The main force of the Qin army charged very slowly.
Yes, very slowly.
Rather than charging, they were marching quickly. During the charge, they maintained a neat square formation, with even the distance between the long-handled weapons held by each person and the ground being about the same.
Compared to the boiling blood of the cavalry charge, the charge of the Qin infantry seemed to solidify the blood, becoming as cold and murderous as the north wind.
In later film and television dramas, the battles between armies are mostly chaotic. The two sides are mixed together, with enemies everywhere, unable to distinguish the enemy, waving strange weapons and hacking at random.
Of course, this is impossible in reality. If an army's formation is in disarray and it is difficult to distinguish between the enemy and ourselves, it has already been defeated.
When the Qin army and the Chu army faced each other, they both formed their battle formations.
When they fought, they would at most split into small squares. Each square had a commander and a flag bearer. Soldiers did not need to know the difference between friend and foe, they only needed to act according to orders.
The weapons of the infantry are mostly long-handled weapons, so that they can kill people in the queue.
After the Qin army arrived in the south, they cut a lot of bamboo and tied various iron weapons to the bamboo poles.
The flag bearer kept changing the flags, and the sergeant understood the flag signals and ordered the phalanx to advance or retreat.
The Qin army's square formation was like a solid mountain, crushing the Chu soldiers whose formation had been disrupted by the cavalry.
Then, the mountain turned into a giant sea beast, and the Chu army, whose formation was in disarray, was like small fish surrounding the beast.
They were like the soldiers in the war scenes in later movies and TV series. The flag bearer and the sergeant were nowhere to be found, and the soldiers stood on the battlefield like headless flies. There were people all around, and it was impossible to tell friend from foe.
Only when the Qin soldiers' phalanx rolled over did they know where the enemy was. But by then it was too late, just like a fish in the mouth of a giant beast, it could only be swallowed and torn into pieces by the saw teeth extending from all directions of the phalanx.
After breaking through the Chu army's formation, the heavy cavalry ran away without looking back, then dismounted, took off their armor, and rested while breathing heavily.
When the main force of the Qin army pressed on the Chu army, the light cavalry dispersed to the periphery of the battlefield, like roaming hunters, cutting down any scattered soldiers they saw.
The infantry phalanx was like a tight machine. Under the command of the standard-bearer beside Wang Jian, it kept attacking, changing formations, and attacking... The soldiers didn't need to think about anything in their minds. They had no fear or guilt. They just kept waving or stabbing the weapons in their hands. They didn't even look at where the enemy was. They just had to follow the instructions.
After the light cavalry led by Wang Jian entered the battlefield, they were surrounded in the middle by the infantry phalanx.
Next to the flag used by the standard-bearer to command the army, there stood a tall and conspicuous flag with the word "King" on it.
This was the first time he flew his own flag.
Wang Jian did not charge into battle with the army. He just sat on horseback, standing under the general's flag, surrounded by the Qin army in the most core and safest place, and scanned the entire battlefield with cold eyes.
There were sounds of fighting and screaming on the battlefield, the clanging of weapons and the rustling of arrows breaking through the air, as well as the sounds of drums, horns, gongs and bells commanding the soldiers.
The commander of the Chu army retreated to the rear fortress under the protection of his personal guards. While retreating, he glanced at the battlefield behind him.
Although countless sounds from the battlefield were intertwined and broke through the sky, he felt strangely that the battlefield was so cold and quiet, so cold and quiet that it was creepy.
It seemed as if the people fighting with him were not humans, but a group of emotionless puppets who could only follow orders and fight.
He turned his gaze to Wang Jian, wanting to remember this not-so-famous Qin general.
When he looked at Wang Jian, Wang Jian also saw him.
Wang Jian personally took out a flag, hung it on a tall flagpole, and waved it left and right, up and down several times.
The cavalry of the Chu soldiers who were hunting and disbanding were infiltrating the outer perimeter of the army formation and immediately regrouped.
Wang Jian pressed his hand and the flag pointed in one direction.
All the cavalry on the battlefield charged in that direction in unison, and no matter how many soldiers tried to stop them along the way, they were left behind.
At this time, the cavalry finally changed their weapons to bows and arrows on horseback. The big bows were curved like a full moon, and the arrows flew out from the bowstrings.
Wang Jian withdrew the flag and stopped looking at the Chu general.
He knew that the person fleeing over there should be the commander of the Chu army.
But so what
He had already sent out cavalry to chase and kill. Even if they could not kill the enemy commander, they could kill all the enemy guards. He was just a commander, without his soldiers he was nothing.
The Qin army generals were all influenced by Bai Qi when they used their troops.
Before Bai Qi, killing generals and plundering land was more important than destroying soldiers. After Bai Qi, Qin's wars became mainly about destroying the enemy's manpower.
