King Zhaoxiang of Qin

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

King Zhaoxiang of Qin, Ying Ji, was a son of King Huiwen of Qin and Queen Dowager Xuan, née Mi, also known as Mi Bazi. In King Huiwen's later years Mi Bazi was favored, but Ying Ji was not the crown prince. After Ying Dang became King Wu of Qin, Ying Ji was sent to Yan as a hostage. In 307 BCE, the fourth year of King Wu, the king competed with the strongman Meng Yue in lifting a cauldron at Luoyang, broke his shin, and died. Because King Wu had no son, his younger brothers competed for the succession. Queen Dowager Xuan wished to enthrone Prince Fu, while Queen Huiwen supported Prince Zhuang. King Wuling of Zhao, acting in Zhao's interests, sent men to bring Prince Ji back from Yan. With the support of Wei Ran, Chuliji, and others, Prince Ji took the throne as King Zhaoxiang of Qin. There was considerable opposition within Qin, but Wei Ran controlled the military and ultimately suppressed it. Because King Zhaoxiang was young at accession, Queen Dowager Xuan governed while Wei Ran served as general and controlled the defense of Xianyang.

Early Reign and the Regency of Queen Dowager Xuan

At the beginning of King Zhaoxiang's reign, Qin affairs were largely handled by Queen Dowager Xuan, Wei Ran, and veteran ministers of King Huiwen such as Chuliji and Gan Mao. In the first year (306 BCE), King Zhaoxiang accepted Gan Mao's advice and returned Wusui to Han, but Xiang Shou and Gongsun Shi slandered Gan Mao, who fled to Qi out of fear. After Gan Mao's departure, King Zhaoxiang still granted him the rank of shangqing and attempted to recall him, but Gan Mao never returned and later died in Wei.

In the third year (304 BCE), King Zhaoxiang performed his capping ceremony and began to govern personally, although he remained constrained by Queen Dowager Xuan and Wei Ran. That year he met King Huai of Chu at Huangji and returned Shangyong to Chu to ease Qin-Chu relations. In the fourth year (303 BCE), Qi, Wei, and Han jointly attacked Chu because of its alliance with Qin. Qin sent troops to rescue Chu and captured Puban, Yangjin, Fengling, and other Wei territories. In the fifth year (302 BCE), King Zhaoxiang met King Xiang of Wei and Crown Prince Han Ying at Linjin and returned Puban to Wei.

In the sixth year (301 BCE), Shuzhang Huan attacked Chu, defeating its forces at Chongqiu and killing the Chu commander Tang Mei. That same year, Prince Hui, Marquis of Shu, was falsely accused of rebellion, and Sima Cuo pacified Shu. In the seventh year (300 BCE), Mi Rong attacked Chu, killed 30,000 and the Chu general Jing Que, and seized Xiangcheng. Chuliji died, and Lou Huan succeeded him as Grand Councilor.

In the eighth year (299 BCE), King Zhaoxiang lured King Huai of Chu to Wuguan, abducted him to Xianyang, and demanded the cession of Wu and Qianzhong commanderies. King Huai angrily refused and was detained in Qin. That year Tian Wen, Lord Mengchang of Qi, entered Qin and became Grand Councilor, but in the following year King Zhaoxiang believed slander and sought to kill him; Tian Wen escaped to Qi. In the tenth year (297 BCE), King Huai escaped, but Zhao refused to receive him and Qin troops recaptured him. In the eleventh year (296 BCE), King Huai died in Qin and his body was returned. That year Lord Mengchang joined Han and Wei in attacking Qin, defeating Qin at Hangu Pass and forcing it to return territories to Han and Wei in exchange for peace.

