Lian Po had made all the necessary preparations.
The King of Wei had three options: surrender, escape, or hold his ground.
When the number of defenders on the city wall decreased, the King of Wei was left with only two choices: surrender or escape.
If the King of Wei surrendered, Lian Po would not need to do anything. So he only had to prepare for the King of Wei to escape.
It would be difficult for the Wei army to break out of the Qin army's encirclement. With Lian Po's many years of experience in fighting, the King of Wei would definitely drive a large number of civilians to serve as shields and escape among them.
After Lian Po guessed what the King of Wei was going to do, he ordered the Qin army that if the city gates were wide open, they were not allowed to actively attack the Wei people unless someone came to their battle formation, and they should let them escape.
He also set up ambushes on the main roads leading from Daliang to other cities. He did not need to identify the identities of the people, he only needed to rob those who were well-dressed and had baggage.
Lian Po looked down on the King of Wei, and it didn't matter if the King of Wei escaped. The decapitation operation he carried out was only to destroy the capital of Wei. As long as Daliang was captured, not only would the morale of Wei be greatly reduced, but there would be no strong city to resist the Qin army, and it would be easy to attack other cities.
He even thought that the King of Wei's escape might make it easier for the State of Wei to be destroyed.
Since Zhu Xiang said he could hold on, Lian Po took Zhu Xiang to watch this "farce" together.
Zhu Xiang grasped the reins tightly with both hands, leaving red marks on his palms.
He watched in silence the tragedy that the King of Wei brought to the people of Wei, his mind churning, and finally becoming as calm as the abyss.
After the gates of Daliang were opened, some Wei officials and their families surrendered to Qin.
From this, Zhu Xiang learned about what was happening in the Wei court.
The King of Wei might have wanted to surrender, but the scholar-official who died for his country held the King of Wei up, making it impossible for him to say the word of surrender.
As for surrendering for the sake of the people, today's nobles have no concept of "loving the people".
Moreover, if the King of Wei wanted to gain this reputation, he should hang himself, then ask his ministers to open the city gates and surrender, and ask the Qin army not to harm the Wei people in Daliang City.
If he did so, even if the State of Wei was destroyed, it would become a time bomb for the State of Qin.
It's a pity that he didn't have this awareness.
And even if the King of Wei had this awareness, he probably didn't have the courage to do so.
Zhu Xiang thought of Sima Shang, the governor of Yanmen County.
"Almost done." Lian Po said coldly, "Play the war drums!"
The Qin army beat the drums of war, and the panicked Wei people immediately ran back and poured into Daliang City again.
The crowd turned back to the city, and many people were trampled and crowded into the water and died.
At this time, there were still many garrisons and nobles' private soldiers who had not yet left. The driven Wei people turned back and ran wildly, clashing with these people and blocking their way.
The nobles also heard the war drums of the Qin army.
They were extremely anxious and ordered their private soldiers and garrison to kill the Wei people who were blocking the road.
After the Qin army beat the war drums, they remained motionless and just watched coldly as the Wei people killed each other.
When Lian Po beat the drum again to let the Qin army finish off, the ground in front of the Daliang city gate was covered with dead bodies, as if it had just been through a great battle.
The Qin army did not lose a single soldier; it was all caused by infighting among the Wei people.
Lian Po looked at Zhu Xiang with a strange look in his eyes: "Is your luck a little weird?"
Zhu Xiang was originally feeling heavy-hearted, and he was puzzled when he heard this: "Why?"
Lian Po retracted his gaze and said, "Maybe it's not your bad luck, it's Qin's bad luck."
Zhu Xiang was even more confused: "What?"
Lian Po said, "I have fought in battles all my life, and the things I encountered in the battles of Xinzheng and Daliang were all new to me."
Zhu Xiang: “…”
His expression also became complicated.
Although what the King of Han and the King of Wei did was common in the thousands of years of Chinese history, it was probably surprising to Lian Gong.
After all, the Warring States Period was an era that valued bloodiness.
Unfortunately, most of the bravery was reflected in the "scholars" of the Warring States Period, but the monarchs of the Warring States Period were not scholars.
With Zhu Xiang around, Lian Po was too lazy to do the troublesome work of pacifying the people.
Seeing the flag of Changping Jun and hearing his name, the frightened Wei people gradually stopped their resistance and nervously followed the Qin people's instructions to nominate people with higher reputations to help the Qin people manage the city of Daliang.
First, they needed to put out the fire.
When the King of Wei left Daliang City, he set fire to the palace and major warehouses.
In order to make the city more chaotic and delay the Qin army, he set fire to the houses on both sides of the road as he walked out of the city.
The city of Daliang has become a sea of fire.
When the King of Wei and the nobles turned around, there was a hint of viciousness on their faces.
They hoped that the Qin army would gain nothing after capturing Daliang City, and it would be best if the fire could kill some Qin soldiers.
But to their surprise, before they had gone far, rain began to fall from the gloomy sky.
Even though there were pursuers behind him, the King of Wei could not help but rein in his horse and stop in shock.
"Why? Why is this happening?" The King of Wei looked sad. "Is it because God is looking after the Qin people?"
Some people collapsed and knelt on the ground, pressing their foreheads tightly against the gradually moistened soil: "It's Changping Jun, it must be Changping Jun! It's Changping Jun who called for the rain!"
Many people had a look of understanding on their faces.
"Hurry up! Escape while it's raining!" Some people didn't care about what happened in Daliang City and urged people to escape.
The King of Wei then quickly whipped his horsewhip and continued to flee in a hurry with the people disguised as soldiers.
In Daliang City, the rain was getting heavier.
