In 774 B.C., the Western Zhou Dynasty had a famous abolition of the heir Lishu incident, the king of Zhou You, because of his favor and Bao Xi, abolished Shen Hou and his son Yi Jiu, and changed the son of Bao Xi Bofu as the crown prince, Yi Jiu fled to the mother country of Shen for refuge.
Marquis Shen was furious about this, but before he could take any measures, he got the news that King You of Zhou was going to raise an army to attack Shen, so he decided to lead the northern dogs to attack the Zhou family, and promised to give the royal title after the matter was completed.
In 771 B.C., the dog Rong was defeated by Zhou. King Zhou You lit the beacon fire to call the police, but the princes who had already been heartbroken unanimously decided that this was another live-action comical video. As a result, no one came to play the trick, and the dog Rong defeated the six armies of the Son of Heaven in a battle, attacked Haojing, killed the king of Zhou You, snatched Bao Xi, and destroyed the Western Zhou.
King Zhou You is hanging, but the country cannot be left without an owner for a day, who can sit on the throne of the new lord?
In the face of the ** of power, I believe that few people can withstand it, but this time it is abnormal.
After Jin, Zheng, Wei, and Qin jointly drove the dog Rong away, they were in a meeting to discuss how to divide the cake, when the initiator of this incident, Shenhou, jumped out, and he proposed to continue to establish the Zhou Dynasty as the king, and the comrades went back to their respective homes and found their own mothers.
When the Zhou Dynasty was re-established, the princes not only ran in vain, but also fought in vain. It is strange that the princes actually agreed!
As the former crown prince, Yi Jiu is still terrified at this time, after all, he and his grandfather are to blame for such consequences, it would be good not to be physically eliminated, what kind of throne do you want?
Unexpectedly, what the princes threw over was not the brake pads, but a big pie - to canonize him as the king of Zhou Ping.
There are only two conditions for the princes: one is to move the capital to Luoyi, and the other is to separate the princes.
Yijiu did not have any reason to refuse, so in 770 BC, he ascended the throne and became king, and soon moved the capital to Luoyi and became the co-ruler of the world.
Although King Zhou Ping was able to really issue orders and collect taxes, it was only a few cities in Luoyi and its surrounding area within a radius of 600 miles. But he established the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and continued the Zhou Dynasty for another 515 years, compared with the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Western Jin Dynasty, and the Southern Song Dynasty in later generations, it can be regarded as a "full-blood resurrection", after all, the territory actually controlled by the ancestors of the Western Zhou Dynasty is not much bigger.
The Western Zhou Dynasty was breached by the capital, the monarch and his heirs were killed, and the army was almost completely wiped out, which can be said to have been completely destroyed.
In this case, the princes did not replace Zhou, why? If you don't want to do it, you can't do it!
Clause. 1. The issue of reputation.
It has been 300 years since the Western Zhou Ji clan became the co-lord of the world, and it has long been ingrained in the minds of the people of the world.
Is fame so important? Important, and much more important than we think.
We can give a few examples:
Before the three families were divided, Zhibo was the strongest, almost equal to the monarch, but he did not dare to usurp Jin, even if he launched a coup d'état and blasted Jin out of the Gong, he did not dare to kill him, and later reluctantly set up Tang Jiao, the great-grandson of Jin Zhaogong, to succeed him, which was for Jin Mourning Gong.
After the three families were divided, although the territory, strength, and power of the Han, Zhao, and Wei families were no different from those of other princes, or even surpassed, in diplomatic activities, their clothing, cars, and etiquette were subject to strict hierarchical restrictions, and even groveling and inferior in daily interactions. For example, Lord Wei talks with Lu Jun, Lu Jun can sit in Audi according to his level, but Lord Wei can only sit in BYD. In terms of the arrangement of ranks, it is inevitable that Lu Jun is the leader and the Wei lord is secondary, because according to the title, one is the monarch and the other is the minister.
