In the long history of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Shang Ying was an important figure that could not be ignored. He was a distant clan of the monarch of the Wei Kingdom, and was known by the names of Gongsun Martingale and Wei Marting.
Before arriving in Qin, he served as a retainer in the home of his uncle Acne, the prime minister of Wei. Shang Ying was deeply influenced by the legalists Li Kui and Wu Qi, and was particularly fond of "the study of criminal names". However, Uncle Gong is a bit selfish, and he is worried that Wu Qi will threaten his phase, so he always tries to exclude him.
Although Uncle Acne had long discovered Shang Ying's talent, he did not recommend him to King Wei Hui until he was seriously ill. In this way, he can not only win the name of recommending talents, but also avoid Shang Ying from affecting his interests.
In the early Warring States period, Wei's political status was higher than that of other vassal states, but due to Gongshu's careful thinking, Wei lost many talents, including Shang Ying.
Before his death, Uncle Acne asked King Hui of Wei to appoint Shang Ying as his prime minister, otherwise he would be killed and not let him leave Wei. However, King Wei Hui did not heed this advice. After the death of his uncle, Shang Ying heard that Qin Xiaocheng was looking for talents, so he defected to Qin after burying his uncle's acne.
So, what was the situation of the Qin State at that time?
During the Spring and Autumn period, the Qin state tried to develop eastward in order to establish friendly relations with the vassal states of the Central Plains. In order to achieve this goal, Qin Mugong even married the powerful Jin State, married the daughter of Jin Xiangong, and actively participated in the affairs of the Central Plains, which is the origin of the idiom "** is good".
However, when the coalition forces besieged Zheng State, Qin Mugong unilaterally withdrew his troops because he listened to the advice of Zheng State's minister Candle Zhiwu, which led to a rift in the relationship with Jin State.
Soon after, Qin Mugong ventured eastward and attacked Zheng Guo. When passing by the royal city of Luoyi, the king of Zhou was at the north gate**, and the young boy Wang Sun Man expected that the soldiers of the Qin army took off their helmets and marched casually, and the battle would be lost.
Sure enough, the Qin army was successfully ambushed by Jin Xianggong at Kunshan, three generals were captured, and the whole army was annihilated. From then on, the Jin State controlled the Kuihan region, the choke point leading from Guanzhong to the Central Plains, resulting in the Qin State being unable to advance eastward, and could only develop westward.
For a long time, the Qin state appeared very low-key, far less ambitious than the Chu state.
After Qin Mugong's defeat in the Battle of Kunshan, he reflected deeply and began to look for talents. Unlike other vassal states, Qin Mugong reused guest secretaries, which laid a solid foundation for the later Qin state to become strong.
For example, You Yu, Baili Xi, Jian Shu, Lai Pi Bao, Gongsun Zhi and others who lived in Xirong, their contributions enabled the Qin State to smoothly advance westward and expand its territory. However, because of its location in the west, the Qin state was culturally relatively backward behind the Central Plains.
When Qin Mugong died, he used 177 people to be martyred, including three "good ministers". This act of destroying talents caused the Qin State to do nothing for a while.
Prior to the Shang Dynasty's reforms, the Qin state had already carried out a series of far-reaching reforms. For example, in the seventh year of Qin Jiangong, the "initial rent" system was implemented, which recognized the legalization of private occupation of land and replaced the rent of forced labor with rent in kind; In the first year of Qin Xian, the martyrdom system was abolished; For another example, Qin Xiangong implemented the "Shiwu system" in the tenth year, breaking down the boundary between the Chinese and the savages, so that all people became the "people" of the country and were equal in status before the law.
In addition, during the Qin Xiangong period, the "county system" was also implemented, and the county officials were governed by special personnel sent by the imperial court, rather than by the retainers of the emperor's family. These reforms laid a stable foundation for the Shang Dynasty reform.
So, what exactly did the Shang Dynasty change change?
After Shang Ying arrived in Qin, he first defected to Jing Jian, a confidant of Qin Xiaogong (the son of Qin Xiangong), and successfully met Qin Xiaogong through Jing Jian's matchmaking. However, Shang Ying's initial meeting with Qin Xiaogong was unsuccessful, and he tried to convince Qin Xiaogong by telling about the concepts of "imperial industry" and "royal industry", but Qin Xiaogong was not interested.
As a result, Shang Ying changed his strategy when he met with Qin Xiaogong for the third time, and finally persuaded Qin Xiaogong with the concept of "hegemony". After that, the two hit it off at first sight and communicated with each other for many days.
After this, Qin Xiaogong decided to reuse Shang Ying and let him make his first change in Qin.
1.New laws were introduced and a system of joint sitting was created. Shang Ying implemented the Fajin for the first time in the Qin State, emphasizing the system of joint sitting, stipulating that in the "Shiwu system", one family is guilty, and the other four must be exposed, otherwise the whole "Wu" will be guilty of the same crime.
Those who do not whistle will be "cut in half", and those who whistle will receive the same reward as beheading the enemy. This system embodied the draconian laws of the Shang Dynasty. 2.Reward military merits and implement a 20-rank knighthood system.
In order to encourage the Qin army to fight bravely, Shang Ying implemented a system of twenty knights who were rewarded according to military merits. A soldier who beheads an enemy sergeant will receive a first-class knighthood, and different titles enjoy different benefits and privileges.
This system dealt a blow to the hereditary aristocracy and encouraged the emerging military class. 3.Emphasis is placed on agriculture and commercial activities are suppressed. Shang Ying advocated the development of agricultural production, believing that this was an inevitable choice for the Qin State to be vast and sparsely populated and have a lot of wasteland.
He was opposed to "lice officials", i.e., flashy, recreational objects in commerce and crafts. He also stipulated that if there were more than two adult men in a family, the family must be separated, otherwise taxes and servitude would be increased, so as to encourage adult men to work hard and develop agriculture.
In short, the core of the Shang Dynasty reform was to promote the transformation of the Qin state into a legal system, military merit and agricultural society, which had a profound impact on the rise and development of the Qin state.
In order to solve the population problem and food problem of the Qin State, the Shang Dynasty implemented the policy of reclamation, recruiting people from the Sanjin region with little land and many people to reclaim the wasteland in the Qin State, providing them with houses and land, and they did not have to pay taxes for 10 years, nor did they have to bear the burden of conscription and war.
This policy not only solved the food problem of the Qin State, but also solved the problem of the supply of soldiers, so that the soldiers had more energy to devote to fighting. Although this policy violated the interests of the old aristocracy, Shang Ying persisted in carrying it out, and eventually helped the Qin state to greatly increase its national strength and achieve victory in foreign wars.
Qin Xiaogong appreciated this very much, promoted Shang Ying's official position, and fully supported him to continue to change the law. Shang Ying's second reform in the Qin State further promoted the prosperity and development of the country.
In 350 BC, Shang Ying, with the support of Qin Xiaogong, implemented the second reform. Its main measures include: abolishing the well field system and establishing a new field boundary; Implement the county system and strengthen the centralization of power; Unified weights and measures to facilitate business development; levy military taxes on a household-by-household basis, restricting nomadic people and families of the powerful; Eliminate backward customs and promote the unification of the legal system; Burning Confucian classics and banning lobbyists.
Shang's reforms lasted for 18 years, transforming Qin from a backward country into the strongest of the Seven Heroes. However, after the death of Qin Xiaogong, the old nobles who opposed the change began to attack Shang Ying, which eventually led to his death.
Although Shang was martyred, his changes had a profound impact on the history of the Qin state and China as a whole, laying a solid foundation for the unification of the Qin dynasty.