Wei Ran's Dominance and Military Expansion

In the twelfth year (295 BCE), Lou Huan was dismissed and Wei Ran became Grand Councilor. Wei Ran thereafter dominated the government for many years and repeatedly led military campaigns in person. In the fourteenth year (293 BCE), Han and Wei attacked Qin. Bai Qi commanded the Qin army and inflicted a major defeat on their coalition at Yique, killing 240,000 and capturing the Wei commander Gongsun Xi. Qin then campaigned year after year: in the sixteenth year (291 BCE) it attacked Han and captured Wancheng; in the seventeenth (290 BCE), Wei ceded 400 li of Hedong and Han ceded 200 li of Wusui; in the eighteenth (289 BCE), Bai Qi and Sima Cuo attacked Wei and captured sixty-one cities.

In the nineteenth year (288 BCE), King Zhaoxiang styled himself the Western Emperor and honored King Min of Qi as the Eastern Emperor. When the king of Qi abandoned the imperial title and arranged a coalition against Qin, King Zhaoxiang was likewise forced to abandon it. From the twentieth through the twenty-fourth years (287–283 BCE), Qin repeatedly attacked Wei, capturing Xinyuan and Quyang and compelling Wei to cede Anyi for peace. Qin also participated in the five-state campaign against Qi, while Meng Wu captured nine Qi cities, and Qin attacked Wei as far as Daliang. In 283 BCE, the twenty-fourth year, King Zhaoxiang demanded the Heshi jade from Zhao, but Lin Xiangru returned the jade intact to Zhao.

From the twenty-fifth through the twenty-ninth years (282–278 BCE), Qin fought simultaneously against Zhao and Chu. It took two cities, Shicheng, and Guanglang from Zhao, while Sima Cuo attacked Chu and seized Qianzhong. In 279 BCE, the twenty-eighth year, Bai Qi took Yan, Deng, and Xiling from Chu. In 278 BCE, the twenty-ninth year, he captured Ying, the Chu capital, burned the tombs of the former Chu kings, and forced Chu to move its capital to Chen. After this campaign Qin established Nan Commandery and Bai Qi was enfeoffed as Lord Wu'an. In the thirtieth year (277 BCE), Qianzhong Commandery was established.

From the thirty-first through the thirty-fourth years (276–273 BCE), Qin repeatedly attacked Wei. Bai Qi captured two cities; Wei Ran besieged Daliang, defeated a Han relief force and killed 40,000; Qin then attacked Wei again, taking four cities and killing another 40,000. In 273 BCE, the thirty-fourth year, Wei Ran defeated Wei at the Battle of Huayang, killing 130,000, while 20,000 Zhao troops were drowned in the Yellow River.

Fan Ju's Arrival and the Recovery of Royal Power

In 270 BCE, the thirty-seventh year, Qin attacked Eyu in Zhao but was defeated by Zhao She. That same year, the Wei native Fan Ju entered Qin and proposed the strategy of “befriending distant states while attacking nearby ones.” He also argued that Queen Dowager Xuan, Wei Ran, and the Four Nobles—Marquis of Rang Wei Ran, Lord Huayang Mi Rong, Lord Jingyang Prince Fu, and Lord Gaoling Prince Hui—held excessive power and possessed private wealth greater than that of the royal house. In 266 BCE, the forty-first year, King Zhaoxiang appointed Fan Ju Grand Councilor, enfeoffed him as Marquis Ying, expelled Queen Dowager Xuan and the Four Nobles, and recovered royal authority. Qin thereafter adopted the strategy of befriending distant states and attacking neighboring ones, concentrating on Han, Zhao, and Wei.

The Battle of Changping and Later Years

In 263 BCE, the forty-fourth year, Bai Qi attacked Han and took Nanyang, cutting the Taihang route. In 260 BCE, the forty-seventh year, Qin attacked Han's Shangdang. Shangdang surrendered to Zhao, leading Qin to attack Zhao. Zhao commander Lian Po remained behind fortified defenses; Qin used a strategy of alienation that led Zhao to replace him with Zhao Kuo. Qin secretly appointed Bai Qi commander. At Changping he crushed the Zhao army, killed Zhao Kuo, and massacred several hundred thousand surrendered Zhao soldiers. The battle was the largest war of annihilation of the Warring States period and badly weakened Zhao.

