King Jian of Qi

Biography

Succession and his mother's regency

Jian was a son of King Xiang of Qi and Queen Mother Jun, a daughter of Taishi Jiao. The Records of the Grand Historian says that Jian succeeded after King Xiang died, without giving a modern calendar date for the accession. other accounts's lead and another account use 264 BCE (King Jian of Qi 1), the year after his father's death, while the opening of other accounts's full text joins accession to the death in 265 BCE (King Xiang of Qi 19). The father's death and the dating of Jian's reign are therefore distinguished here. Queen Mother Jun directed affairs, dealing cautiously with Qin and in good faith with the other states. Qi's eastern location and Qin's concentration on other states also helped keep direct warfare away from Qi for many years.

Refusal of grain and policy toward Qin

During Qin's attack on Zhao, Zhao lacked grain and asked Qi for supplies. Jian refused. His adviser Zhouzi invoked the idea that the loss of a neighboring state's protection would expose Qi and Chu, but Jian did not follow the advice. The Records of the Grand Historian places the incident in Jian's sixth year, which other accounts's full text renders as 259 BCE. another account's biography gives 260 BCE and the fifth year. The main account uses other accounts's date, consistent with the regnal year in the Records, and records the alternative in the source comparison.

After Queen Mother Jun died in 249 BCE (King Jian of Qi 16), Hou Sheng became chancellor. The Records says that Hou and his guests accepted money from Qin and urged Jian to abandon interstate alliances, neglect military preparation, and withhold aid from the other states. In 237 BCE (King Jian of Qi 28), Jian visited King Zheng of Qin at Xianyang. The Strategies of the Warring States, quoted in other accounts's full text, also gives speeches by the commandant of Yong Gate and a senior official of Jimo urging resistance to Qin. Their proposed plans are deliberative speeches in that work, not military operations known to have been carried out.

Surrender to Qin and final years

In 221 BCE (King Jian of Qi 44; Qin Shihuang 26), Qi defended its western border, but Wang Ben advanced south from the former Yan territory and Qi forces did not stop him entering Linzi. On the advice of Hou Sheng and others, Jian surrendered with his army, bringing Qi to an end. The Records of the Grand Historian says Qin moved him to Gong. The Strategies of the Warring States, in addition, says that Qin's envoy Chen Chi promised him land and that he died without food among the pines and cypresses at Gong. Starvation is presented here as that text's claim, not as a fact independently established by the Records.

Tian Jian was the son of King Xiang of Qi. On King Xiang's death in 265 BCE, Tian Jian succeeded while still young, his mother, the Queen Dowager Jun, acting as regent. The queen dowager was able and prudent toward Qin and faithful to the other states, and Qi lay on the coast to the east, so that with Qin attacking the three Jin states, Yan and Chu day and night and each of the five states busy saving itself, Qi enjoyed more than forty years without war.

In the sixth year of King Jian, 259 BCE, Qin attacked Zhao and Qi and Chu sent troops to its aid. Qin's calculation was to withdraw if the two acted in concert with Zhao and attack otherwise. Zhao, short of food, asked Qi for grain and King Jian refused. The Qi minister Zhou Zi argued that agreeing would drive Qin off, while refusal would leave Qin's plan to succeed and the plans of Qi and Chu to fail; that Zhao was a screen to Qi and Chu as the lips are to the teeth, and with the lips gone the teeth grow cold, so that Zhao's fall today would bring trouble to Qi and Chu tomorrow; that rescuing a state about to perish was high principle and beating off a strong Qin was manifest glory, and that to count grain instead of doing both was to reckon the state's interest wrongly. King Jian would not hear it. Qin then destroyed more than four hundred thousand Zhao troops at Changping and laid siege to Handan.

In 249 BCE Qin extinguished the Zhou, and the Queen Dowager Jun died that same year. King Jian then made his uncle Hou Sheng chancellor, and Hou Sheng and others took bribes from Qin, so that Qi kept no defense ready and made no alliance, watching while Qin swallowed the other five states one by one. In 237 BCE King Jian went in person to the Qin court, where King Zheng entertained him with wine at Xianyang. In 221 BCE, after the other five states had fallen, Qin sent Wang Ben south from Yan against Qi; King Jian surrendered without a battle and Qi was destroyed. He was moved to the pine and cypress country of Gong, where he starved to death. The people of Qi, resenting that he had not joined the other states against Qin earlier, made a song of mockery: "Pine and cypress? Was it his guests who brought him to Gong?" — meaning that he had ruined the state by listening to his retainers.

Qi's position in the late Warring States had its own geography and diplomacy. Facing the sea to the east, bordering Yan to the north, Chu to the south and the three Jin states and Qin to the west, it long stood on the flank of the contests between alliance and counter-alliance. During King Jian's reign Qin pursued the policy of befriending distant states while attacking near ones, courting Qi; with the Queen Dowager Jun in charge and her prudence and good faith, Qi stayed out of such great events as the battle of Changping and the siege of Handan, but that policy of careful service to Qin also meant the slow decay of Qi's armament and diplomacy.

