After a day and night of fierce fighting, the battle was finally decided.
Although the Zhao army was brave, the Qin army had the support of Changping County City.
On the city wall, citizens kept pouring up to the tower;
Under the city wall, after the defenders took control of the situation on the wall, they opened the city gates to support Boeuf;
And Zhao Jun had nothing except his life.
Most of the time, victory in a war is not determined by one's own courage. Changping County had the advantage of location and people, so the Zhao army's siege was doomed to fail from the beginning.
But the Zhao general with blood on his body knew that the goal of the Zhao court had been achieved.
Their goal had been achieved by depleting Qin's strength and also consuming those sick and hungry people.
The Zhao general finally sounded the call to withdraw his troops.
The Zhao people who retreated from the city wall looked at the pile of charred corpses under the wall, and their human emotions gradually returned.
They finally felt fear and exhaustion.
Most ordinary people only muster up courage for no reason once. After being discouraged, it is difficult to muster up courage again.
The Art of War also says, "Warfare is about courage. The first time you attack, your energy is high; the second time, your energy is low; the third time, your energy is exhausted."
The same is true for city attack and defense.
The pressure of siege is the greatest at the beginning, and then it becomes a tug-of-war with the attackers besieging and harassing the city, while the defenders hold their ground and wait for reinforcements.
Now the Qin people were repairing the city walls and towers while burning the corpses.
The Zhao general also set up camp and gathered the remaining troops.
The two sides temporarily stopped fighting and formulated their next strategy.
After bandaging his wounds, Boff, regardless of his fatigue, immediately urged the defenders to deal with the bodies quickly and spread the prepared lime and herbal water on the battlefield for "disinfection".
Some of Zhao Bing's corpses were black and festering, obviously infected with the plague.
Bofu had been a garrison commander for so many years that he had some foresight and discovered one of the Zhao army's goals - they wanted to spread the plague into Changping County.
Fortunately, Duke Zhu Xiang had already formulated epidemic prevention measures and psychologically prepared the citizens. Officials sent people to beat gongs and drums to inform the Zhao army of their intentions, asking them to strictly prevent the spread of epidemics and to immediately report to the garrison if they saw dead bodies being thrown into the city from outside. The citizens were very cooperative.
However, not all citizens had the conditions to drink hot water from a boiled pot every day. Officials could only try their best to teach citizens to add more water when cooking, eat porridge or paste as much as possible, and drink less water.
If someone got sick, they would be driven out of the city; if anyone covered up the disease, all their family and neighbors would be punished.
The strictness of Qin's laws took effect, and the citizens of the city no longer dared to entertain the fluke mentality of protecting their relatives.
As Bofu had expected, on the second day, the Zhao army began to throw corpses into the city and into the water source near Changping County, trying to pollute the water source of Changping County.
Fortunately, when Changping County was preparing to defend the city, they dug many wells in the city early on.
It is very common to defend a city by starting with the environment and water sources, and defenders who do not underestimate the enemy will be prepared to deal with it.
After the fierce fighting on the first day, the Zhao army did not organize any decent attack.
Boeuf felt something was wrong and secretly sent people out to investigate at night.
It turned out that the Zhao army only sent elite soldiers to guard the city gates, and the other recruited Zhao soldiers were sent to sweep the villages near Changping County.
When the five-nation allied forces set out on this expedition, they did not expect that they could capture many Qin cities.
They just wanted to cause chaos in Qin, weaken Qin's recovery, slow down Qin's eastward expedition, consume the hungry people, and steal food.
Although the Qin State moved most of the grain into the city, it was impossible for all the people in the village to enter the city. They all hid in the cellars or mountains, waiting for the enemy's troops to pass.
If it is a normal siege, in order not to miss the opportunity to fight, the army will only sweep through the villages they encounter along the way and loot some food and supplies.
But this is not a normal siege.
Not only did the Zhao army attack Changping County, but the allied forces of the other five countries also sent people to bypass the city after consuming a large number of starving people under the city, sweeping through the Qin villages, killing people, stealing food, and burning fields.
In some places, spring plowing has already begun and even seedlings have sprouted.
The hungry people not only ate the young seedlings, but also dug out and ate the seeds that had already sprouted or rotted.
Even after surviving the locust plague and growing new leaves, the plants could not escape the mouths of the hungry people.
These can fill your stomach.
The Five Kingdoms allied forces, who were mostly elite soldiers of nobles, gave very little rations to the newly recruited soldiers. They brought the starving people in their countries to Qin to let them find food locally.
