Chapter 53: The Seven Heroes Meleery

In this battle, the four armies under Long Hui also suffered a lot of losses, with 12,000 casualties.

The two strong Qi and Qin faced each other in the east and west, and the weaker Yan and Qi were close neighbors. The king of Yan gave way to the prince of Yan State, causing civil strife between Prince Ping and Zizhi due to the struggle for the throne. King Xuan of Qi took the opportunity to attack Yan, broke through the Yan Kingdom within fifty days, and killed the king of Yan and his son. However, the Qi army burned and looted in the Yan State, and the people of the Yan State rose up to resist, and the vassal states were also ready to send troops to rescue the Yan State, forcing the Qi army to retreat. King Wuling of Zhao took advantage of the civil strife in Yan and sent Lechi to send the prince of King Yan from Korea back to Yan to take the throne, which was for King Yan Zhao. After King Yan Zhao ascended the throne, he recruited wise men, reformed internal affairs, developed production, and actively prepared to avenge the revenge of breaking the country. After the death of King Xuan of Qi, his son King Qi ascended the throne, and he ordered the Qi army to attack Song and Chu in the south, and attack the Three Jin Dynasty in the west. King Yan Zhao wanted to take the opportunity to attack the Qi State, but from the perspective of the land, population and economic conditions of the Yan State, the Yan State was far inferior to the Qi State, and it was impossible to defeat the Qi State with the strength of the Yan State alone. In this situation, Le Yi, the general of Yan, proposed to strive for the establishment of diplomatic relations with other vassal states and isolate the Qi state; and instigated the Qi State to destroy the Song Dynasty in order to exacerbate its contradictions with other countries, and then united the countries to attack the Qi State on a large scale. King Yan Zhao adopted this strategy.

For this reason, the Yan State ostensibly submitted to the Qi State, and sent Su Qin into the Qi State to carry out divisive activities, gaining the trust of the King of Qi. Confused by Yan's superficial submission, Qi relaxed its vigilance and did not guard against Yan, and even withdrew all the forces to guard against Yan from the north. King Zhao of Qin and King of Qi proclaimed himself emperor at the same time and formed an alliance. Yan once again sent Su Qin to Qi to carry out divisive activities, persuading the king of Qi to tear up the alliance between Qi and Qin, abolish the emperor's title, and then wait for an opportunity to destroy the Song state. King Qi was really impressed, abolished the title of emperor in December, and instead joined forces with other countries to attack Qin, forcing Qin to "abolish the emperor and ask for submission". Wang Sun Jia, the minister of Qi, and others killed Naoya, and set up Tian Fazhang, the son of the king of Qi, as the king, for the king of Qixiang, and defended Jucheng to resist the Yan army, and called on the people to rise up to resist. After the Jimo army and civilians died in the battle, they jointly promoted Qi Zong Tiandan as a general and insisted on resisting the Yan army.

Zhang Yi, the minister of Qin, once proposed a strategy of continuous horizontal. After King Zhaoxiang of Qin defeated Han and Wei in the Battle of Yique in the first 2 armies, according to the strategy set by Zhang Yi, he began to plot to attack Chu from the southwest, that is, to carry out a roundabout offensive strategy against Chu from west to east through Ba and Shu, and directly attack Qianzhong, the hinterland of Chu. King Zhaoxiang of Qin ordered the general Sima Cuo to lead a large army from Longxi to enter and supplement the troops of Ba and Shu by 100,000; Then he took a large ship with 10,000 ships, carrying 6 million hus, and went south from the Fushui of Badi to attack the Chu State. The Qin army overcame many difficulties, crossed the present-day Minshan Mountain Range, Motianling Mountain Range, and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and finally attacked the rear of Chu by surprise. At that time, the main force of the Chu army was concentrated on the front line of the Qin and Chu border in the northwest, and the rear army was empty. Suffering from Sima Cuo's sudden attack, the Chu army was caught off guard and lost a large area of land. The Qin army captured Qianzhong County in the state of Chu. King Xiang of Chu was forced to sacrifice the region north of Yong and Han to the Qin state.

The Battle of Qianzhong not only enabled the Qin State to occupy a large area of Chu State, but also laid the foundation for Bai Qi to lead the Qin army to destroy the capital of Chu State in the Battle of Yanying in the following year.

