日期: 2022-01-28
In this article we will discuss the old Chinese saying “All the good things for Chin and Jean”, in Chinese it's 秦晉之好. It is an old saying used to praise a coming marriage between two close families of long-term relationship.
In our sixth episode we have mentioned the Jean State, and in today’s episode we will be talking about the Jean State again, but we will also introduce the Chin State for the first time.
Geographically, the Jean State was in the north, the Chi State that we talked about in the fifth and seventh episodes was in the east, while the Chin State, although originated in the west, it had continued moving eastward for the next 400 years to become the last one to stand after unifying all the other vassal states in China during the East Chou Dynasty to have created the Chin Empire in 221 BC. People say that the word China may have been originated from the word “Chin” to suggest the connection, but I am not so sure about it.
Let us first move back the time to around 650 BC about 430 years before the Chin Empire came about, when the Jean Shea Duke married his daughter the Bo Princess to the Chin Moo Duke in 656 BC to strengthen the relations between the two states, a common practice among the royal families at the time. Ever since the marriage, the Chin Moo Duke had basically listened to whatever Bo Princess had to say about the Chin’s relations with the Jean State until after she had died 20 years later when the Chin Moo Duke finally got to do what he wanted about the Jean State.
The Bo Princess’s father Jean Shea Duke, the guy we mentioned in the sixth episode, already had eight sons before he took his youngest mistress, the Lee Princess, as concubine who had given him another son, Gi shichi. One day the eldest son Gi Shanshan, as the First Prince, was ordered to worship and commemorate his deceased mother’s soul in Chufoo, and to return with the sacrificial meat for cooking and serving to his father. Just as a footnote, the sacrificial meat at that time was raw when presented at the worshipping ceremony and must be cooked before being consumed by human afterwards. But the Lee Princess first poisoned the meat then had it cooked. When the meat was ready for serving, the Lee Princess stopped the Jean Shea Duke warning him that one can’t be too careful as the meat was from far away. Then she had tried it on a dog and then on a slave. Both died instantly. Hearing this, the Prince Gi Shanshan, knowing that there was no way he could have gotten away with it, had first deserted to Chufoo, only to commit suicide in the end.
Knowing that Gi shichi, their youngest brother, would be the one as the rightful heir, the other two older sons, both Gi Yiwoo and Gi Chonger both fled the country to seek shelters elsewhere. One day in 651 BC the Jean Shea Duke had died leaving his only heir, who was only fourteen years old at the time. One top government official, Licco, not happy about the father’s last choice, had launched his rebellion forthwith to have killed both Gi hsishi and his mother the Lee Princess on site at the father’s funeral in 650 BC. Licco’s first choice was Gi Chonger as the older brother, but he had turned down the offer thinking that Licco, being a king slayer to have created so many enemies for himself all at once, could get him into trouble.
Licco then tried Gi Yiwoo as his second choice who was smart enough not to accept the offer right away. Instead, he had pleaded the Chin State to back him back from outside, and in return he had agreed to turn over a large piece of land and several townships in the west of the Yellow River to the Chin State, to which the Chin Moo Duke, through the Bo Princess’s good office, had obliged and had escorted Gi Yiwoo back to the Jean State, who then became the Jean Hwi Duke in 650 BC. But later the animosities between the two states had erupted when Jean Hwi Duke refused to turn over the land and townships alleging that all the Jean people had opposed it.
However, Chin Moo Duke, although upset, did not take any retaliatory action to even the score. By contrast, he had even allowed emergency food supplies to the Jean State four years later when the Jean State suffered from severe draught. But Jean Hwi Duke did it again to shame himself for failing to return the favor the next year when the Chin State had suffered a draught of similar severity. Not only that, he even thought it was a good time to invade the Chin State when it was at its weakest while being struck by famines.
However, Jean Hwi Duke lost the battle and, from bad to worse, was captured alive too. When all the people in the Chin State were talking about executing the Jean Hui Duke for being ungrateful to the Chin State over and over again, while the Bo Princess had come forward to save her younger brother’s life by having a scaffold built with firewood underneath it ready to be ignited, claiming that she would burn herself and her children with Chin Moo Duke if they should kill her younger brother.
Having no other choice, Chin Moo Duke in the end set his brother-in-law free with one condition – leaving his son, Gi Yu (as his first prince) behind as hostage, which Jean Hui Duke agreed and then returned to the Jean State, but not for long when he found himself seriously ill leading to his death in 637 BC.
While Gi Yu was in the Chin State, Chin Moo Duke had decided to marry his daughter, Why Yin, to the first prince to carry on the praiseworthy tradition between the two states. But Gi Yu had jumped bail after hearing that his father was about to die leaving his young wife behind after she had refused to return with him. However, things had taken another turn in 636 BC when the Chin Moo Duke had escorted Gi Chonger back to the Jean State to replace his nephew only after marrying Why Yin once again, but this time, to Gi Chonger as Gi Yu’s older uncle. With Chin State’s full support, Gi Chonger had returned to the Jean State to take whatever his nephew left behind after running away only to be assassinated later, so that Gi Chonger had become the new boss now after 19 years in exile all over the places in northern China.
貼文者：Mariia