In 259 BCE, the forty-eighth year, Han ceded Yuanyong and Zhao offered six cities for peace. To avenge Fan Ju, King Zhaoxiang lured Zhao's chief minister Lord Pingyuan, Zhao Sheng, to Qin and detained him, forcing Zhao to kill Wei Qi. From the forty-ninth through the fifty-first years (258–256 BCE), Qin besieged Handan. Although it temporarily occupied Wu'an, Pilao, and other places, it was ultimately defeated by the combined forces of Zhao, Wei, and Chu and by Lord Xinling's seizure of military tallies to rescue Zhao. In 255 BCE, the fifty-second year, Fan Ju lost favor and Cai Ze succeeded him as Grand Councilor. In 256 BCE, the fifty-first year, Qin destroyed the Western Zhou state and King Nan of Zhou died. In 251 BCE, the fifty-sixth year, King Zhaoxiang died at the age of seventy-five and was succeeded by his son Lord Anguo.

The Dispute over the Succession and the Regency of Queen Dowager Xuan

King Zhaoxiang's accession came out of a sudden death and the quarrel that followed. In 307 BC King Wu of Qin, competing at lifting the dragon-patterned cauldron in the ancestral temple of the Zhou in Luoyang, "had his shinbone crushed and died"; he died suddenly and left no son, and the question of the successor produced a dispute: Queen Dowager Xuan wished to set up Prince Fei, while those who supported Prince Zhuang contended with her, and Prince Ji, then a hostage in Zhao, had the support of Zhao, before whose pressure Qin gave way and set up Prince Ji as king of Qin. Most of the ministers of Qin opposed him, but with the support of Wei Ran and others he, being a half-brother of King Wu by the same father, inherited the throne as King Zhaoxiang of Qin. He was then young, and his mother Queen Dowager Xuan ruled in his name with Wei Ran as general. The Basic Annals record that in the first year of Zhaoxiang "Lord Yan Ji was chancellor and Gan Mao left for Wei," that in the second "a comet appeared," and then that "the senior commander Zhuang with great officers, feudal lords and princes rose in rebellion and all were executed, and the queen dowager Huiwen was not permitted a good death, while the queen of King Dao Wu returned to Wei" — that is, a purge at the outset settled accounts with the opposing party. In the third year the king assumed the cap of manhood.

Relations with Chu and the Death of King Huai

For the first twenty years of his reign one focus of Qin's diplomacy and war was Chu. In 304 BC he made an alliance with King Huai of Chu at Huangji and gave Chu the land of Shangyong. In 303 BC Qi, Wei and Han, because of Chu, allied with Qin and then, breaking their agreement with Chu, attacked it together; Chu sent its crown prince to Qin as a hostage, and Qin sent troops to rescue Chu, seizing Puban, Yangchun and Fengling and taking Wusui as well. In 302 BC the king met King Xiang of Wei and the crown prince of Han at Linjin, returned the occupied Puban to Wei, "and the covenant of the vertical alliance against Qin fell apart," while the Chu crown prince Xiong Heng escaped from Qin back to Chu. In 301 BC Qin, Han, Wei and Qi attacked Chu together and beat it heavily at Chongqiu, killing its great general. In 300 BC Huayang Jun of Qin attacked Chu, took thirty thousand heads, killed the Chu general Jing Que and took Xiangcheng. In 299 BC the king invited King Huai of Chu to meet him at Wuguan to swear an alliance, and on the way seized him and carried him to Xianyang, pressing him to cede territory; King Huai refused in anger and the king detained him and would not let him go — in the same year Qin made Tian Wen, lord of Mengchang of Qi, its chancellor. In 298 BC, on slander, the king prepared to kill Tian Wen, who fled back to Qi; Qin's armies marched against Chu, took fifty thousand heads and sixteen of its cities. In 297 BC King Huai escaped from captivity, and "Qin troops were posted all along the roads of Chu to hunt for him"; he fled to Zhao, which dared not take him in, and while fleeing to Wei was caught by Qin soldiers; in 296 BC he died and Qin returned his body. By the twenty-seventh year (280 BC) the Qin general Sima Cuo again attacked Chu and took Qianzhong.