The vegetation in the five kingdoms was almost eaten up. Qin had taken timely precautions against the locust plague, and Shu and Southern Qin had gritted their teeth to supply food. Zhu Xiang and Zichu had stabilized the grain prices everywhere, so the people of Qin had not yet been reduced to eating grass roots and tree bark.
Without eating grass roots and tree bark, the grass and trees will be rejuvenated green in spring.
Now, these have all become food for the hungry soldiers of the five countries.
The defenders, including Boff, were extremely anxious but helpless.
The five-nation allied forces' true intentions were exposed. In order to maximize their interests, they could only defend the city and transportation passes and were unable to rescue the villages.
Because the villages are too scattered and it is difficult to contact them in time, even if they want to rescue, they don’t know where to go for rescue.
Having experienced a locust plague last autumn and winter, the Qin people encountered a "locust plague" again this winter.
This locust plague is even more terrible than last year's locust plague, which did not kill people, eat up all the grass roots, tree barks and seeds in the ground, or burn down their houses.
What made these Qin people feel even more desperate and complicated was that they were not originally Qin people.
The current borders between Qin and the five states were all newly conquered by King Zhaoxiang of Qin.
The people here are all immigrants who came from six countries, including the now-destroyed South Korea, in the past decade or so.
So compared to the Qin people, they are actually closer to the Five Nations.
Especially the former Korean territory of Yingchuan which had just been conquered.
Han is adjacent to four other countries, and is now the main offensive battlefield for the coalition forces of Wei and Chu.
The old Korean nobles had originally planned to rebel when the Five-Nation Allied Forces attacked Korea's former territory.
Because the Qin army was preventing locust plagues in Han and transporting grain to Han to alleviate the famine, some low-level Han scholars were divided into the Qin side. The Qin army was stationed in large numbers, and the King of Han stabbed them in the back, so the plan was thwarted.
After the states of Wei and Chu attacked Han, even the old nobles of Han were reluctant to surrender to the enemy.
They found that Wei and Chu had no intention of taking down Han's cities, but wanted to destroy them.
Prince Chu of Qin did not forcibly take away the assets of the more docile old Korean nobles. Now the most fertile land in Korea still belongs to the old Korean nobles.
Therefore, when Wei and Chu cleared out the villages and nobles' manors, they were the ones who suffered the most losses.
The states of Wei and Chu were also trying to bring the plague into the city.
The civilians in the city had become accustomed to listening to the Qin officials during the three years of disaster, and took stricter preventive measures. However, the old nobles of Han would not listen to the orders of the Qin officials.
The sanitary conditions of the old Korean nobles were very good. They ate cooked food and drank hot water, so it was difficult for them to be infected with the disease.
But their larger number of servants suffered.
Because the old nobles of Han rejected the Qin officials, the servants who were attached to them and the retainers who had not yet dispersed had to follow the wishes of their masters, and did not strictly enforce or even deliberately disobeyed the orders of the Qin officials.
Epidemics are a cure for all kinds of discontent.
Various bacterial infections, which people generally refer to as plagues at that time, actually broke out first in the gathering places of the old nobles in Korea.
The Qin army immediately blocked the neighborhood where the old Korean nobles lived.
If anyone wants to come out, they must first stay in the quarantine area for a while and can leave only after being confirmed to be free of the disease. Otherwise, they will be executed regardless of their identity.
The old Korean nobles were panicked.
They began to hunt down and burn sick servants and retainers, and implemented the isolation policy more strictly than the Qin people.
The Korean nobles who were not sick only needed to be quarantined for five days to reach a safe place. For their own safety, once they left the epidemic area, they absolutely did not want the people in the epidemic area to come out.
They enthusiastically helped the Qin people manage quarantine and epidemic areas, and increased the quarantine period for latecomers to ten days.
Upon seeing this, the Qin officials completely handed over the management of the epidemic area to this group of old Korean nobles and trusted them very much.
Then he strictly required the residents of each block not to leave their area to prevent the spread of the disease. The area where the old Korean nobles were resettled after leaving the epidemic area was just outside the epidemic area.
People are afraid of death. Qin officials believed that these old Korean nobles would put aside their pride, which they had not given up during the three years of famine, and work actively for Qin.
The Five-Nation Allied Forces and the Qin Army went into full-scale war.
The Battle of Changping County was the most brutal, but in history books, there are only a few records because no famous generals participated.
The two battles most frequently recorded in history books were the battles between old Qin generals such as Meng Ao and veteran Zhao general Pang Nuan, and between the rising Chu general Xiang Yan and veteran general Lian Po.
