The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"I did all this not for the position of Ling Yin."

In Chenying City, when he learned of Li Xin's defeat in Huaibei, Changping Jun seemed to be talking to himself, or explaining something to his confidant Chen Ta, but he only said this one sentence, and then he did not speak for a long time.

He was still standing on the majestic site of the former palace of the Chu State in Chenying. From here, outside the palace wall, there were several local children playing, riding bamboo horses and chasing each other outside the wall.

Children at the age of five play with dove carts, and at the age of seven play with bamboo horses. Unlike girls who like to play house, boys' games are always very aggressive in any era.

Although these local Chu children in Huaiyang are still young, they have seen many soldiers coming and going in this city, so they learned to put a bamboo stick under their crotch, hold it with both hands, pretending that it is a car and horse, and they are the generals commanding the army.

They usually split into two groups to play, but what's interesting is that these children are arguing over who will play the role of "Qin Kou".

"I played Qin Kou last time and let you guys beat me up. Why do you want me to play it this time?"

The children who always play the bad guys feel very wronged. The children can't come to an agreement, and finally they can only play rock-paper-scissors to decide the winner.

The loser is discouraged and wraps a piece of black rag around his head, like the black-capped soldiers in the Qin army, while the child who wins the rock-paper-scissors game gets a piece of red cloth from somewhere and uses a bamboo pole to hold it as the red flag of the Chu people. He runs in front with a bamboo horse in one hand, shouting commands loudly, and leads several other people to chase and kill the "Qin Kou" with a black scarf on his head.

"It's been almost half a year, and the children still regard Qin as a bandit." Xiong Qi thought secretly. He would be worried about this in the past, but now he is not worried but happy.

There is no need to go deep into the village to ask what attitude the Chu people of Chen Ying have towards the Qin army stationed here. Just watching the children playing can tell the clues. If it weren't for the adults' influence, how could these young children have such a strong resentment towards the Qin army whose military discipline was not too bad for no reason?

At this time, one of the seven or eight-year-old children accidentally fell down, and the oldest boy, who was eleven or twelve years old, immediately dropped his bamboo horse and went to help him up. It seems that the two should be brothers.

Seeing Changping Jun frowning, Chen Ta thought that these children were disturbing him, so he wanted to ask people to drive them away, but was stopped by Changping Jun.

"I have been left alone in Qin since I was a child. I have no brothers or playmates. It is quite fresh to see these youngsters playing around."

He then asked Chen Ta, "Do you have any brothers in your family?"

Chen Ta replied in a muffled voice, "Yes, I have three older brothers and two older sisters, and I am the youngest."

Not every family loves their youngest son. Having a third boy is more than enough to continue the family line, but it means another hungry mouth to feed, and the clothes will soon be too big to wear, wasting fabric.

So Chen Ta left home very early and started to hang out in the rivers and lakes. With his good martial arts, he gradually became famous. Later, he became a guest of Changping Jun and joined him as a dead soldier.

"But I am the eldest son."

Changping Jun sighed in his heart, "It's a pity that I am just an only child abandoned by my father."

Although his three brothers were all real princes far away in Chu, Xiong Qi actually had a "brother" in Qin.

Or rather, he had one.

Xiong Qi still remembers that he was a mischievous teenager at that time. He first met "Prince Zheng" who had gone through a lot of hardships to return from Handan, Zhao State, in the palace of Queen Mother Huayang...

...

Before he met Prince Zheng, Xiong Qi had heard about his deeds and always felt that he was quite similar to him.

They were also abandoned by their father in a foreign country and depended on their mother for life.

The only difference was that Xiong Qi was treated favorably by the royal family of Qin State thanks to Queen Mother Huayang.

But Prince Zheng was not so lucky. Even with the protection of his mother's family, he still suffered a lot in Handan and was bullied by the people of Zhao.