War with the Three Jin and Qi, and the Question of the Imperial Title

Warfare against the three Jin states and Qi formed the main line of expansion in the middle of his reign. In 293 BC Han and Wei attacked Qin, which made Bai Qi commander and fought at Yique, winning "a great and complete victory, taking two hundred and forty thousand heads" and capturing the Wei general Gongsun Xi. In 291 BC Qin attacked Han and took Zhi and Deng. In 290 BC Wei ceded four hundred li of Hedong and Han two hundred li at Wusui; in 289 BC Sima Cuo led troops against Wei, reaching Heyong and taking sixty-one towns large and small. In 288 BC King Zhaoxiang took the title of emperor in the west, the Western Emperor, and proposed that the king of Qi be Eastern Emperor; the king of Qi, on his adviser's counsel, gave up the title himself and called on the feudal lords to form a vertical alliance against Qin, whereupon King Zhaoxiang was forced to drop the title too and be king again. In the years following, Qin and Wei went on taking from one another: in 287 BC Qin took Xinyuan and Quyang from Wei; in 286 BC Wei ceded its old capital Anyi to sue for peace and Qin "drove all the people of Anyi out into Wei, keeping only the city," recruiting settlers for Hedong with grants of rank and exiles pardoned to move there. In 284 BC the five states of Yan, Zhao, Qin, Han and Wei attacked Qi together and took more than seventy of its cities. In 283 BC Qin and Zhao met at Rangcheng, Qin took Ancheng from Wei and its vanguard reached the Wei capital Daliang before returning; in the same year Qin demanded the jade disc of He from Zhao, offering fifteen cities in exchange, and Zhao sent Lin Xiangru with the disc, who, seeing no sincerity in Qin, brought it back whole. From 282 to 280 BC Qin attacked Zhao repeatedly, taking two cities and Shicheng, and Bai Qi took twenty thousand heads and the town of Guanglang in Dai. This year-by-year advance, interwoven with alliances, exchanges of hostages and cessions of land, formed the basic rhythm of Qin's diplomacy and war from the early to the middle years of King Zhaoxiang.

Major Activities

Military Expansion

During King Zhaoxiang's fifty-six-year reign, Qin's military expansion reached an unprecedented scale. Major campaigns included:

• Battle of Yique (293 BCE): Bai Qi defeated the allied armies of Han and Wei, killed 240,000 and captured the Wei commander Gongsun Xi, leaving both states severely weakened.
• Campaign against Yan and Ying (279–278 BCE): Bai Qi first captured Yan, Deng, and Xiling from Chu and then took the Chu capital Ying and burned the tombs of former Chu kings, forcing Chu to move its capital to Chen. Chu was weakened thereafter and no longer posed the same threat to Qin.
• Battle of Huayang (273 BCE): Wei Ran led Qin forces to aid Han, defeated Wei at Huayang, killed 130,000, and had 20,000 Zhao troops drowned in the Yellow River.
• Battle of Changping (260 BCE): Qin used alienation to induce Zhao to replace Lian Po with Zhao Kuo. Bai Qi encircled the Zhao army, which ran out of provisions for forty-six days. Zhao Kuo was killed, and Qin massacred several hundred thousand surrendered Zhao soldiers. The battle was the largest war of annihilation of the Warring States period and left Zhao gravely weakened.
• Five-State Campaign against Qi (284 BCE): Qin joined Yan, Zhao, Han, and Wei in attacking Qi. Meng Wu captured nine Qi cities, and Qi nearly collapsed, allowing Qin to weaken a major eastern power.

