This book recounts the history of the Spring and Autumn Period (BC722-BC453), which began with the accession of Duke Lu Yin to the throne and ended with the division of Zhao, Wei and Han.

People can praise the Zhou Dynasty in the best language. The Zhou Dynasty is the mother of Chinese Wenyin, and if the Chinese Wenyin had not experienced the two-week era, it might have formed another kind of Wenyin; Not only are there differences in thinking, systems, and etiquette, but they even use different scripts, languages, and surnames.

The Spring and Autumn Period was a transitional period for the Zhou Dynasty from "there is a way in the world, and the conquest of etiquette and music comes from the Son of Heaven" to "the etiquette collapses and the world is in chaos". The princes and doctors wore jade silk in one hand and a sharp sword in the other, and the envoys and armies traveled through the land of China.

There were frequent wars and rare peace between the nations; Bustling cities were destroyed overnight, but more cities were built.

Neither status nor power can be a talisman to save one's life, but will bring great disasters to those in high power. It is not uncommon for the ministers and doctors to die and exterminate the clan; The monarch became one of the most dangerous professions. A monarch who was still giving orders in the temple one day might be dead in the court or anywhere the next.

Lu Yin Gong was a monarch who did not die well, and his death opened a tragic prelude to the Spring and Autumn Drama. The ending of the Spring and Autumn Period was also tragic: the throne of Qi was usurped by a doctor with a different surname; The Jin Kingdom was divided between Zhao, Wei and Han; The state of Wu was simply destroyed; The monarchy of Lu, Zheng, Song and other countries fell aside. The old order has collapsed, and a new one has not yet been established; The social order collapsed, and it was turbulent and dark.

However, the long and complicated history of the Spring and Autumn Period can only be summed up in two things: first, how people lived; 2. How the landlord is refined.

After King Zhou Ping moved eastward, Zheng Guo became a veritable upstart in China. At the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period, Zheng Zhuang put down the rebellion launched by his younger brother Taishu Duan, and since then he has firmly grasped the state power.

Then, Zheng Guoren stirred up the Central Plains in the dark: Zheng Guoren defeated Wei, Song, Xu, Dai, and ......, and rarely failed in more than 20 years. What's more, Zheng Zhuang Gong dared to openly challenge the royal power and defeated the alliance of the royal division and the princes with the army of one country, making the "Lile Expedition from the Son of Heaven" officially withdraw from the historical stage.

Just as Zheng Guo was getting better and showing signs of being the overlord of the Central Plains, Zheng Zhuanggong died. After that, the sons of Zheng Zhuang Gong fought for the throne, and the three monarchs were killed, and the country embarked on a road of division for more than ten years.

At this time, the eastern power of Qi ended a short period of civil strife, and Duke Huan of Qi finally ascended to the throne. Zheng Guoren watched the Qi State step by step towards the throne of the overlord, but he was mired in the quagmire of civil strife and could not stop the progress of the Qi people.

To the west of Taihang Mountain, the year before his death, Quwo Wugong finally ended the division of the Jin Kingdom for more than 70 years: he led the Quwo army to capture the capital of the motherland, occupied the monarch's palace, and ousted the last Ji Marquis from the throne of the monarch and sat on it himself.

Jin Xiangong, the successor of Jin Wugong, was a great pioneer, a warmonger who lit the flames of war everywhere; During his lifetime, he wiped out more than a dozen countries and laid a solid material foundation for the Jin State to dominate China.

The state of Qin in Hexi was only upgraded from a dynastic vassal to a state when King Zhou Ping ascended the throne. Due to the eastward migration of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a huge power vacuum in the vast area of Hexi, and the Qin State continued to rapidly expand its land area through warfare, and became a Western power.

