No one is perfect. Is Zou Ji, Minister of Qi State, a narrow-minded person?

When I was a student, I learned an article-Zou Ji satirized the King of Qi. In this article, Zou Ji asked people around him who is more beautiful than Xu Gong, who is known as a "beauty". The answer is that he is more beautiful than Xu Gong. After meeting Xu Gong, Zou Ji felt that he could not compare with Xu Gong, thus realizing a truth: his wife said that she was more beautiful because she loved herself and had a concubine. Then, he applied this principle to the king and found it appropriate. He beat the King of Qi to make him hesitate about his identity. No one tells the truth, so he can't hear people's real opinions and ideas. After listening to this, Qi Weiwang felt very reasonable, spoke freely, accepted criticism from others with an open mind, and made the country prosperous and strong.

Zou Ji satirized the King of Qi.

In this article, Zou Ji seems to be an upright, brave and caring person, and also a rare assistant of Qi Weiwang. But through the investigation of history, Zou Ji is not completely as honest as the article says. On the contrary, he can be said to be a narrow-minded villain in some ways. A country can be strong, not by one person, but by the unity and cooperation of most people. Zou Ji, as a minister of Qi, should have understood this truth better, but his real practice was disappointing.

Zou Ji

During the Warring States Period, Qi Weiwang revived Qi, and with the help of the Battle of Maling, Qi dominated the vassals. The victory of the Battle of Maling cannot be separated from Sun Bin and Tian Ji. In this war, due to the understanding of Pang Juan, the enemy strategist, and Sun Bin's own cleverness, he used the method of reducing the kitchen to confuse the enemy, lured the enemy to Maling, and set an ambush here early, which drove Pang Juan to commit suicide, Wei Jun suffered a fiasco, and Prince Shen became a prisoner of Qi.

Wei lost 65.438 million Wei Jun, weakened, unable to confront Qi, and worthy of submission. Soon, Qi Weiwang was worshipped by Wei Huiwang, South Korea and several other small countries in Xuzhou, and was honored as the king. However, in order to avoid being the target of joint attack by other vassal states, Qi Weiwang modestly recognized Wei Huiwang's throne and called it King of Xuzhou in history.

Qi Weiwang

After the Battle of Maling, Tian Ji, who commanded the operation, and Sun Bin, who gave advice, were appreciated by Qi Weiwang. Zou Ji was very unhappy to see this scene. Zou Ji, as a literati, will not conflict with military commanders in principle. Scholars are in charge of state administrative affairs, and military commanders go abroad to carry out foreign wars. Obviously, we can cooperate with each other and jointly push Qi to a higher position, but he is jealous because Tian Ji and others have won the favor and set them up.

Maling campaign

In fact, behind the battle of Maling, there is Zou Ji's operation. Before Tian Ji and Sun Bin won the battle of Maling, Sun Bin advised Tian Ji to win the horse race in Tian Ji. Soon, Zhao was attacked by Wei and asked Qi for help. Sun Bin adopted the method of besieging Wei to save Zhao, and achieved the goal easily. The prestige of Tian Ji and Sun Bin is also increasing day by day, which has aroused Zou Ji's fear. So he played and suggested sending Sun Bin and Tian Ji to attack Wei. At that time, Wei's strength was still very strong, and Sun Bin's classmate Pang Juan was Wei's strategist. It is not easy to win Wei. According to Zou Ji's idea, if the war is won, it will prove that he has a unique vision; If the war fails and Tian Ji and Sun Bin die, there will be two people competing with themselves. Whatever the outcome, it will be good for him.

Tian Ji

But what I didn't expect was that Tian Ji and Sun Bin won a great victory, which completely attracted everyone's attention, but he was forgotten, which was quite different from his original idea. This time, he didn't achieve his goal, but benefited Sun Bin and others. Zou Ji didn't want to stop here, so he made another plan.

As the saying goes, a king is like a tiger, and the heart of a king is unpredictable. A man of high merit, such as Tian Ji, who is highly valued by a king, is often feared by the king because of his great achievements.

Zou Ji took advantage of this to find someone to pretend to be Tian Ji's housekeeper, and went to the city to find someone to tell Tian Ji's fortune, and said unabashedly: My general led troops to fight and won every battle, and now it is going to be a great event. Do you think it can be done? And let people pass these words to Qi Weiwang's ears, which aroused Qi Weiwang's anger and demanded that Tian Ji confront the court. Tian Ji himself knows that Qi Weiwang has been terrified because of its high credit. Being framed this time, he may not be able to get rid of his own grievances, and he may be removed by Qi Weiwang, so he fled to the State of Chu. Sun Bin see Zou Ji so narrow-minded, extremely disappointed, left.

Zou Ji's narrow mind made Qi lose Sun Bin and Tian Ji, which led to the end of Qi's hegemony and then stagnated. I'm afraid Zou Ji doesn't even have water in his stomach. How can he punt?