It wasn't until fifty years later, when King Weilie of Zhou appointed Wei Si, Zhao Ji, and Han Qian as princes, that they stood up and sat on an equal footing with small characters such as Lu, Zou, Wei, and Song.
The Tian family of Qi is also an example, since Tian Chang abolished Qi Jian Gong for a full ninety years, Tian has always been a low-key person, although the monarch is played in the palm of his hand, but he has not dared to overstep the system, let alone dare to "eat" the Qi country, until he saw that the three families of Zhao, Wei and Han were divided into Jin and canonized by the Zhou room, and they made up their minds to subvert the determination of the "Ming Qi Shitian" regime.
The "letter of appointment" of the Zhou Chamber is the title.
If there is no such title, if there is a situation of "ministers killing kings" in any country, the princes who have long been eyeing each other will come together and even thousands of miles away, just like visiting a temple fair, to carry forward the "internationalist spirit" of "roaring when the road is uneven", and beat you so that you can't take care of yourself.
Confucius said: "If the name is not right, the word is not good", and the name is actually used to gag the mouths of the princes.
Sima Guang said this more thoroughly.
He believes that the so-called "division" means that no matter the monarch or the minister, they must figure out which chair their butts should put on, and know how to do something and not to do something. The king should be like a king, and the courtiers should not think of anything wrong at any time. For example, Confucius compiled the "Spring and Autumn Period", although the Zhou family was weak and the princes were strong at that time, Confucius still "suppressed the princes and respected the Zhou room", because "heaven respects the earth and the earth is humble, and the universe is fixed".
For the Zhou Dynasty, after the "hard work" of King Zhou Li and King Zhou You, the Zhou Dynasty has reached the verge of collapse. Under such circumstances, the Zhou Dynasty was able to survive, but the "name" still existed.
In addition to the Zhou dynasty, the same was true of the vassal states. It is precisely with the "deterrence" of fame that the Ji family of the Lu State, the Bai Sheng of the Chu State, and the Zhibo of the Jin State, although the power leans towards the government and the opposition, and even changes the monarch as they want, playing in the palm of their hands, but they never dare to replace them, because they are "afraid of adultery and fame, and the world will punish them".
Clause. Second, the issue of strength.
In addition to the issue of reputation, the more critical issue is the issue of strength.
Sima Guang's argument is rigorous, but there are still big loopholes.
The rivers and lakes are sinister, and they will not let you be the leader of the martial arts alliance just because you are kind. The survival of the Zhou Dynasty was not entirely due to its observance, but because investors believed that the risks were too high and did not dare to eat it. People like Zhibo did not dare to replace the monarch, and they were indeed afraid of "the whole world will punish him", but the reason was not "treacherous and guilty", but because he was worried about giving the princes an excuse to grab food.
At that time, there were more than 170 vassal states, needless to say that one was dominant, even if the situation of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States had not yet formed, in the case that most of the princes were of equal strength, let Li San sit and Zhang Si would not do it; Let Zhao Wu sit, Wang Liu will not do it, the only way is to have a scuffle, and whoever lasts until the end will be the new king.
But no one wants to do this, because no one has the strength to overwhelm the others and the certainty of victory. Even if he is the ultimate victor, when he stands on the stage of the Central Plains with a blue nose and swollen face and trembling, a soy sauce player may suddenly pop out of the audience, and he can kick him out of the ring with a light lift.
Therefore, in the case of unpredictable risks, investors can only wait and see what happens.
And Shenhou, who led his troops to destroy Zhou, was keenly aware of this, because he held a righteous title in his hands - the former prince Yijiu.
Therefore, he easily resolved a seemingly unsolvable impasse with one sentence, since everyone doesn't want to fight in the nest and cheapen others, it is better to let a short and poor frustration "nominally" lead everyone's group of rich and handsome.
This is also the famous "parrot boss" principle in management.
It can also be said to be the reuse of the "leverage principle", where everyone is evenly matched, and only a small force is enough to balance the parties.
Therefore, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was established so easily.