The battle between Meng Ao and Pang Nuan was the most typical battle between the Qin army and the Zhao army, which is in line with what Zhao She, the Marquis of Mafu of Zhao State, once said: "When two brave men meet in a narrow road, the brave one wins."
Pang Nuan and Meng Ao were about the same age. Both of them put on armor and fought in the battlefield, as if they were willing to spend their lives on the battlefield.
Not only did Zhao State have no young generals, but most of the slightly powerful middle-level generals were trained by Lian Po when he was still in Zhao State.
Although the Qin State had many young generals, this was a battle in which the veterans volunteered to fight and die on the battlefield, so most of the generals were also old.
The veteran's body has declined, but his experience continues to reach the peak with age.
The quality of the regular armies of Qin and Zhao was at the peak of the Warring States Period.
Every battle between the Qin and Zhao armies demonstrated the simplest and most typical military skills of that era.
In the end, as expected, Qin still defeated Zhao.
The battle between the offensive general Xiang Yan and the defensive general Lian Po was quite boring.
As soon as Lian Po started to defend, the fortresses formed a corner and the passes were stacked on top of each other.
Qin had money, food, and people. Lian Po was happily piling up obstacles outside the city, so many that Xiang Yan wanted to vomit just by looking at them before he could even fight him.
If Bai Qi, the Marquis of Wu'an, were still alive, he would surely stroke his beard and agree with Xiang Yan when he saw this scene.
Even if King Zhaoxiang of Qin sent him to replace Wang He as general, he had to replace Lian Po from the position of chief general of Zhao State first.
For Lian Po, defense does not depend on the victory or defeat of each battle, but on the fight of consumption.
His main theme is stalemate and sticky entanglement.
Qin's national strength far outstripped the five states, and Lian Po's fighting style was just right for the moment. He ate and drank well every day, and when he had enough strength, he would go to the battlefront to scold Xiang Yan, but after scolding him, he would not fight, but go back to sleep.
Xiang Yan was so angry that he even called Lian Po a cowardly old man, asking if he dared to fight him.
Lian Po picks his ears.
Why are the defeated generals under Zhu Xiang barking? I believe that Ping Jun Lian Po was a famous general who became famous during your grandfather's generation. You want me to fight you in a duel. Are you worthy
He continued to eat, drink and sleep well, and when he had enough energy, he took his men to quarrel with Xiang Yan, but he refused to fight.
Xiang Yan was so angry that he raided the village, but Lian Po pretended not to see anything.
He built so many fortresses to accommodate most of the villagers as logistics. Lian Po had already burned down the villages and fields, leaving Xiang Yan no chance to burn them again.
Lian Po was also an old noble. He was a member of the Ying clan, Lian, and unlike the Xiang clan, who were old nobles of the Chu State and needed to write a family tree to show the glory of their ancestors, he was a true orthodox hereditary noble from the Central Plains.
Therefore, when Lian Po went to war, he did not care about his face or the common people. He was even more arrogant and overbearing than the noble Xiang Yan.
Besides, hadn't he already arranged for the common people outside the city to work in the fortress? Those who didn't want to come deserved it.
Defense requires a strong defense and a clear field. How could Lian Po, Lord Xinping, give others a chance to resupply on the spot
As a result, the result of Xiang Yan's side's battle was that there were not many casualties, but almost no results, and the army was almost collapsed due to hunger and epidemics.
When the Qin border war entered a stalemate, Li Mu and Wang Jian took action.
Wang Jian passed through the three passes of Dabie Mountains, crossed the Huai River, and went north along the Ru River. He did not attack Chendu, but went straight to take the fiefdom of the Xiang family.
The King of Chu had lost most of his territory, more than half of his soldiers in the central counties, and the private soldiers of other feudal lords had also suffered heavy losses. Now, most of the elite soldiers that the King of Chu could send out were from the Xiang family.
Xiang Yan was willing to spend a huge amount of money and send out all his private soldiers this time because he had received the promise from the King of Chu and Li Yuan that "if you come back, you will be made a king."
Wang Jian attacked the Xiang family's fiefdom in order to force Xiang Yan to return for help.
If Xiang Yan continued to fight against the Qin army, he would not be able to capture Qin's cities as new fiefdoms. His own fiefdom was also captured. Even if he returned to Chu and was made a lord in the future, Chu was now crowded with countless lords with the surname Mi. How could there be new fiefdoms for him? It would probably be just an empty title of a lord.
Wang Jian had been dealing with the Chu nobles for more than a decade and knew their characters well. He firmly believed that Xiang Yan would definitely come back to help.