This was natural. Zhao State had just lost more than 400,000 people in Changping, and Handan was besieged by the Qin army. The Qin generals who attacked the city did not care about the life and death of the mother and son. As a prince of Qin, it was good enough that Prince Zheng was not eaten alive by the people of Zhao.

At that time, the young Prince Zheng had already shown a hint of extraordinaryness. Facing a group of relatives he had never met before, he was polite and behaved like a prince, and he would say some well-behaved words, which made Queen Mother Huayang love him more than he could count.

But Prince Zheng's precocious eyes were full of distrust of everything around him.

Only by holding power and being a superior person can one ensure his own safety. From that time on, he understood this truth that Xiong Qi understood very late.

Queen Mother Huayang was deeply indignant about the suffering Prince Zheng had suffered in Handan, and she specifically asked Xiong Qi to take Prince Zheng to walk around Xianyang more often...

"Although you are my uncle, you are about the same age as Zheng, so you can treat him as a younger brother."

It's funny that the first impression of Xianyang that the future King of Qin had was brought to him by the Prince of Chu who was detained there. That was also a rare "babysitter" time for Xiong Qi.

The royal family cannot compare with the common people. As they grow older, they have to abandon their childhood sweethearts and devote themselves to a more exciting and bloody game - politics.

Just a few years after Prince Zheng returned to Xianyang from Zhao State, he defeated his younger brother, Prince Chengqiao, who was born and raised in Xianyang, through his flawless performance and successfully succeeded to the throne of Qin.

And Xiong Qi, as the new generation of hope among the Chu family's relatives, was also pushed to the position of Imperial Censor by the Queen Mother Huayang.

At that time, the Qin government was controlled by Lu Buwei, and Lao Ai was favored in the palace. According to the order of King Zheng of Qin, he could not leave the Xianyang Palace. He could only endure silently and wait for the day of the adulthood ceremony.

And Xiong Qi was one of the few people who was frequently summoned by the King of Qin to discuss with him how to govern the country after taking power.

So in those years, his younger brother, mother, and uncle betrayed King Zheng of Qin one after another. Only Xiong Qi and the Chu relatives loyally surrounded the King of Qin, helping him to quell the Lao Ai Rebellion and replace Lu Buwei.

The King of Qin also rewarded Xiong Qi and the Chu relatives by making him the Prime Minister of Qin.

Xiong Qi, the prince of Chu, stayed in the position of Prime Minister of Qin for ten years. During this period, he and the King of Qin were as close as brothers. Under the auspices of the Queen Mother Huayang, the King of Qin even married a princess from Chu, the younger sister of Lord Changping, like many generations of Qin kings in the past, and gave birth to the eldest son Fusu...

At that time, Qin was busy attacking Zhao and had not yet made trouble with Chu. Xiong Qi sincerely hoped that the two countries could restore the past 18 generations of friendship and let those scars slowly heal. One country would be based in the northwest, and the other country would be based in the southeast, and everyone would not interfere with each other...

Only in this way could he stay in Qin with peace of mind.

But when Queen Mother Huayang died and the King of Qin truly took control of the government, his true ambition began to show.

Xiong Qi remembered clearly that the conflict started at the banquet to entertain Prince Dan of Yan.

Prince Dan of Yan and King Zheng of Qin were hostages in Handan together when they were young, and they were also playmates who rode bamboo horses and dove carts together.

Now, the King of Qin has become the master of life and death, but the Prince of Yan does not seem to be aware of being a prisoner or a bird in a cage.

After some politeness, he raised a cup to toast the King of Qin, and then questioned the King of Qin's decision to keep Han Fei and kill him, and pointed out sharply that the King of Qin sent Teng, the governor of Nanyang County, to attack Han and besiege Zheng for three months, which was too much.

"In ancient times, Shang Tang and Zhou Wu destroyed their countries but did not destroy their altars. I hope the king can follow their example." Prince Dan pleaded with the King of Qin not only for Han, but also for Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu, and Qi.