Even if the enemy generals managed to escape and return to fight for the second or third time, so what? The dead soldiers would not be resurrected, so how many armies could they raise
If the enemy can still recruit soldiers, then even if this general dies, there are other generals to lead the troops. It might be easier to let the defeated general lead the troops again and kill him again.
When all the soldiers were killed, even the most powerful generals had no choice but to surrender.
Wang Jian looked up at the sun.
There are still many Chu soldiers left, and the battle will probably end today until the sun sets.
On the battlefield, the Qin army has changed its formation many times.
Their weapons would break during attacks, and all the soldiers inside and outside would constantly switch positions to maintain their lethality.
The weapons with blood grooves pierced the bodies of the Chu soldiers, and blood splattered on their hair and clothes. The smell of blood filled their noses, making them even more numb.
Although the Chu soldiers were already in disarray, they knew that the only ones who could still form a formation must be the Qin soldiers. So after they lost their command, they all rushed towards the Qin army's formation.
When a Chu soldier was pierced by a Qin soldier's weapon, he held on tightly to the weapon that pierced his body, preventing the Qin soldier from pulling out the weapon, thereby disrupting the Qin soldier's attack.
Although his body was quickly pierced by the weapons in the hands of other Qin soldiers in the formation, his comrades still seized the momentary gap created by their lives.
More Chu soldiers rushed towards the battle formation, and used this momentary gap to pull out the Qin soldiers in the battle formation and chop them into meat paste.
The Qin soldiers in this formation finally felt fear in their hearts, and the formation became a little chaotic.
So more Chu soldiers spontaneously rushed towards the army formation with its flags toppled, and finally took down a piece of the formation.
Seeing that this approach was effective, other Chu soldiers followed suit and tried to tear small holes in the Qin army's formation.
Some of the Qin army's formations held, while some were broken.
There were many brave and fearless people in the Chu army. They were different from the Chu soldiers that Li Mu faced when he attacked the city. Li Mu only entered the city to open the warehouse to release the grain, and then ran away. Wang Jian was attacking their country, and behind them was the border of Chu.
The Chu soldiers probably had no patriotic feelings in their hearts, but were simply afraid of the many rumors of Qin's brutality. In order to protect their hometown and their fellow villagers from being slaughtered by the Qin army, they fought desperately with the well-organized Qin army without the command of generals and flags.
There were also some veteran soldiers of the Chu Army who did not fight for their hometown or their families. They just knew that the Qin Army rewarded merit by beheading, and they probably could not escape, so they might as well die on the battlefield. Killing a Qin soldier would be considered a payback.
Therefore, even if the Chu army was in chaos and the Chu generals fled, the Qin army would not be able to win easily.
Wang Jian saw the phalanxes disappearing one after another, and he simply asked the flag bearers to wave the flags and ordered the people in other phalanxes to fill the gaps in the formation. His expression and mood remained unchanged.
The Qin army continued to kill in an orderly manner. The destruction of one or two parts would not affect the harvest of this killing machine.
The Chu soldiers were like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. But they still bravely raised their arms to block the Qin army's chariot.
If weapons were broken, they would tear them apart with their teeth. If people died, they would hold tightly to the Qin soldiers' weapons or bodies to create opportunities for their comrades to break through the formation.
When falling down, the Chu soldier's eyes were staring fiercely at the sky, as if he was still glaring at his enemy.
"There is no righteous war in the Spring and Autumn Period. This statement is correct, but my interpretation of this statement is not what Mencius said, because the order to fight must come from the emperor, and the status of the vassal states is equal, so there is no righteousness in war, so there is no righteous war."
Since Zhu Xiang returned to Xianyang, he could not avoid giving lectures at the Xianyang Academy.
Under the threat of Xunzi's crutches, Zhu Xiang temporarily took over Xunzi's position as the chief priest and had to clock in at the academy every day to prepare lessons and give lectures.
He seemed to have returned to his previous life, when he was standing on the three-foot-high podium at the university.
But now, he has changed from a professor of agronomy to a professor of literature and philosophy, which is a bit mismatched.
The students disagreed with Zhu Xiang's words, but none of them refuted.
A person's reputation is like a tree's shadow. When it comes to Xunzi's status, he can directly insult Mencius as a cheap Confucian scoundrel who is a disaster to the country and the people. Lord Changping Zhu Xianggong only said euphemistically that he had some minor disagreements, which was much milder.
"I think the Spring and Autumn Period was a time of no righteous wars, and that was based on the people."
"Most of you present here are scholars. But even scholars must have suffered from war. You all know that I am a commoner. My parents are nameless farmers who dig for food from the soil. Farming and fighting, farming and fighting, war is the closest thing to commoners like me."
"The grain we collect during war is the life-saving food we rely on for survival; the soldiers we recruit during war are our relatives, friends and our own lives."
"Winning a war is a great achievement for the king, but the price of losing families and lives in war is borne by us nameless common people."