With Hou Sheng as chancellor, Qi abandoned the option of alliance against Qin altogether. The Records notes that Hou Sheng and the Qi retainers took many bribes of gold and jade from Qin and daily urged the king not to help the five states against it, so that Qi kept no preparations for war and sent no aid to Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu or Yan, watching each neighbor swallowed in turn. When only Qi remained, Qin sent Wang Ben south from Yan and its army had no power to resist; King Jian surrendered without a battle. The people of Qi resented it deeply, their song using pine and cypress and "the guests" to mock his listening to retainers rather than honest counsel. Discussions of why the six states fell have often taken King Jian as the example of how isolation and self-preservation by watching one's neighbors destroyed fails.

The more than forty years of King Jian's reign saw a fundamental change in the balance of the Warring States. In his last years King Zhaoxiang of Qin took the lands of the Western Zhou and moved the nine tripods to Xianyang; under King Zhuangxiang the Eastern Zhou was extinguished, and after King Zheng came to the throne Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu and Yan fell one after another, leaving Qi ever less room to maneuver as its neighbors vanished. Qi was not without means of resistance: it held such great cities as Linzi and Jimo, its land was rich and its crafts and trade developed, and an alliance with the remaining five states would at least have slowed Qin's advance; but since Qi did not border directly on Qin, the court and people long assumed Qin was no immediate danger, and Hou Sheng and his party used that temper to make the state give up its defenses.

King Jian's end became a much-debated case in Warring States history. The Records says he was moved to Gong and starved to death, and that the people of Qi mocked him in song; the Intrigues of the Warring States also preserves comment on Qi's failure to aid Zhao and the other states. Later writers generally hold that Qi fell not for want of strength but from long misjudgment in diplomacy and defense — a judgment often cited in Han discussions of the causes of Qin's unification as a footnote to why the six states perished.

After Qi fell its lands became the Qin commanderies of Qi and Langya, and the crafts, trade and salt and iron of Linzi passed into Qin's resources. Members of the Tian clan were still active at the end of Qin: Tian Dan, Tian Rong and Tian Heng set up a state again in the wars against Qin, and the story of Tian Heng and his five hundred followers survived into later ages, a contrast with the end of King Jian.

On King Jian's place in history, later writers have taken two broad lines. One looks to diplomacy and strategy and holds that his refusal to aid Zhao and the other states cost Qi its screen and left it isolated to perish, citing Zhou Zi's remonstrance and the people's song; the other notes that Qi did not border Qin and that under the Queen Dowager Jun it did enjoy decades of peace, so that his error lay chiefly in abandoning defense later and employing Hou Sheng and his like, not in the earlier caution toward Qin.

Institutional factors matter too: the reforming tradition of Qi from the reigns of King Wei and King Xuan had faded in the late Warring States, the Jixia Academy's brilliance was gone, and the movement of talent and liveliness of debate declined sharply. Under King Jian no general like Tian Dan or counselor like Zou Ji or Chunyu Kun appeared, one reason Qi had no one to call on at the last. Of the six states, Qi fell most smoothly and struggled least, a contrast often used to discuss the shifts of power among the states in the last years of the Warring States and the consequences of diplomatic choices.

Major Activities

Relations with Qin

Qi dealt cautiously with Qin while Queen Mother Jun directed government. Jian's refusal to provide grain to Zhao and, later, Hou Sheng's advice to abandon anti Qin cooperation mark important choices in Qi's foreign policy. Qi's long absence of war also reflected its eastern position and Qin's campaigns against other states; it cannot simply be credited to Jian personally.

The decision at Qi's fall

In 221 BCE (King Jian of Qi 44; Qin Shihuang 26), Qi defended the western frontier, but Qin's army advanced from the former Yan lands. Jian surrendered without organizing effective resistance. The Records connects Hou Sheng's bribery and Qi's failure to prepare for war with its fall. This is the ancient historian's explanation; the article does not assume that a different alliance would necessarily have changed the outcome.

Personal Relations

• King Xiang of Qi: father and predecessor; Queen Mother Jun: mother and former regent.
• Hou Sheng: chancellor, said by other accounts and the Records to have taken Qin money. another account calls him Queen Mother Jun's cousin, while an older Chinese account calls him Jian's maternal uncle; he is identified here only by his secure office.
• Zhouzi: adviser who urged Jian to supply grain to Zhao.
• Tian Jia: younger brother later chosen as king by people in Qi during the Qin collapse; Tian An: grandson later made Prince of Jibei.
• King Zheng of Qin: ruler who conquered Qi; Wang Ben: Qin general who led the attack.

Historical Assessment

The Records of the Grand Historian says that people in Qi blamed Jian for failing to join the other states against Qin and for trusting Hou Sheng and his associates. It preserves a song about the pines and cypresses at Gong. This historical account conveys criticism of his appointments and Qin policy after the state's fall. The Strategies of the Warring States develops the narrative through warnings attributed to officials and Jian's fate at Gong. Those speeches should be distinguished from events that can also be checked against the Records.