Hello everyone, I am a history encyclopedia editor. When it comes to the words of King Ling of Chu, everyone must have heard of it.
King Ling of Chu was a foolish ruler of the state of Chu. During his reign, he made many mistakes, although he destroyed the Cai state in the north of Chu and expanded its territory. However, King Ling of Chu was not good at all to the people of Chu. He first launched a rebellion, killed his nephew, and gained the throne. Many people were not convinced by King Ling of Chu from the bottom of their hearts.
Later, King Ling of Chu firmly established the throne of Chu and began to use the people to build palaces and high platforms for their own enjoyment. Every year, heavy taxes were levied on the people, and everything King Ling of Chu did added to their burden. In addition, King Ling of Chu often fought against the eastern state of Wu in an attempt to gain some advantage. However, Wu was not a weak state, and Chu often suffered defeats, with many innocent soldiers dying on the battlefield. Under the rule of King Ling of Chu, the common people couldn’t bear it anymore and drove him off the stage, forcing him to hang himself.
The most famous and absurd thing that King Ling of Chu did was to promote his hobbies throughout the country. King Ling of Chu was very fond of men with slim waists, and any man with a slim waist would be highly valued by King Ling of Chu. Men in Chu who sought a good official position in the Chu state government were all eager to lose weight, burn off their body fat, wrap their waists tightly with a thick cloth, and try to eat less food every day, avoiding meat and fish.
Over time, there were skinny men everywhere in the state of Chu, struggling to lose weight. The army lacked qualified soldiers, and there were no farmers to cultivate the fields. Men had to support wooden boards to stand up while sitting in carriages, and many people had to support roadside walls to walk on the streets. The people standing in the court of Chu were not talented scholars. Those with slender waists received special care from King Ling of Chu, who promoted them to become high-ranking officials in Chu. These people are usually trying to lose weight, so they have lost all their strength and cannot handle national affairs like normal people. Under the governance of these slender ministers, the state of Chu was in a mess, with many institutional documents piled up together. The slender officials were busy losing weight, and there was no one to manage these piled up documents.
The absurdity of King Ling of Chu has become a topic of discussion among literati in many countries, and has been recorded in books as a lesson for future generations. However, over time, people began to misunderstand this matter and believed that King Ling of Chu favored women with slender waists. The concubines in the harem, in order to cater to King Ling’s preferences, worked hard to lose weight, resulting in many people starving to death.
The editor believes that the hobbies of a monarch in a country can affect its culture. The story of King Ling of Chu tells us how destructive a bad monarch can be to a country, easily affecting the future of countless people.