The King of Qin, who was drunk for the first time, revealed his ambition for the first time in front of Prince Dan and Xiong Qi.

"Destroy the country but not its society?" Xiong Qi remembered that the King of Qin laughed loudly at that time, as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world.

"When King Ping moved east, there were still hundreds of princes in the world. Now, five hundred years have passed, and there are only seven countries left in the world. Where did those hundreds of countries go? Did they disappear out of thin air?"

"Yan State is two thousand miles wide, from Shanggu to Liaodong. This land once had Ji, Guzhu, Ji, Zhongshan and other countries. If it were not for the destruction of countries and annexation, where would Yan State have such a large territory? Zidan, today you want me to follow the example of the ancient benevolent kings and save Han State. Why don't you return to your country first and restore the Ji State, which is said to be the descendant of Huangdi?"

"In the past five hundred years, the countries have annexed each other and launched endless wars, and the people of the world have suffered. There is no two suns in the sky and no two masters for the people. As long as there are more than two kings in the Nine Provinces, the war will not stop. This is the so-called peace and the so-called benevolence. Prince Yan, how long do you want to maintain the status quo and let the people of the world suffer?"

Prince Dan of Yan was speechless, while the King of Qin said firmly: "You can hate me, but destiny cannot be violated. Someone must eventually unify the world and end this chaotic world! Therefore, I will not be hypocritical and will destroy the six countries without leaving any of them alive."

He looked at Prince Dan of Yan and Xiong Qi with sleepy eyes and smiled: "That's right, in five or ten years, Yan will perish, Chu will perish, but what awaits you will be a bigger country, the world will be united as one!"

"Whether it is within sight or beyond sight, it will be unified under my order. All the people in the world will become the people of Qin, using a unified writing system, a unified currency, and a unified measurement system! The whole country will be divided into counties and let honest officials govern. All the royal ministers will no longer be enfeoffed as princes, but will only be given salaries and nominal fiefs. The world's weapons will be collected, and there will be no more wars in the Central Plains. The army will go to the border to open up new lands or resist the invasion of Rongdi. The crops will be harvested every year, and the people will live and work in peace and contentment. We will also build roads leading to the whole country and erect stone tablets at the end of the mountains and the sea, so that people a thousand years or ten thousand years later can also know my achievements..."

The ambition of the King of Qin shocked Xiong Qi, and the ambition of the King of Qin confused Xiong Qi.

He was completely awakened from his dream at that time. It turned out that he and the King of Qin were not the same kind of people from the beginning.

The King of Qin wanted to sweep across the six countries, while Xiong Qi only wanted Qin and Chu to be in harmony and maintain the status quo.

Even though he didn't set foot on Chu land until he was thirty, he still recognized himself as a Chu person in his heart. This was the painful memory that King Kaolie of Chu had left on him with Jing and Chu.

While beating him, his father told him that he was a descendant of Emperor Gaoyang! He had the burning blood of Zhurong flowing in his body!

How could Chu, which had existed for eight hundred years, be destroyed just like that?

From that day on, the King of Qin began to accelerate his plan to rule the world, and he disliked Changping Jun for not being active enough in implementing the policy of destroying the six countries, and gradually used new ministers such as Li Si who could do their best to help him achieve his imperial career.

Finally, when Qin had destroyed Han and Zhao and the war with Chu was imminent, the King of Qin began to clean up the Chu relatives in the court, and Changping Jun was dismissed.

After that, with the sudden death of Xiong Qi's younger sister, the personal relationship between the two also deteriorated. The once close king and his ministers gradually drifted apart. Although Changping Jun was appointed last year to inspect Shandong counties on behalf of the king, Xiong Qi thought that this was like exile.

Politics is like this. Once you have lost the king's trust and are away from the center, you can never go back.

Xiong Qi could only rely on a series of conspicuous achievements such as suppressing the Zheng Rebellion, killing the King of Han, and subduing Chen Ying to show his loyalty and ask the King of Qin to leave him a decent exit...

