In the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, when the "Wei-Chu War" was in full swing, Qin's Changxinhou Wang Jian was still struggling to attack Shu.
Previously, due to the non-cooperation of Ba State, the only way for the Qin army to attack Shu was "Jian Pass". This pass is located in a dangerous location and is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Even a strong general like Wang Jian often looked at the mountains and sighed.
It's hard to make any progress.
However, great changes occurred in the Ba Kingdom later, and "Langzhong" was occupied by the Qin army. At this point, the Qin army shifted the focus of its strategy from "Jianguan" to "Zitong".
Zitong, with Zilin to the east and Tongshui to the west, can be regarded as a dangerous city that can be defended. At least during the war between Ba and Shu that lasted for more than a hundred years, although the Ba people crossed Tongshui many times, they never failed to do so.
Zitong could not be conquered, so it became the solid "east wall" for Shu to resist the Ba people's attack.
However, now, this city has been attacked by the Qin people.
The Shu army defended Zitong for several months, but in the end before winter in the eighth year of Wei Zhaowu, the Qin general Wang Jian captured the city, cutting off the connection between "Jianguan" and the Shu mainland.
Since winter was approaching that year, the Qin general Wang Jian was not in a hurry to continue his march to Chengdu, the royal capital of Shu. "PS: The name Chengdu comes from the saying, "A settlement is formed in one year, a town is formed in two years, and a town is formed in three years."
"Chengdu". And "Cheng" also means "end", which refers to the last city of Shu. It feels a bit destined by God?"
In the spring of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Wei State was busy launching a war against Chu State. At this time, Qin General Wang Jian took the "Jian Pass" first.
Since Zitong had been captured by the Qin army, the Shu people had no way to pass through the city to support Jianguan, so the Shu army stationed at Jianguan struggled to resist the Qin army's front and rear attacks until they ran out of food and grass.
When they ran out of food and fodder, the Shu soldiers guarding Jianguan decided to fight and tried to break out in the direction of Zitong. However, their opponent was the famous general Wang Jian of the Qin State, so the attack failed and they fell into Wang Jian's hands.
Ambushed and wiped out the entire army.
At this point, the Qin army occupied Jianshan, and the Shu Kingdom lost this natural barrier and was completely exposed to the Qin army.
After occupying Jianguan, Wang Jian then attacked "Fu" step by step.
At this time, King Dulu of Shu also realized that his kingdom was on the verge of life and death, so he called on the domestic soldiers and civilians to resist the Qin army, and organized an army of 80,000 people to support Fucheng, trying to block the Qin army's advance here.
After that, the Qin and Shu armies faced off in Fucheng and Fushui for nearly several months. During this period, more than a dozen medium and small-scale battles took place. However, because the overall strength of the Qin army's generals far exceeded that of the Shu army, this battle resulted in
The victory of the battle gradually tilted towards the Qin army.
At the last moment, Shu general Du Ming decided to fight with all his strength and led the entire army to attack the Qin army's center in an attempt to kill Qin General Wang Jian. Unfortunately, the Shu army's desperate attack failed to achieve its goal.
As a result, nearly 100,000 Shu troops were surrounded by 200,000 Qin troops.
The battle lasted for three full days. Half of the nearly 100,000 Shu soldiers were killed. The rest of the soldiers laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Qin army under the Qin army's slogan of "Don't kill those who surrender."
As a result, this "Qin Shu Battle of Fushui" finally ended with the complete victory of the Qin army.
The fall of Fucheng meant that Chengdu, the capital of Shu, was completely exposed to the Qin army, and it also meant that Shu basically had no chance to save the situation.
In May of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Qin general Wang Jian led his army to attack Chengdu, and Shu king Dulu personally went to the city to defend it.
But after only defending for three days, the Qin army captured Chengdu.
Seeing that the situation was over, King Du Lu of Shu surrendered to the Qin army to save the lives of the Shu people under his rule.