Political Measures

• Befriending distant states while attacking nearby ones: King Zhaoxiang adopted Fan Ju's strategy of maintaining good relations with distant Qi and Yan while concentrating attacks on neighboring Han, Zhao, and Wei, giving Qin's expansion a clearer and more effective direction.
• Recovery of internal power: In 266 BCE, the forty-first year, he expelled Queen Dowager Xuan and the Four Nobles and appointed Fan Ju Grand Councilor, ending the long dominance of Queen Dowager Xuan and Wei Ran and strengthening royal authority.
• Title of Western Emperor: In the nineteenth year (288 BCE), he styled himself Western Emperor and honored King Min of Qi as Eastern Emperor. Although both titles were soon abandoned, the episode showed that Qin no longer treated the Zhou king as its unquestioned superior.
• Destruction of the Western Zhou state: In 256 BCE, the fifty-first year, Qin destroyed the Western Zhou state. King Nan of Zhou died after entering Qin, bringing the Zhou house's symbolic role as overlord of All Under Heaven to an end.

Diplomatic Activities

• Relations with Chu: Early in his reign he met Chu at Huangji and returned Shangyong; later he lured and detained King Huai of Chu and demanded territory, causing a complete rupture in Qin-Chu relations.
• Relations with Zhao: Relations eased for a time after the meeting at Mianchi, but the Battle of Changping turned Qin and Zhao into bitter enemies.
• Dealings with Qi: He appointed Lord Mengchang Grand Councilor but later tried to kill him, prompting Lord Mengchang to join Han and Wei in attacking Qin and temporarily defeat Qin at Hangu Pass.

Relations with Contemporaries

King Zhaoxiang's relationship with Bai Qi is a representative example of ruler-minister relations in the Warring States period. Bai Qi won major victories for Qin and was enfeoffed as Lord Wu'an. After Changping, however, Bai Qi advocated immediately destroying Zhao, while King Zhaoxiang followed Fan Ju's advice and halted the campaign. When Qin later suffered setbacks at Handan, the king tried to recall Bai Qi to service, but Bai Qi pleaded illness and refused and was ultimately ordered to commit suicide. King Zhaoxiang's relationship with Fan Ju was similarly dramatic: Fan Ju helped him recover royal power, but later lost favor and was succeeded by Cai Ze as Grand Councilor.

Alliances, Appointments, and the Weighing of the Imperial Title

Reigning more than fifty years, King Zhaoxiang had as a marked feature of his statecraft the joint use of alliances and hostage diplomacy. Year by year the Basic Annals record him meeting King Xiang of Wei and the crown prince of Han at Linjin, King Huai of Chu at Huangji, receiving the king of Wei's homage at Yingting, meeting the king of Chu at Wan and the king of Zhao at Zhongyang, and again meeting the king of Wei at Yiyang and the king of Han at Xincheng, while in the seventeenth year "the lord of Chengyang came to court, and the lord of Eastern Zhou also came" — the homage of the Eastern Zhou lord showing that the Zhou house could no longer avoid presenting itself as a vassal under Qin's pressure. With the frequent alliances went exchanges of hostages and cessions of land: Lord Jingyang was sent as hostage to Qi, the Chu crown prince Heng to Qin (whence he escaped), and Wei and Han ceded Hedong, Wusui and Anyi one after another to sue for peace, while Qin sometimes returned land already taken (as Puban to Wei in the fifth year and Shangyong to Chu in the third), in order to break up the vertical alliances. This taking and giving back, giving back and taking again, is the horizontal alliance at work in concrete negotiation.