"A hundred years from now, when people judge the winners and losers, they will only say how great the king was. We are nothing but the bones beneath the throne. Even if someone mentions us, the king's admirers in later generations will only say 'it's a fair price'."
"From my perspective, from the perspective of a common man, I believe there is no such thing as a just war in the Spring and Autumn Period."
A student asked pointedly: "Qin is the country that waged war most frequently among all the countries. Since Zhu Xiangzi believed that there was no justice in the war, why did he help Qin? Because you are the uncle of the crown prince of Qin, is power more important than your conscience?"
Zhu Xiang looked at the student who had spoken resentfully to him. The student's words were full of Chu accents; he was a Chu person.
Perhaps his hometown was once Nan Chu, which has now become Nan Qin.
"There were no unjust wars in the Spring and Autumn Period. Our ancestors thought of many ways to end these unjust wars, such as lobbying the monarchs to stop fighting." Zhu Xiang asked, "Do you think these lobbyings are useful? Also, I want to correct one thing. After the Zhou royal family moved east, it was not Qin but Chu that launched the most frequent wars. You can look up the Spring and Autumn Annals."
The student's face immediately turned red.
Even if he could not remember the number of times the various countries launched wars as recorded in the "Spring and Autumn Annals", since Duke Zhu Xiang said it so confidently, he knew that what Duke Zhu Xiang said must be right.
"Don't be nervous, it's not important." Zhu Xiang comforted him, "Your hometown is in the midst of war, I understand how you feel. Since you came to Xianyang Academy to study, I think you must be eager for the answer to this question. How can we get the king to end the unjust war?"
Zhu Xiang did not continue teaching and let the students discuss it on their own.
After a quarter of an hour, he struck the bronze bell on the podium to quiet the students and asked them to raise their hands to speak.
Those who could travel thousands of miles to study in Xianyang Academy all had courage, aspirations, and their own confidence.
Such people are not lacking in talent and knowledge.
So after Zhu Xiang raised the question, their answers were both very pertinent and very desperate.
There is no way a monarch can stop a war.
Sitting on the throne, they have reached the pinnacle of wealth and glory in that country. As long as they have ambitions, they will pursue greater achievements, and conquering cities and plundering people is inevitable.
In the past, a wise Zhou emperor might have suppressed the ambitions of the princes, but after the Zhou royal family moved east, the wise Zhou emperor was powerless.
"The conclusions reached by the predecessors of all schools of thought are the same," Zhu Xiang said, "The only way to end the unjust war is to unify the country, so that there is only one country and one monarch left in this world."
He put his hands behind his back and sighed, "If we send troops to end the war and unify the world, this should be in line with justice. If the monarch who unifies the world knows how to recuperate, works diligently and loves the people, and is a wise and benevolent monarch, then such a war will definitely be in line with justice from the results."
"Just because they fell in the war of unification, do they have to be unjust?"
"The lives they sacrificed to defend their hometown and their country, can that be underestimated?"
"Those wise men who fought against Qin with all their might for the sake of their king and country, are they stupid?"
Zhu Xiang said firmly: "I think not!"
"Everyone has their own position, and their position determines their behavior. For us, it is a just war, but for them, it is an unjust war. So you don't need to be confused about this matter. In the future, when you become my enemy, you don't need to feel sorry. Because you are also right, and I am also right, we are just in different positions."
"I assisted the King of Qin in conquering the world in order to unify it."
"You fought against the Qin army to protect your country."
"We are both right."
"The Chu army is really tough." The deputy general bandaged his arm with one hand and spat a mouthful of blood on the ground. "In this battle, our army lost 2,100 people and 11 heavy cavalrymen, all of whom were elite soldiers!"
The deputy general was heartbroken.
When two armies fight, hundreds of thousands of people are often beheaded. In fact, the real number is at least half, and the elite troops will be cut in half again.
Generally speaking, an army of 400,000 only has 100,000 combatants, and among these 100,000 combatants there are only about 30,000 to 40,000 elite troops.
Even in the later unified dynasties, being able to maintain 100,000 elite troops on a regular basis was the limit of what the people could support. Elite troops could only be honed through off-duty training, and most soldiers spent their free time farming, so they were not considered elite.
Wang Jian broke through the Chu army's formation at the very beginning of this battle. Logically, the Chu army should have become a defeated army and it would have been easy to kill them.
But even their main general had fled, and in the chaos Wang Jian's newly formed army was forced to lose more than 2,000 elite soldiers, including nearly 100 heavy cavalry.
Although this battle was a legendary victory, compared with the success in the early stage, the deputy general was still heartbroken.
"After all, it's the State of Chu." Wang Jian said calmly, "It's OK as long as we win."
"Those who are lightly wounded and young and strong will be tied up and sent to Southern Qin to be handed over to the governors of the three counties and the governor of Dai County; those who are seriously wounded or old and weak will be beheaded."
"only!"
(End of this chapter)