Before he set out to fight, he sent people to lobby the feudal lords of Li Yuan and Chendu with the surname Mi.
Xiang Yan has emerged as a rising star and may be the second Chunshen Jun. In fact, because Xiang Yan is a good commander, he may even threaten the status of you and the King of Chu more than Chunshen Jun.
The State of Chu now relies entirely on Xiang Yan. Does this State of Chu belong to Xiang Yan or to the King of Chu
If Xiang Yan's fiefdom was conquered and his clansmen were captured by the Qin army, even if the Qin army retreated, the Xiang family would suffer heavy losses and would have to rely more closely on the King of Qin and other nobles. In this way, the power of the Chu nobles would be balanced.
Moreover, if Xiang Yan returned without attacking Qin, it would mean that in Xiang Yan's heart, the Xiang family was more important than the King of Chu, which required even more vigilance.
Chunshen Jun was a thorn in Li Yuan's heart. Even though Chunshen Jun was dead, Li Yuan, who imitated Chunshen Jun everywhere but could not gain Chunshen Jun's fame and was ridiculed by others, was extremely disgusted with "Chunshen Jun".
Xiang Yan was very popular with the King of Chu and was relied upon by the King of Chu, which made Li Yuan dissatisfied.
Now that Xiang Yan was being compared to Chunshen Jun, Li Yuan immediately joined forces with his vassals to slander Xiang Yan and asked the King of Chu to issue an edict to Xiang Yan, absolutely not allowing Xiang Yan to come back.
But at this moment the King of Chu was sober.
Even if he didn't care about Xiang's fiefdom, he knew that Xiang's fiefdom was in the State of Chu.
The Qin army has already attacked Chu, why bother attacking Qin? Xiang Yan, come back quickly to protect me!
Seeing that the King of Chu was actually leaning towards Xiang Yan, Li Yuan became furious.
So, he and the Queen of Chu worked together. First, they put strong drugs in the pills that the King of Chu took, and then asked the Queen of Chu to send many beautiful women to have sex with the King of Chu. Finally, he made the King of Chu fall asleep for half the night after having sex.
King Xiong Yuan of Chu died suddenly, and Crown Prince Han succeeded to the throne.
The new King of Chu immediately recalled the previous king's edict, ordering Xiang Yan not to return to provide assistance, and he would send people to rescue Xiang Yan's fiefdom.
Xiang Yan was caught in a dilemma. Under the persuasion of his clansmen, he divided half of his troops to send back for reinforcement.
Wang Jian, who was besieging the city and attacking reinforcements, had been waiting for a long time.
On the other side, Li Mu took a ship directly and headed north along the coastline.
Although they encountered some troubles along the way, Li Mu, who had rich sailing experience, overcame them easily.
He even stopped at the coast for supplies, making it clear to Qi that the Qin army was coming from the sea.
This was the first time that the Central Plains encountered a fleet that came across a long coastline.
The reason why Qi State often stood aside was that it was surrounded by the sea and had only one land passage for the army to pass through. The passage was blocked by the other five countries, so the nobles of Qi State thought they were safe.
Now the navy led by Li Mu told them that it was no longer safe to rely on the sea, and the Qin army could come from the sea.
Although Qi sent troops and generals to jointly attack Qin, after the death of Queen Mother Jun, the King of Qi stopped repairing his military and took the lead in enjoying himself under the persuasion of domestic nobles, especially his uncle Hou Sheng.
The Qi nobles were living in luxury. Whoever was richer and more pretentious was more prestigious. The Jixia Academy in Qi no longer had the academic prosperity it once had and became mainly about empty talk and debate.
When the Qin army approached Qi, the King of Qi asked for advice from the ministers in the court, and the ministers of Qi also asked the King of Qi what to do.
They have been thinking about how to make money and spend money for decades. I don't know about fighting wars.
The Qi generals and soldiers they sent out were only there to pick up the spoils, and had no intention of conquering cities. Qi simply couldn't find anyone who could lead the troops.
The King of Qi was at a loss: "What should I do?"
Qi Guoqing Dafu: "Form a fleet first?"
The King of Qi nodded: "Okay. Then who will form the fleet?"
The ministers of Qi were at a loss again.
Your Majesty, you ask us, who should we ask? Who in Qi is good at naval warfare
So they abandoned this plan and chose to deploy defenses along the coastline to prevent the Qin army from landing.
The King of Qi thought this made sense, and then asked who would lead the troops.
The ministers of Qi started discussing again.
They don’t know this either.
Qi had few generals to begin with, and the few who could fight had all gone to Qin. Couldn't they go to a dangerous place on their own
So they immediately asked the King of Qi to recall the Qi generals who were going to the expedition.