Today's Qin Wang Zheng is no longer the young man who Xiong Qi took with him to Xianyang, but a conceited, impatient and untrustworthy king.

"I had no choice in the past." Xiong Qi looked at his palm.

Whether he was left in Qin or for the Chu relatives in Qin, Xiong Qi had no choice.

But now, after returning to his homeland, he suddenly had a choice.

Should he be a Chu Ju who is deeply rooted and difficult to move, and has a single-minded purpose?

Or is it Qin Zhi, who looks bright on the outside, but only knows the inner distress?

Xiong Qi already has the answer in his heart!

This time, he wants to be a Chu person again!

"Let's go, it's time."

...

Xiong Qi hung the sword on his waist and put on a blood-red armor, which was the color he had avoided before. Qin Wang Zheng was not his father Zichu who wore Chu clothes to please Queen Mother Huayang. He liked deep black and disliked dazzling red.

Xiong Qi brought his confidant Chen Ta to the courtyard of the official residence. At some point, more than a hundred swordsmen in white clothes knelt on one knee, leaning on long swords, waiting for their master's call.

In half a year, he gathered so many dead men, pushing clothes to wear, pushing food to eat, just for today.

Xiong Qi bowed to them heavily.

"If the plan fails, I will die before you."

"If the plan succeeds, you will all be meritorious officials of Chu! As a prince and prime minister of Chu, I will never let you down!"

"I am willing to die for my lord!" More than a hundred warriors bowed to the ground.

Xiong Qi has already established a connection with Xiang Yan of Chu. As long as Xiang Yan can prove to him that the Qin army is not invincible, Xiong Qi is willing to start a rebellion in Chen Ying!

But Chen Ying has at least 3,000 Qin troops guarding it. Is it enough to rely on only a hundred warriors? I am afraid that they will be surrounded and wiped out as soon as they rush out.

Xiong Qi is confident. He has been preparing for today for a long time.

"Chen Ying is a city with nearly 50,000 households. From the elderly to the children, no one wants to be a Qin person."

"Therefore, every household in any market has our reinforcements!"

The mansion was opened, and Changping Jun led the crowd out. The Qin soldiers guarding the gate were not surprised. Now, rumors have spread to Chen Ying that the Qin army was defeated. As the governor of this city, it is normal to lead troops to resist the enemy.

The children playing in the corner stared at the general in a fluttering red robe in amazement. Isn't the person living in this mansion the "stinky citron" who is reviled?

Changping Jun and his party followed the familiar road in the past and headed straight to the downtown area!

Today was the market day. With every step, the crowd became denser. They all turned their heads in surprise and looked at Xiong Qi who came to them fully armed. In the past, Xiong Qi had walked this road many times. Along the way, he was whispered by the local Chu people, saying that he was a "bad orange", meaning that Xiong Qi forgot his roots and became a Chu traitor who accomplices the Qin people and was ashamed of his ancestors.

Sometimes, people even threw rotten oranges at him...

But now, they all looked at Xiong Qi in a daze, watching him standing on the chariot, holding a phoenix flag in his hand.

"Ersanzi!"

Xiong Qi shouted loudly to everyone he could reach in the Chu language that he had not dared to say in the past ten years.

"Today, Xiong Qi came here not as a Qin guard, but as a prince of Chu, to inform Ersanzi of something!"

"The Qin army has been defeated by Chu. Those who are willing to lead an uprising to recover Chen Ying and punish Qin officials will bare their right arms!"

He raised his arm high, and the red flag fluttered, as if he was a phoenix that had been reborn from the ashes...

That's right, Xiong Qi, a descendant of Emperor Gaoyang, will be reborn with Chen Ying today!

On that day, 3,000 people gathered in the market of Chen Ying, and all of them bare their right arms! Following Changping Jun to attack the Qin guards, Chen Ying rebelled!