Xiong Tong, the Chu monarch in the south, announced that he would no longer recognize the Western Zhou regime and set himself up as king. Subsequently, many countries surnamed Ji in the Jianghan area, Shen State, and Xi State were all destroyed by Chu State, so there was a popular saying at that time, called "Jianghan Zhuji, Chu Shi is exhausted." ”

Zheng, Chen, Cai, Xu and other states were forced to become vassal states of Chu and pay tribute to Chu. In a short period of time, the state of Chu extended its sphere of influence to the Central Plains.

However, the two large-scale northward expansions of the Chu State were crushed by the Chinese princes. The first time was during the reign of Duke Huan of Qi, and that time it was resolved by peaceful means; The second time was in

During the reign of Duke Wen of Jin, the Jin State used strong force to defeat the Chu State in the Battle of Chengpu, and the Jin State became the second overlord of China after the Qi State.

From the year of the outbreak of the Battle of Chengpu, the two countries of Jin and Chu began an eighty-year competition. The two countries have been at war continuously, the largest of which is two.

The first time the Chu army defeated the Jin army in the Battle of Yi, and the king of Chu Zhuang was ashamed of his grandfather; The latter time the Jin army defeated the Chu army in Yanling, and Jin Ligong avenged his father again.

The power of the two countries has been reduced to the other, but on the whole, the Jin state has a slight upper hand. During this period, both Qi and Qin caused a lot of trouble to the Jin State, but they were never able to shake the hegemony of the Jin State.

During the struggle for hegemony between the two superpowers of Jin and Chu, the princes of the world held two "Soldiers' Battles". The first time was an anticlimactic ending: the participants began to fight each other again before their mouths dried up. The second result was a remarkable result - the monarchs, including the overlords, were tired of the endless but fruitless wars.

Subsequently, the rise of Wu and Vietnam completely changed the pattern of the world. As a superpower, the state of Chu was vulnerable in the war launched by King Wu Lu, and in the end, even the capital was captured by the enemy! After that, Wu defeated Yue and Qi one after another, and overwhelmed Jin in the Huangchi hegemony and became the overlord of the world.

However, the heyday of the state of Wu was the beginning of the decline of the state. The Vietnamese army took advantage of the exhaustion of Wu's division and the emptiness of the country to capture the Wu capital Gusu, killed the prince of Wu, plundered the treasury, and devastated the country. The state of Wu never recovered, and the country survived for a few years before being destroyed by the state of Yue.

After the Chinese princes held the second meeting of the soldiers, the situation in China finally settled down. There were no major wars between nations, and monarchs began to seize their lifetimes to degenerate to the fullest.

The war is over, but peace has not come; When the external troubles were eliminated, the restless people began to fight among themselves, and the battlefield shifted from abroad to the country.

Due to the increasing frequency of land expansion and annexation activities, population mobility has also increased, and the sense of geography has begun to increase. The concept of kinship began to become indifferent, and bloodline was no longer a guarantee of clan safety. A large number of powerful and prominent families were wiped out; The people who did not die in the catastrophe died in the aftermath, and no one dared to guarantee that they would be able to have the last laugh.

"The gentleman's ze, the fifth and beheaded; After the minister, he was reduced to a soap subordinate. "The victorious clan grew stronger, and the power of the doctor overpowered the monarch. The rulers of power descended from the Son of Heaven to the princes in the early Spring and Autumn Period, and now from the princes to the hands of the doctors.

At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the descendants of Chen (Tian), the exiled son of Qi who lived in Qi during the reign of Duke Huan of Qi, gradually climbed to the high position of a powerful minister; The Chen clan used various means to make the Qi country bigger

The nobles were eliminated one by one, and finally usurped the throne.

The struggle between the six secretaries of the Jin State was protracted and extremely tragic. The four clans of Zhi, Zhao, Wei, and Han eliminated the Fan clan and the Zhongxing clan, and the Zhi, Wei, and Han clans besieged the Zhao clan. Han and Wei counterattacked when the Zhao clan was about to fall, but instead joined forces with the Zhao clan to destroy the Zhi clan.

In 453 BC, the Zhao, Wei, and Han families were divided, and the Spring and Autumn Period came to an end, and the Warring States Period began.