The King of Qi thought it made perfect sense, so he quickly issued an edict ordering the Qi troops that had gone to Qin to return quickly.
Then, he just waited.
The purpose of Li Mu's battle this time was to force the King of Qi to withdraw the Qi army from Qin.
He knew that he was alone heading north, and as long as Qi deployed defenses on the coastline, it would be difficult for him to break through the defense line and attack Qi's heartland.
But when he arrived at the coast of Qi, Li Mu was puzzled to find that the defending Qi army was gone.
He thought there was a trap, so he circled the coastline of Qi and landed in a relatively open area to avoid an ambush.
As a result, he had already gone around in a circle, but still hadn't seen the Qi army coming to stop him.
Although Li Mu did not know why this happened, he immediately seized the opportunity, led his troops to land in an entire column, marched towards the heartland of Qi State, and soon surrounded Linzi, the capital of Qi State.
Li Mu sat in the big tent with a confused look on his face.
With the troops he led now, he certainly could not capture Linzi. He surrounded Linzi only to force the Qi army to come back for help.
But apart from the Qi army in Qin, what about the other Qi troops? Qi is so big, it is impossible to send a Qi army into the Five Kingdoms Alliance without any garrison in the country, right
Li Mu landed from the sea and encountered no resistance along the way. The gates of cities were closed, and the defenders watched nervously on the towers. No Qi army came out of the city to stop the Qin army from going to Linzi.
Could it be that all the county magistrates and feudal lords of Qi were rebelling and waiting for the King of Qi to die? Otherwise, how could the Qin army have reached the city of Linzi without anyone stopping them
Li Mu looked at the towering city walls of Linzi and felt extremely regretful.
If he had known this would happen, he would have brought more people with him and directly captured Linzi. Wouldn't it be better
The Qin prince Chu must have felt very upset because his ambitions were interrupted by the famine. If he could capture the King of Qi and bring him to Xianyang, perhaps it would have reduced some of Zichu's regrets.
Li Mu thought for a long time, patted his thigh, and prepared to withdraw his troops.
Linzi was surrounded, and the Qi army must be on their way back.
He only brought 50,000 people, of which only a few thousand were logistics. In other words, he went to the battle just to scare Qi State, and he didn't even bring much logistics and supplies, so it was impossible for him to attack the city.
Now that he has achieved his goal, although he is unwilling, it is time to go back.
Li Mu ordered the army to move out the thunder chariots and catapults, use up all the ammunition, and then march quickly back to the occupied port with light equipment.
There was only smoke and noise. In fact, the gunpowder cans were exploded randomly, which did almost no damage to the stone city wall. Li Mu hugged his arms and was distracted. He left after "unloading" the baggage.
The city gate opened.
Under the persuasion of Hou Sheng, his most trusted prime minister, cousin of Queen Dowager Jun and his affectionately called uncle, King Jian of Qi opened the city gates and surrendered, hoping to be treated like a King of Han.
Hou Sheng said that if he surrendered too late, he might not have a good life. If he surrendered now, he could go to Xianyang City and live a rich and idle life.
Qi Wangjian, this mama's boy, was so frightened by the Thunderbolt Car that he was at a loss. He could only fall asleep at night by holding the tablet of the Queen Mother Jun.
When other Qi nobles saw that Li Mu could summon thunderbolts, they completely lost the idea of resisting.
The nobles of Qi State turned a deaf ear to the war abroad and only cared about making money and living a luxurious life. The Qin State Navy had appeared for so many years, but they only knew about the "Qin State Navy" but had never inquired about what the Navy looked like.
Li Mu's Thunderbolt Chariot has been used for more than ten years. The Chu army remained calm when they heard the sound, knowing that the power of this thing was very limited and it could be used to put out fires.
But the people of Qi really didn’t know.
So, with Li Mu's magical power of summoning thunder and fire from heaven and earth, the imperial edict to recall the generals of Qi was still on the way, and other feudal lords and county magistrates of Qi were still waiting for the next order from the King of Qi, so King Jian of Qi opened the city gate and surrendered.
Li Mu hesitated to speak. Fortunately, his expression was naturally serious, and Zhu Xiang said he had facial paralysis.
So he accepted the surrender of King Jian of Qi with a stern face, and then fell into a dilemma.
The Qin army he brought was really not large enough to conquer other cities of Qi, nor enough to carry King Jian of Qi across the borders of several countries back to Qin via land.
What should he do now? He can't take Qi Wangjian out to sea, right
(End of this chapter)