In fact, Wang Jian had no intention of harming Shu King Dulu at that time. After all, the Qin State not only wanted the land of Shu, but also wanted the sincere surrender of the Shu people.
Therefore, on the day when he accepted the surrender of King Dulu of Shu, Wang Jian followed the wishes of the previous great concubine Zhao Ran and prepared to make Dulu the "Marquis of Shu" on behalf of Xianyang, borrowing Dulu's reputation and prestige in Shu.
The Qin State can win the hearts and minds of the Shu people more smoothly.
However, King Dulu of Shu felt that he was ashamed of his ancestors, so he did not accept the "goodwill" of Qin. He would rather commit suicide as a "king of a subjugated country" than be humiliated and made a prince by the monarch of another country.
Therefore, Wang Jian supported Du Li, the son of King Dulu of Shu, as the "Marquis of Shu" on behalf of Xianyang.
At this point, the Shu Kingdom fell and was reduced to a subordinate vassal state of the Qin Kingdom.
Just as Wei people Zhang Qigong and Beigong Yu had judged at the time, after both Shu and Ba were destroyed, Qin General Wang Jian immediately tore up the previous agreement with the State of Ju and turned around to destroy the State of Ju.
There were only three short months after the fall of Shu, and Ju State was also destroyed by Qin.
At this point, the three kingdoms of Shu, Ju, and Ba were all destroyed. Except for Ba, which was temporarily "lent" to Chu, the other two kingdoms were occupied by Qin.
At this time, Wang Jian had time to pay attention to the war between Wei and Chu.
In fact, as early as July and August, Wang Jian sent a detailed investigation and found out that Wei's army had captured Chu's "Wu Commandery" and "Xiying Commandery". From this, he judged that the Chu State was in conflict with the Wei State.
I am afraid that I was not optimistic about the war, so I intended to occupy Pakistan.
However, since he was returning to attack Ju State at that time, he did not have any friction with Doulian, the Chu general stationed in Ba State.
In September, the Qin king's capital Xianyang sent a minister "Zhang Ruo" to Shu to serve as the prime minister of Shu. He visited Wang Jian on the way.
During this period, Wang Jian said to Zhang Ruo: "The Chu State has lost Wu County and Xiying, and may not be able to resist the Wei State for a long time. I want to take back the Ba State. I wonder what Xianyang's plan is?"
Zhang Ruo replied: "I did not bring Xianyang's order to the general when I went to Shu to take up my post. I just felt that with the general's bravery and strategy, it was just a matter of time to take back Ba. However, this move may
Accelerate the defeat of Chu State."
After hearing this, Wang Jian was deeply convinced.
After all, the Chu general Doulian who was stationed in Ba had only tens of thousands of troops under his command, and half of them were unused grain soldiers. If King Jian sent his army to attack Ba, he could easily defeat Doulian and completely occupy Ba.
country.
But the problem is, if the Chu State loses the Ba State, it will naturally accelerate its defeat. For a small gain, the Chu State will accelerate its defeat and be overthrown by the Wei State. Wouldn't this be helping the Wei State in disguise?
Therefore, Wang Jian personally wrote a letter to Dou Lian, the Chu general stationed in Ba, expressing his willingness to assist Dou Lian in retaking "Wu Commandery" and "Xi Ying Commandery", and once again opening up the connection between Chu and Ba.
At this time, Wang Jian certainly would not have expected that Chu State would be conquered by Wei State and move its capital in just half a year, and all the land north of the river would be lost. If he had expected this in advance, I believe that
I won't do any more unnecessary 'support', and I'll definitely take over Pakistan first.
Anyway, Chu State is doomed to fall. For a fallen country, what else does Ba State need to do?
A few days later, after receiving Wang Jian's letter, Chu General Doulian was surprised, and he was also very happy.
After all, he had already made preparations before. If Wang Jian wanted to break the agreement after overthrowing the Kingdom of Ju, then he would put the Wei army stationed in Xiying County into the Kingdom of Ba, and let the Qin and Wei armies fight for food.