Qin and Chu have been at loggerheads since Zhang Yi deceived Chu. After the great victory of Qin in the Battle of Yique, King Zhaoxiang of Qin wrote a letter about fighting King Qingxiang of Chu. King Xiang of Chu was afraid of the strength of the Qin State and sought to reconcile with the Qin State. King Qingxiang of Chu sent an envoy to Qin to marry the princess of Qin, and Qin and Chu refriended, and the two countries maintained a harmonious relationship after that. King Zhaoxiang of Qin and King Xiang of Chu met in Wan, and the two countries concluded a peace treaty of goodwill. The kings of the two countries met in Yancheng and Qin respectively in Chu State.

King Chu Qingxiang summoned a man who was good at using a light bow to shoot the homing geese, and the man pointed out to the king of Chu Qingxiang that his skill was just a small skill of carving insects, and like the state of Chu, where the land was five thousand miles in radius and the number of people with armor was million, the king of Chu should shoot and hunt the surrounding countries like a bird to achieve hegemony. Under his rhetoric, King Qingxiang of Chu recalled the humiliation of his father, King Huai of Chu, who had killed Qin, decided to break off diplomatic relations with Qin, and sent envoys to various countries to conclude alliances and prepare to attack Qin. When King Qin Zhaoxiang learned the news, he decided to preemptively send troops to attack the state of Chu.

The Qin general Sima Cuo gathered Shu troops from Longxi County and captured Qianzhong County of Chu, and King Xiang of Chu was forced to cede Shangyong and the land north of the Han River to Qin. The following year, in order to fully carry out the war against the Chu State, King Zhaoxiang of Qin and King Huiwen of Zhao met and repaired at Michi, and the two countries temporarily suspended their troops and made a truce

When the domestic politics of Chu were rotten, the king of Chu Qingxiang did not repair the national government, the ministers were arrogant and jealous of their merits, the sycophants were in power, and the virtuous and loyal ministers were excluded, causing the people in the country to deviate from morality and the city fell into disrepair for a long time. After analyzing the situation between Qin and Chu, Bai Qi decided to adopt the strategy of directly attacking the central area ruled by the Chu State, and led tens of thousands of troops down the Han River to the east to capture important coastal towns. Bai Qi ordered the Qin army to dismantle bridges, burn ships, and cut off their own way of return, as a sign of confidence in fighting to the death, and to look for food along the way to replenish military rations. However, because the Chu army was fighting on its own soil, the soldiers only cared about their own families and had no fighting spirit, so they could not resist the onslaught of the Qin army and retreated. The Qin army drove straight in, quickly captured Dengcheng, a key place in the Hanshui Valley, and reached Yancheng, the capital of Chu State. Yancheng was very close to Ying, the capital of the Chu state, and the Chu state gathered heavy troops here to prevent the Qin army from moving south. When the Qin army could not attack for a long time, Bai Qi took advantage of the favorable conditions that the water of the Manhe River flowed from the west of the city to the east of the city from the west of the mountain and the long valley of the west of the city, built an embankment to store water in the west of Yancheng, built a long canal to reach Yancheng, and then opened a canal to irrigate the city. The northeast corner of Yancheng, which had been soaked by the river, collapsed, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city were drowned. After conquering Deng and Yancheng, a large number of Chu people died, Bai Qi pardoned the criminals and moved to the two places, and led the army to capture Xiling.

Bai Qi once again sent troops to attack the state of Chu, captured the capital of the state of Chu, burned down the tomb of his ancestor Yiling, and marched eastward to Jingling, and the king of Chu Qingxiang was forced to move the capital to Chen Zibao. In this battle, the Qin State occupied a large area of land around the Dongting Lake of the Chu State, south of the Yangtze River, and north to Anlu, and established Nanjun here, and Bai Qi was named Wu Anjun for his merits. And Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet who witnessed the country's gradual defeat, committed suicide by throwing himself into the Miluo River in anger.

After the Battle of Yan Ying, the national strength of the Chu State was greatly damaged, and the Qin State took advantage of the victory to expand the results. King Zhaoxiang of Qin appointed Bai Qi as the chief general and Zhang Ruo, the county guard of Shu County, as his deputy general, and seized Wu County and Qianzhong County of Chu State. King Xiang of Chu collected more than 100,000 remnants of his army, recovered fifteen cities in Badong and merged them into counties to block the attack of Qin. After the Battle of Huayang, Chun Shenjun wrote a letter to Qin Zhaoxiang Wang Xiao to take advantage of it, pointing out that the war between Qin and Chu could only make the three kingdoms of Han, Wei, and Qi stronger. Under the mediation of Chun Shenjun, King Zhaoxiang of Qin re-allied himself with the state of Chu and made a truce.