In appointments, the early years of King Zhaoxiang were constrained by Queen Dowager Xuan and Wei Ran, and he recovered authority only gradually. The annals record that in the first year Lord Yan Ji became chancellor and Gan Mao left for Wei; that in the sixth year Chu Lizi died; that in the ninth year Tian Wen, lord of Mengchang, came as chancellor and was presently "dismissed for gold received," Lou Huan becoming chancellor; and that in the twelfth year Lou Huan was dismissed and the Marquis of Rang, Wei Ran, became chancellor. Behind the changes of chancellors lay the rise and fall of two forces, the foreign wandering scholars and the native great kinsmen: Gan Mao, slandered by Xiang Shou and Gongsun Shi, "on the pretext of attacking Wei, fled to Qi," and Tian Wen, having come to Qin as chancellor, fled back to Qi on slander — both footnotes to the pattern of Qin's use of men in this period. The affair of the title shows his weighing of advantage most clearly: in the nineteenth year he took the title of Western Emperor and proposed the Eastern Emperor for Qi, and when the king of Qi, on his adviser's counsel, gave up the title and summoned the feudal lords to a vertical alliance against Qin, "King Zhaoxiang was forced to drop the title too and be king again." The imperial title lasted only a few months, which shows that under the balance of forces and the pressure of the alliances of that moment the title could not yet be maintained, and that Qin had to give way in form in order to keep the horizontal alliance together. Thereafter Qin went on taking land from the three Jin and joining Yan and Zhao against Qi — the five-state attack that broke Qi in 284 BC and the taking of Wei's Ancheng as far as Daliang in 283 BC being extensions of the same pattern. Between Qin and Zhao, though the demand for the jade disc in 283 BC ended with Lin Xiangru returning it whole, Qin's territorial demands and military pressure did not stop, as the attacks on Zhao from 282 to 280 BC plainly show.

Personal Relations

• Father: King Huiwen of Qin, Ying Si
• Mother: Queen Dowager Xuan, née Mi
• Elder brother: King Wu of Qin, Ying Dang (half-brother)
• Son: King Xiaowen of Qin, Ying Zhu
• Grandson: King Zhuangxiang of Qin, Ying Zichu
• Great-grandson: Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng
• Maternal uncles: Wei Ran (Marquis of Rang) and Mi Rong (Lord Huayang)
• Chuliji (Right Grand Councilor; younger brother of King Huiwen)
• Gan Mao (Left Grand Councilor; later fled Qin)
• Wei Ran (Grand Councilor; long dominated the government)
• Fan Ju (Grand Councilor; enfeoffed as Marquis Ying)
• Bai Qi (Daliangzao; enfeoffed as Lord Wu'an)
• Sima Cuo (guest official; pacified Shu)
• Meng Wu (general; campaigned against Qi)
• Wang He (Left Shuzhang; campaigned against Zhao)
• Tian Wen, Lord Mengchang (once Grand Councilor of Qin; later escaped back to Qi)
• King Huai of Chu, Xiong Huai (lured into captivity and died in Qin)
• King Wuling of Zhao (a key figure in placing King Zhaoxiang on the throne)
• Lord Pingyuan, Zhao Sheng (detained in Qin)
• Zhao Kuo (Zhao commander at Changping; killed in battle)
• Lian Po (former Zhao commander at Changping)

Historical Assessment

Warring States to Qin-Han Periods

• Xunzi described Qin customs: “Its people are simple; its music is not licentious; its clothing is not frivolous.” (Xunzi, “Strengthening the State”).
• Sima Qian wrote in Records of the Grand Historian, “Basic Annals of Qin”: “King Zhaoxiang undertook the work of an emperor, yet did not complete it.”
• Liu Xiang, in the preface to Strategies of the Warring States, assessed that King Zhaoxiang used Fan Ju and Bai Qi to nibble away at the other states.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Su Zhe held that King Zhaoxiang recovered authority with Fan Ju and expanded territory through Bai Qi, greatly strengthening Qin.
• Sima Guang, in Zizhi Tongjian, criticized the massacre of surrendered soldiers after the Battle of Changping.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wang Fuzhi argued in Du Tongjian Lun that by King Zhaoxiang's reign Qin already possessed the strength to unify the realm, although the timing was not yet ripe.
• Gu Yanwu regarded Qin's great strength in the Warring States period as beginning under King Zhaoxiang.

Modern Period

• Qian Mu, in Outline of National History, regarded the reign of King Zhaoxiang as a decisive stage in Qin's unification.
• Lü Simian, in History of the Pre-Qin Period, assessed that King Zhaoxiang's employment of Fan Ju and Bai Qi made Qin's expansion strategy clearer.
• Lin Jianming, in Draft History of Qin, noted that King Zhaoxiang reigned for fifty-six years and that his military and political measures laid the foundation for Qin Shi Huang's unification of the six states.