Both sides suffer losses.
Unexpectedly, Wang Jian not only had no intention of seizing the Ba Kingdom, but actually offered to help him in the Chu Kingdom, which made Dou Lian inexplicably happy.
Even Dou Lian knew in his heart that Wang Jian's purpose of 'helping' him in Chu State was not simple, but no matter what, between Wang Jian of Qin State and Wu Ji of Wei State, he chose the former for the time being.
.
Around September, Qin general Wang Jian sent his troops out of Ba and attacked Xiying County.
After learning the news, Wei General Wu Ji stationed in Xiying was stunned.
He also did not expect that Wang Jian would not take this piece of "fresh meat" from the Ba Kingdom and actually wanted to attack him in Xiying.
"If he (Wang Jian) wants to fight, then fight!"
Wu Ji sneered and said to his subordinates.
Although Changxinhou Wangjian was a famous general in Qin, Wu Ji would not be afraid of the former.
In his heart, only Zhao Run, the monarch of Wei, was worthy of his awe.
Wang Jian? Humph!
On September 15th, Qin general Wang Jian and Wei general Wu Ji ran into each other in the area of "Yiling".
At that time, King Jian had 80,000 Qin troops under his command. They had just defeated Shu and Ju, and their morale was high.
As for Wu Ji's command, there were only nearly 20,000 Shang Shui troops and 30,000 Xiying Chu troops - the Chu troops who were recruited by Xiying Jun Xiong Tao after he surrendered.
The two fought a fierce battle in the Yiling area. At that time, Wang Jian was surprised to find that the 80,000 Qin troops under his command with high morale were unable to defeat Wu Ji on the opposite side.
Wang Jian didn't know that although Wu Ji only had 20,000 merchant navy troops under his command, these 20,000 merchant navy troops were the elite of the merchant navy army, such as Ran Teng, Xiang Li, Zhang Ming and other brave generals of the merchant navy army.
Now that they are all under Wu Ji's command, it will not be easy for Wang Jian to defeat such an elite Shang Shui army.
After being hindered, Wang Jian sent people to invite Chu general Dou Lian, hoping that Dou Lian would come forward to instigate a rebellion against the Chu army under Wu Ji, the former general of Xiong Tao, the king of Xiying.
Doulian accepted Wang Jian's suggestion, and when Wang Jian and Wu Ji clashed for the second time, he shouted in front of the battle line, trying to instigate Wu Ji's Chu soldiers to defect before the battle.
But what was unexpected was that Xiying Jun Xiong Tao's subordinates had no intention of paying attention to Doulian.
After frowning and thinking for a long time, Dou Lian suddenly realized: Damn it, I forgot that Wu Ji was actually from Chu!
Yes, this is the reason why Xiying Jun Xiong Tao's subordinates did not listen to Dou Lian's instigation and defected before the battle. Because Wei General Wu Ji was also from Chu, this made Wu Ji recruit Xiying Jun Xiong Tao's subordinates.
, not only did there not be any obstacles, on the contrary, it went extremely smoothly.
Previously, each had no choice but to act as their own master, but now, even Xiong Tao, the king of Xiying, has surrendered to Wei. How can the latter's generals not cling to the big tree of Wu Ji?
Will these people defect in battle because of Dou Lian's instigation? How is that possible!
Unlike the people of Qin, the people of Chu have been frightened by Wei in the past thirty years. If I were to say who among the Central Plains countries knew the strength of Wei best, I believe it was definitely not South Korea, which had four national wars with Wei.
Instead, it was the State of Chu.
Don't forget, first there was the King of Shouling during the "Five Parties Conquered the Wei", and then there was the King of Chu Shui when the "Countries Conquered the Wei". In these two wars, the Chu State had at least 150
Tens of thousands of people died in these two wars, and in terms of military losses, they were probably much higher than those in South Korea.
