lobbied by Su Qin, adopted his advice, and also funded him to go to various princely states to lobby and let various princely states join in to complete this grand plan. Su Qin's plan was moving forward step by step, and his plan of connivance had been successfully launched.
After Su Qin successfully lobbied King Su of Zhao, he officially began his conspiracy plan. However, when Su Qin was still in the State of Zhao, the State of Qin had already attacked the State of Wei, and in order to prevent the State of Qin from directly attacking the State of Zhao before the alliance was established, and strangling the alliance in the cradle, the first thing Su Qin needed to do was to delay the pace of the Qin state's attack. And the wife he looked up to was his former classmate, Zhang Yi. He made Ji deliberately humiliate Zhang Yi, and after provoking Zhang Yi, he sent someone to quietly persuade Zhang Yi to go to the Qin State to confront him, and secretly escorted him to the Qin State to help Zhang Yi meet King Hui of Qin. When Zhang Yi successfully entered the political decision-making group of the Qin State, Su Qin informed Zhang Yi of all his previous actions, and said that all of this was so that he could have better development in the future. Zhang Yi was very touched after hearing this, and directly promised Su Qin that he would not attack Zhao Guo when he was in power.
Figure 8: Portrait of Zhang Yi
In this way, after Su Qin successfully solved hezhong's worries, he went to Korea, the State of Wei, the State of Qi, and the State of Chu in turn to persuade him. He was speculative and well-planned, and he also drew up a grand political blueprint for the monarchs of the various princely states, and finally succeeded in persuading the monarchs of the four countries to join the alliance. After touring the various princely states, the six countries directly reached a joint alliance. United as one, Su Qin's momentum at this time also rose in the water, and at the same time wore the seals of the six princely states and served as the ministers of the six kingdoms, which was very beautiful. This was the great ups and downs of Su Qin's first half of his life.
Su Qin's birth was not very good, and after learning from Ghost Guzi, there was no way to successfully obtain glory and wealth. It was not until later that he successfully studied the art of continuous horizontal combination and vertical, and then experienced encountering walls and long waits everywhere, that he got the opportunity to succeed, and then with his three inches of uncorrupted tongue and accurate speculation about the situation and people's hearts, he successfully became famous, which was the fall of the first half of his life.