The sky had been covered with dark clouds for several days, and Lian Po was waiting for a rain so that he could flood the city of Daliang.
Now that Daliang City was on fire, ashes rose with the fire, providing enough condensation nuclei for the water vapor in the dark clouds in the sky, and the rain that had been brewing for many days immediately fell.
When flames met rain, water vapor and smoke rushed into the sky, the sporadic drizzle immediately turned into a downpour, and the fire was immediately suppressed by the rain.
Lian Po rolled his eyes and shouted, "It was Lord Changping who brought the rain and saved Daliang City!"
Zhu Xiang was looking up at the sky, having just breathed a sigh of relief when Lian Po's roar, which could scare even the most timid enemy off their horses, almost broke Zhu Xiang's eardrums.
After Lian Po roared, the Qin army immediately shouted "Changping Jun" and "Zhu Xiang Gong".
Many Wei people also shouted along.
Many people fell towards Zhu Xiang, knelt in the mud and kowtowed continuously, breaking their heads and mixing blood and rain water together.
If the city of Daliang was burned down, they would all become refugees, and the savings of several generations of their families would all turn to ashes.
Even if the Qin State could accept these refugees, they would surely become the lowest class of people.
Lord Changping summoned heavy rain to put out the fire, and they were all saved!
Zhu Xiang hesitated to speak, and finally sighed deeply and did not deny it.
Of course he knew what was going on with the rain. Even if Lian Gong didn't know the scientific details of the rain, he knew that the rain had nothing to do with him and it was probably just a coincidence.
But now is not the time to eliminate feudal superstitions.
Zhu Xiang is no longer as naive as before and is not determined to argue about right and wrong.
This bit of feudal superstition in him could help the Wei people in Daliang City quickly win over, which would be very helpful in restoring order, so he acquiesced.
Zhu Xiang frowned and ordered the Qin soldiers to continue to speed up the fire extinguishing.
The fire in the palace was the first to start, and oil and wine were poured on it. The heavy rain could not put it out in a short time, and manual firefighting was required.
The first things Zhu Xiang rescued were the Wei Kingdom's libraries and classics.
The King of Wei fled in a hurry, taking away only gold, silver, valuables and seals. The books and household registration files in the Wei Palace were left behind.
The person in charge of arson did not set fire to these two places. I don’t know if he thought that he would need these books and household registration files when he came back in the future, or if the person who set the fire was also a scholar and knew that the books were precious and was reluctant to leave them.
Their mercy allowed Zhu Xiang to rescue Wei's books and household registration files in time.
Zhu Xiang sealed up the books and household registration files, and did not take a penny of the other things, and gave them to Lian Po as a reward for the entire army.
In order to prevent the Qin army from looting the city, large rewards were extremely necessary.
These rewards are not only money, but also people.
Even if Lian Po ordered "not to disturb the people", it would be impossible to completely do so. The army now does not have such strict military discipline. If Lian Po forced the order, the army might mutiny.
Soldiers are like bandits. Soldiers pass by like combs.
Lian Po could only try his best to restrain himself.
Zhu Xiang listened to the crying sounds coming from all over Daliang City, raised his hand and rubbed his ears, then walked into an office that was not on fire as a temporary residence and began to sort out the household registration files.
With these household registration files, he was able to quickly stabilize the order in Daliang City and even the entire Wei State.
When King Zheng of Qin learned that Daliang had been captured, he sent many young students from the Xianyang Academy.
Under Zhu Xiang's guidance, this group of young students will become local officials of Wei State, replacing the local scholars of Wei State.
However, when it came to replacement, King Zheng of Qin specifically selected students from the State of Wei, and also publicly recruited a group of grassroots scholars who were related to the State of Wei in advance.
Now if we want the people of Wei to quickly obey our management, it would be best to employ local people from Wei.
Zhu Xiang once talked to Qin Wangzheng about the principle of "serving as an official in a different place". But after thinking about it, Qin Wangzheng thought that "serving as an official in a different place" was not suitable for the current environment.
On the contrary, King Zheng of Qin wanted to appoint local people as officials and use their connections to replace the original nobles of the six kingdoms to become new local powerful people.
In order to maintain their status, this group of people will follow the Qin State closely and suppress the former aristocracy.
When they become the new local powerful people, the influence of the old nobles of the six countries will disappear.
As for the issue of local tyrants being too powerful to be eliminated, we will talk about it later.
There is no such thing as having the best of both worlds, and this is especially true in national politics.
Drinking poison to quench thirst, as long as the poison doesn't kill you and you can hold on until the antidote is found, why not
Zhu Xiang could foresee that King Zheng of Qin would do this, and that after a few generations, many local tyrants would emerge who could influence the court.
But he knew very well that King Zheng of Qin must have foreseen it.
So he didn't object.
Now, this group of local Wei scholars who came from Qin State were just as King Zheng of Qin had expected. Not only were they enthusiastic about helping Qin State reorganize Wei State's power structure, they also quickly gained the recognition of the Wei people.
Although the official language of the seven countries was still the elegant language of the Zhou Dynasty, the accents of the people were different.
They would certainly prefer to obey the management of a "local" rather than an official whose language is incomprehensible.
With the added reputation of Zhu Xiang's feudal superstition, and the reconstruction of Wei's official structure by scholars who were born in Wei or could speak Wei's language, the order in Daliang quickly stabilized.
Zhu Xiang drove to other cities captured by Lian Po, restored order in these cities one by one, and arranged officials.
When Lian Po captured the King of Wei, Zhu Xiang was already urging the people of Wei to prepare for spring plowing.
(End of this chapter)