Zhang Yi
Also known as Zhang Yi 张仪
- Dates
- d. 309 BC
- Era
- Warring States, born in Wei, served Qin
- Role
- Qin diplomat of the horizontal alliances
Zhang Yi's art was the promise that splits a coalition, including a land grant he then cut from six hundred li to six.
Who was Zhang Yi?
Zhang Yi was a man of Wei 魏 who became the travelling diplomat of Qin under King Huiwen. His policy is called the horizontal alliance, 连横 (liánhéng): separate deals that tied individual states to Qin and pulled them out of any common front. He died in 309 BC, after King Huiwen's death, when the next king did not want him and he withdrew to Wei. The Shiji gives him a paired biography with Su Qin and a shared teacher, Guiguzi. As with Su Qin, that pairing is the legend to mark. On the revised chronology, Zhang Yi is the earlier man.
His most famous stroke was against Chu. The Shiji and the Zhanguo ce say he promised King Huai of Chu six hundred li of land if Chu would break with Qi. Chu broke the alliance. Zhang Yi then said he had meant six li of his own estate. Chu went to war and was beaten, and Qin took the advantage. The speeches are polished, and the humiliation is told as a moral tale. The political result, Chu isolated from Qi and losing ground to Qin, fits the wider record of the period. He did not invent the later Qin doctrine of befriending the distant state and attacking the near one. That belongs to Fan Sui, a generation after him.
Key ideas
连横
Horizontal alliance
连横 (liánhéng) is a set of bilateral bargains with Qin, east to west on the strategists' map. Each bargain is worth more to one king, this year, than a coalition seat, and that is the lever.
The promise that shrinks
The Chu episode is a study in units. Six hundred li and six li use the same word for distance, and a coalition that breaks on a verbal concession does not automatically get the land.
远交近攻
Not the same as Fan Sui's later plan
远交近攻, befriend the far and attack the near, is stratagem 23 and Fan Sui's advice to a later Qin king. Zhang Yi's horizontal deals belong to an earlier reign, and they are a related strand of Qin diplomacy, not the same plan.
Famous episodes
Six hundred li, then six
Historyc. 313 BC
Zhang Yi offered King Huai of Chu six hundred li if Chu would abandon Qi. Chu broke with Qi, and the envoy who came for the land was told the grant was six li. Chu attacked and was defeated. The Shiji and the Zhanguo ce both tell the trick: read the dialogue as shaped, and the rupture with Qi as the historical point.
Is my tongue still there?
LegendEarly career, as told in the Shiji
Before his rise, the Shiji says, Zhang Yi was beaten in Chu on a charge of stealing a jade disc. He asked his wife only whether his tongue was still in his mouth, and, finding that it was, treated speech as his whole capital. The anecdote is too neat for a transcript. It is how the tradition explained a man who owned nothing but talk.
Pushed into Qin by his 'classmate'
LegendTraditional
The Shiji has Su Qin deliberately humiliate Zhang Yi, then secretly fund him, so that Zhang Yi will enter Qin and make Qin scary enough for Su Qin's league to be needed. It is a clever plot. The Mawangdui dating makes a long partnership of this kind unlikely. File it with the Guiguzi classroom.
Myths vs facts
Zhang Yi and Su Qin ran opposite grand strategies against each other, in the same years, as old classmates.
The Shiji says they were classmates running opposite plans. Zhang Yi died in 309 BC, and the Mawangdui letters are read as putting Su Qin later, near Qi's fall in 284 BC. The policies were real tendencies, and the personal duel is the doubtful part.
Horizontal alliance is just another name for 'befriend the distant, attack the near'.
Both are Qin ways of keeping a coalition from forming. Fan Sui's 远交近攻 is later and more specific: ally past the neighbour you intend to annex. Zhang Yi's 连横 is the earlier pattern of separate deals, and stratagem 23 names Fan Sui, not Zhang Yi.
He was a Qin noble carrying out a family strategy.
He was from Wei. Qin employed him, and when the king who trusted him died he left. The horizontal policy travelled with the adviser, and it was not a native Qin bloodline.
Takeaways
- Read a promised concession down to the unit of measure.
- A separate deal can undo a coalition faster than a battle.
- Keep Zhang Yi's pacts distinct from Fan Sui's later plan.
Rivals and connections
Sources
- Sima Qian, Shiji 史记, ch. 70
- Zhanguo ce 战国策