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CHAPTER SIX Rhetoric in Opposition
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71 CHAPTER SIX Rhetoric in Opposition Two Zhanguoce 戰國策 Addresses HISTOR ICA L SITUATION OF THE A DDR ESSES Though the Zhanguoce 戰國策 (The Intrigues of the Warring States) represents events taking place in the Warring States period, it is by no means a genuinely historical document. Much of the material was clearly invented, not only its addresses but its representation of historical events. Nevertheless, Sima Qian clearly saw some of the stories it contains as sufficiently illustrative of a Warring States ethos that he included several in his Records, one of them being the political struggle between alliances advanced by two professional persuader-diplomats, Su Qin 蘇秦 and Zhang Yi 張儀. Their contest is symbolic of the larger confrontation between the mighty western state of Qin and its rivals. As an illustration of political address in the Warring States, I have chosen two addresses Su Qin and Zhang Yi presented to the king of Wei. At the time Su Qin and Zhang Yi appeared before the king of Wei 魏, Qin’s major opponent was the southern kingdom of Chu 楚. As depicted in the stories of the Intrigues, Chu wished to stay, or at least defer, Qin’s drive toward conquest by forging a “vertical” alliance with a group of states directly to Qin’s east. Qin naturally wished to erode the ties of this alliance, by convincing the more geographically vulnerable central states of Han 韓 and Wei, vulnerable by dint of their being surrounded by essentially untrustworthy competitors, to switch sides and ally with Qin, forming a “horizontal” alliance. Whereas successful alliances with Qin contributed to Qin’s ultimate hegemony, successful “vertical” alliances against it were fragile because, as Mark Lewis remarks, they “strengthened the preeminent ally and led the others to turn against it.”1 In the Records, 72 Dubious Facts Su Qin was the official spokesperson for the “vertical” alliance, Zhang Yi for the “horizontal” one. According to Sima Qian, the two addresses were presented to two separate kings of Wei: Su Qin’s to King Xiang of Wei 魏襄王 (r. 334–319 BCE) and Zhang Yi’s to his putative successor, King Ai 魏哀王 (r. 318– 296 BCE). These reign dates are taken from the “Tables” (biao 表) in the Records,2 yet some sources suggest that King Ai actually did not exist and that the reign dates ascribed to King Ai should be ascribed to King Xiang and those of King Xiang to King Huicheng 惠成, who, according to these sources, had an incredibly lengthy reign of over fifty years, from 370 BCE to 319 BCE.3 There are several other possible chronological markers that could substantiate this alternate dating. One is Su Qin’s reference to a “king of Zhao” dispatching him to Wei. Unless Su Qin was merely rhetorically “promoting” him to the same status as the king of Wei, that would have to have been King Wuling of Zhao 趙武靈王, who, according to the Records, reigned from 325 BCE to 299 BCE, for Zhao took the royal title only after ascending to the throne.4 Second, Zhang Yi, according to the “Tables,” had resigned his chancellorship in Qin, becoming chancellor of Wei in 322 BCE. But according to his biography, this was merely a political maneuver aimed at convincing the current king of Wei, apparently King Huicheng, to submit to Qin.5 Dispatched by the king of Wei apparently in the following year, in 321 BCE, to Qin to beg an alliance, Zhang Yi returned to his Qin chancellorship.6 Wei, however, surreptitiously preserved its alliance with the other states, mounting a joint attack in 318 BCE, the corrected first year of King Xiang’s reign. The attack failed and Qin then in 314 BCE forcibly took Wei territory. Both of these markers would point to the possibility that both Su Qin and Zhang Yi are appealing to King Huicheng sometime before the attack in 318 BCE, with Zhang Yi addressing the king between 322 and 321 BCE and Su Qin between 322 and 319 BCE. Regardless of whether this timeline is supported by the corrections to Sima Qian’s chronology—and, indeed, Su Qin’s very existence is in serious doubt—an analysis of both addresses seems to show that there is an awareness of the arguments of the other. The addresses are really merely representative of the major positions articulated to the king of Wei, whether they were ever presented by the two opposing figures of Su Qin and Zhang Yi. Indeed, from my analysis, the persuasions reveal an...