What's more important is that now the Central Plains countries have been overthrown by the Wei State one after another, leaving only the Chu State. This makes the Chu people more respectful to the Wei State. How could they follow Dou Lian's instigation and abandon Wei and surrender to Qin?
For most Chu people who fear Wei, they don't even know about Qin people.
"Wei General Wu Ji, he is from Chu. This is probably the reason why Xi Ying Lord Xiong Tao's subordinates refused to defect." Chu General Doulian told Wang Jian his guess.
"Is Wu Ji really from Chu?" Wang Jian was greatly surprised. In fact, during the period when Qin and Wei were on good terms, he had also heard rumors about this, but he didn't pay much attention to it until Dou Lian confirmed it today.
.
Seeing Wang Jian's weird expression, Dou Lian felt quite embarrassed.
After all, Chu State does have many Chu people serving as generals in Wei State, and there are even many capable generals among them.
For example, Qu Cheng, Yan Mo, Sun Shuke, Zhai Huang, Nanmen Chi, etc.
It is no exaggeration to say that Wei's Shangshui Army and Yanling Army were actually two elite armies composed of their Chu people.
"Is it really impossible to instigate Wu Ji's soldiers and generals from your country?" Wang Jian frowned and asked again.
Dou Lian shook his head in embarrassment: "I'm afraid it's difficult."
Seeing Doulian's decisive answer, Wang Jian had a headache. If it were just the 20,000 merchant navy troops under Wu Ji's command, he could still drag them down regardless of casualties with the help of the mixed army headed by the tattooed army.
Death, but the current situation is that because Wei General Wu Ji was born in Chu, Xi Ying Jun Xiong Tao’s subordinates all switched to the latter, which means that Wu Ji has enough troops to deal with his Wang Jian’s sea of people
offensive.
"It's hard to beat."
Wang Jian thought melancholy.
The subsequent battle was indeed expected by Wang Jian. Although his soldiers would try their best to attack the Wei army, the Wei army under Wu Ji was not easy to mess with.
The next day, Wu Ji would definitely lead the Wei army to counterattack the Qin army, and he would be aggressive in terms of momentum and not fall behind in the slightest.
In addition to their momentum, the combat effectiveness of the Wei army should not be underestimated. Wang Jian never thought that Wu Ji could fight evenly with him with only 20,000 merchant navy troops and more than 30,000 Xiying Chu troops.
You must know that when in Ba State, the Qin army under Wang Jian also competed with the army under Xiong Tao, Lord of Xiying. At that time, Wang Jian did not think that this Chu army was difficult to deal with.
Sure enough, it is still due to the gap between the commanders.
Until winter approached, Wang Jian was still unable to invade Xiying County, so he had to temporarily withdraw his troops and return to Ba. Wu Ji also withdrew his troops and returned to Xiying, and the two sides temporarily stopped fighting.
At the beginning of the eleventh month of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, the battle report of Shen Yu, the head coach of the Wei army on the west route, was sent to Luoyang.
This was not a battle report reporting the news that "Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu died in battle" to Wei King Zhao Run. In fact, after that, Wei General Shen Yu also sent people to deliver more than a dozen battle reports to Luoyang one after another, in order to express his gratitude to Luoyang.
Yang reported to him the progress of the Wei army's attack on Chu.
On the Wei army side of Shen Yu's west route, since Pingyu lord Xiong Hu died in battle and Xiying lord Xiong Tao surrendered, there was almost no one in western Chu who could stop the Wei army. The lord of western Chu like Xiong Qi, the Biyang lord,
They all surrendered in front of the powerful Wei army, so that the Wei army on the west route easily captured all the cities north of the river in western Chu.
Who could have imagined that Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu, who used to escape faster than anyone else when the war went against him, would turn out to be the most determined person in Western Chu to resist the Wei army. The rest, even if they did not surrender in hope, were only resisting slightly. After the attack, he surrendered immediately, and few people were as willing to resist as Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu.
