My father, King Chu, was besieged at Gaixia

Chapter 68 The New Fifteen Kings
Of course, my father had deeper considerations for enthroning these generals as princes.

Before the enfeoffment, my father summoned these generals, as well as Zhang Han and other three Qin generals, Ying Bu, Gong Ao and other generals who were enfeoffed because of his favor, and said to them: "We wore armor and held weapons, camped in the wild and fought hard for three years, risking our lives, and finally destroyed Qin and pacified the world. This is all the work of you generals and me." The implication was that the world was conquered by us, and it should be divided and managed by us.

From this we can see that my father's enfeoffment was more reflected in merit, that is, whoever made great contributions in the destruction of Qin would be enfeoffed, and everyone was determined by strength.

The reason why my father was so generous and took the initiative to enfeoff such a large number of "military merit classes" was entirely out of consideration for his own interests. Because he was nominally a general under the command of Emperor Yi Xiong Xin, and he also made the greatest contribution in destroying Qin. He enfeoffed so many generals as princes, naturally in order to gain their support and support him to establish himself as the Overlord of Great Chu.

Except for the Great Chu which he monopolized and remained intact, the other six old kingdoms were all broken up into two or three parts by these "military merit classes" and Qin surrendered generals such as Zhang Han. This weakened the strength of other vassal states to the greatest extent and ensured the dominance of the Great Chu.

From this point of view, my father's enfeoffment was not so simple and kind, but full of conspiracy and calculation, and he was ruthless in seizing his own interests.

In comparison, Liu Bang's attitude towards the princes of different surnames was not to confer titles if possible. For example, Han Xin, who had made great contributions, asked for a title when he conquered Qi, which caused him strong dissatisfaction.

The eight princes of different surnames that Liu Bang finally appointed, such as Wu Rui, Zang Tu, and Zhang Er, were all among the 18 princes appointed by Xiang Yu. Han Xin, Peng Yue, and Ying Bu were also princes, but they just lacked the title. This was just a recognition of the objective facts, and Liu Bang had promised to reward the three before destroying the Chu. Han Wangxin was appointed by Liu Bang under specific circumstances in order to stabilize the Han territory when the battle with Xiang Yu was the most intense.

The last King of Yan, Lu Wan, was conferred upon Liu Bang after he destroyed the former King of Yan, Zang Tu, and was not among the first batch of kings. Moreover, Lu Wan was his childhood friend, and the two families had been good friends for generations. They were also born on the same day of the same month of the same year, and they were as close as brothers, with deep feelings.

Others like Xiao He, Cao Shen, Zhou Bo, Fan Kuai, Li Shang, etc., no matter how great their contributions were, were not granted the title of king, and the highest title they could receive was only marquis.

Xiang Chang was keenly aware of this problem, and came up with a vicious plan: Don't you want to be conferred a title? Well, then I, Da Chu, will confer it on you. I, Da Chu, am considerate of others and enjoy doing good things.

After comprehensive consideration and multiple calculations, Xiang Chang carefully prepared a list of the fifteen new princes appointed by the Overlord:
Xiang Yu, the Overlord of Great Chu, maintained his original territory and title.

Gong Wei inherited his father Gong Ao's title of King of Linjiang, and his territory remained unchanged. (Gong Ao, the King of Linjiang appointed by Xiang Yu, has now passed away.)
Zang Tu, the original territory remains unchanged, and the title of king remains unchanged.

Ying Bu was granted the title of King of Jiujiang and made a brotherly agreement with the Great Chu. His fiefdom included the territory of the former Jiujiang Kingdom plus the entire territory of the current Hengshan Kingdom.

Peng Yue was granted the title of King of Liang and made a brotherly pact with the Great Chu, with the entire territory of the former Wei State as his fief.

Han Xin was granted the title of King of Qi and made a brotherly pact with the Great Chu, with his fiefdom being the entire territory of the former State of Qi.

Lu Ze was granted the title of King of Qin, and all the lands of the former Qin State were his.

In addition, Cao Shen was named King of Dai, Wang Ling was named King of Changshan, Zhou Bo was named King of Zhao, Fan Kuai was named King of Liaodong, Zhou Chang was named King of Han, Li Shang was named King of Henan, Xiao He was named King of Hanzhong, and Jin Xu was named King of Bashu. All the territories conferred by the original king titles were borne by them.

Liu Bang has no integrity and shame, is treacherous, and does perverse things. He is a villain to the world. We should strip him of his title as king and all the princes in the world should attack him together!

...No wonder Liu Bang was so furious. This time, Xiang Yu conferred titles on the princes. Except for a few kings such as Gong Wei, Ying Bu, Han Xin, Peng Yue, Zang Tu, etc., all the other high-level core generals and ministers in his Han camp were conferred titles. It was really generous.

But the same thing goes, at present Xiang Yu is still the common ruler of the world, and still the prestigious King of Western Chu. As long as he is not dead, his enthronement has natural legal basis.

In other words, as long as these brave generals under Liu Bang had enough strength, they could take over these territories with Xiang Yu's enthronement and the corresponding seals, swords, flags and ceremonial guards, and then establish a country, become king, own the land, and pass it on to their descendants.

Even though the generals and ministers under Liu Bang knew that this was a trick of Xiang Yu to alienate them from the Han camp, the temptation of being crowned king was too great for them to resist.

This is also the reason why they all remained silent when they saw Xiang Yu being enthroned.

These generals who were able to follow Liu Bang in fighting until now, first destroying Qin and then rebelling against Chu, were not good people. They all knew that they had to fight for their own interests with all their strength. They chose to keep silent and wait, and ultimately ended up in loneliness.

I have to say that Xiang Chang's move was too bold. If you put yourself in Liu Bang's shoes, you would find yourself suddenly in a dilemma.

Should he choose to enthronize the generals as kings? That would make the generals happy, but even if he destroyed the Chu Kingdom and established the Han Dynasty, the world would be full of princes and kings, returning to the Western Zhou Dynasty. It would be difficult to establish a unified empire like the Qin Dynasty.

Should we continue to adhere to the established principles and not make any of the generals kings? Then we should also show enough sincerity to appease the generals, right? If we do not show any expression, won't it chill the hearts of the generals? How much sincerity is considered sincerity, so that the generals will not be chilled? How can we strike a balance?

The most striking point is, will Liu Bang still trust and rest assured in his generals in the future? What if these generals, leading a large army to fight outside, suddenly make a sharp turn and attack the land where they were crowned kings to establish their own kingdoms and become kings, leaving him, the King of Han, aside? What should Liu Bang do?

It can be imagined that Xiang Chang's strategy caused Liu Bang a lot of headaches for a long time, and it is unknown how much energy he spent to deal with it.

Some generals in the Great Chu camp disagreed with Xiang Chang's strategy and were very dissatisfied. They believed that such random enfeoffment made the Great Chu Empire look like a joke and was an act of self-degradation and the fall of the royal power.

Xiang Chang, however, sneered at this.

The Great Chu is almost gone, and as the saying goes, those who are barefoot are not afraid of those who wear shoes. If we don’t squeeze out the last bit of its value and fight for that glimmer of hope with all our might, but still hold on to our inherent arrogant aristocratic thinking and are unwilling to use any shameless conspiracy tactics, isn’t that a brainless act?
When they are truly destroyed, my father, who was a mighty overlord, will be cut into several pieces, and all the elite troops of the Great Chu that roam the world will be killed. That would be tragic and heroic, not a joke!

But the question is, who is willing? At least Xiang Chang's mother is unwilling.

This voice was quickly suppressed, and it was clear that most other generals were also unwilling to do so.

(End of this chapter)