After capturing Pingyu, Runan and other places, Wei general Shen Yu crossed the river in this section of the river and prepared to take advantage of the situation to attack Changsha.
Due to time constraints, the Wei army under Shen Yu temporarily stationed troops in the "Yunmengze (Dongting Lake)" area, preparing to wait until the next spring to move south and occupy the entire Changsha after surviving the winter.
A few days later, battle reports from generals such as Sima Shang, Huan Hu, Le Yi, etc. also arrived in Luoyang and were delivered to Wei Wang Zhao Run.
After reading these battle reports, Wei King Zhao Run also had a general understanding of the situation on the front line of the Wei-Chu war.
To be fair, Chu State lost all the cities north of the river, which was not beyond Zhao Run's expectation. After all, he did not think that Chu State was capable of blocking Wei's three-pronged army from the beginning.
The only surprise was the fact that King Xiong Tuo of Chu moved his capital to Pengli.
This incident was first recorded in the battle report of Sima Shang, the governor of the Song Dynasty. Shou Ying, the capital of Chu State, was captured by Sima Shang and Huan Hu together. Le Yi and Tian Dan on the Wei army's side on the east road failed to capture it. military merit.
During the attack on Shouying, Sima Shang was the first to notice that the Chu State was transporting a large amount of property and materials to the south. He suspected that the Chu people might abandon the capital of Shoying, but he did not know where the Chu people planned to move the capital at the time.
So Sima Shang sent a group of cavalry to keep an eye on the Chu warships transporting supplies. After following them for a long distance, he confirmed that Chu had moved its capital to Pengli.
"Peng Li..."
In the Manlu Hall of Luoyang Palace, Wei King Zhao Run carefully read Sima Shang's battle report.
In this battle report, the thoughtful Sima Shang had roughly described the landforms in the Pengli area, allowing Zhao Run to have a rough understanding. He learned that the landforms in the Pengli area were roughly "concave" shaped, surrounded by mountains to the west, south and east. , only to the north is "Daze (Poyang Lake)" that can be connected to the river. For the first time, on the west side of the lake, there is a mountain valley road that can connect to the outside world. Other than that, it is almost isolated from the world.
"Xiong Tuo... How could he endure this and move the capital to Pengli?"
King Zhao Run of Wei was greatly surprised.
After all, according to his understanding of Xiong Tuo, the latter's character was extremely strong and strong. He originally thought that Xiong Tuo would defend Shouying to the death and would not hesitate to die in the capital for this.
Saving others by oneself is the same thing for Zhao Run himself. When he was fighting in the battle of Daliang, he had the determination to "become a jade in pieces rather than a ruin." If Daliang could not be saved, he would live and die with more than 300,000 Wei men. He would rather die in a war to defend his country than flee to Sanchuan in despair and linger to wait for the return of elite troops who attacked South Korea.
Of course, Zhao Run never meant to look down on Xiong Tuo. After all, Xiong Tuo had never been a person who was greedy for life and afraid of death.
On the contrary, Zhao Run felt that Xiong Tuo probably struggled for a long time before making this difficult decision.
After all, death is an easy thing. If you are afraid of pain, you can end your life with just a glass of poisonous wine. Therefore, in a sense, suicide also means part of self-escape.
However, Xiong Tuo had no intention of escaping. Even when the situation in Chu State was so bad, he still endured the humiliation and moved the capital to Pengli just for the slightest chance of making a comeback in the future. This made Zhao Run quite admire Xiong Tuo's magnanimity. .
However, Zhao Run would not give him this opportunity.
For the sake of the country, even though Zhao Run had a close personal relationship with Xiong Tuo, he still wanted to take advantage of the victory to pursue him and completely push the Chu State to a dead end.
In the spring of Wei Zhaowu's tenth year, under the order of King Zhao Run of Wei, three troops of the Wei State crossed the river and attacked Peng Li, intending to destroy Chu's last hope of survival.
It's not that Zhao Run is ruthless, but he must do this for the sake of Wei.