In the Battle of Chengpu, there was quite a bit of cause and effect.

Why did the Jin army and the Chu army "retreat"?

Once Jin Xiangong listened to slander, killed the crown prince Shen Sheng, and sent someone to kill Shen Sheng's younger brother Chong'er. Chong'er fled abroad after receiving the news. Chong'er came to the state of Chu after a lot of hardships. King Chu Cheng respected him as a guest. One day, the king of Chu invited Chong'er to a banquet, and asked him how he would repay himself if he became the king of the country in the future. Chong'er promised that if he was in power in the future, once Chu and Jin exchanged troops, the Jin army would retreat first (one house is equal to thirty miles). Later, Chong'er really returned to the Jin Kingdom and became the monarch, that is, the Duke of Jin Wen.

Later, Chu and Jin fought, that is, the battle of Chengpu. In order to fulfill his promise, Duke Wen of Jin ordered the army to retreat ninety miles back and camp in Chengpu. The Chu army pursued lightly and was defeated by the Jin army.

When the State of Chu attacked the State of Jin, why did the State of Wei and the State of Cao not send troops?

Cheng Dechen sent Wanchun to the Jin military camp, and he went to the Jin military camp and said: "Please restore the territory of Wei and Cao, and our Chu army will naturally not besiege the Song State." Fox Yan angrily reprimanded him for being rude. However, Xianzhen saw Cheng Dechen's conspiracy, so he persuaded Jin Wengong: "If we don't agree, we will definitely offend these three kingdoms, and the state of Chu has gained a good reputation." It is better for us to privately agree with Cao and Wei to divide their relationship with Chu, and at the same time detain Wanchun, and provoke Cheng De's ministers to attack the Chu army. Jin Wengong adopted the opinion of the ancestors. After Cao and Wei restored the country, they immediately broke off with Chu. Cheng Dechen was really enraged, and after withdrawing his troops from the Song State, he directly attacked the Jin army.

Although the narrative is simple, the wisdom in it is very rare.

There was a master who once made a fairly detailed evaluation.

Wei Ziheng once had the privilege of seeing and reading this master's article, and now when he talks about it, all kinds of ideas in this article come to his mind.

On April 4, the First Civil War broke out in history. Under the leadership of Cheng Dechen, the commander of the Chu army, the allied forces of Chu, Zheng, Chen, Cai, and Xu invaded Chengpu, which was the southwest of Juancheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province. The commander of the Jin army, the "Zhong Jun General" Xianzhen, had already led the Jin, Qin, Qi, and Song allied forces to wait for the battle, and first sent the fifth commander of the Jin army, "Xia Jun General" Xu Chen, to lead the Jin army to attack the Chen and Cai troops under the command of Chu Right Division Doubo.

This trick is called: pinch the soft persimmon first

Masters are good at finding each other's weaknesses, and this is where the master's cleverness lies. And the troops of Chen Guo and Cai Guo were the weakest link in Chu's right division. These two small countries, since the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period, are the role of running tricks, following behind the big countries to share a piece of the pie, not only can not increase their own combat power, but also make trouble everywhere, the former King of Zhou Tianzi Huan attacked the small tyrant Zheng Zhuang Gong, which was planted in the hands of their group of-stirring sticks. In Xianzhen's opinion, for such a super bad army, it can basically be defeated with a single charge.

This trick is also called in the art of war: avoiding the real and attacking the false.

Sun Tzu once put forward the following view: The key to defeating the strong with the weak lies in first using one's own local superiority and initiative, facing the enemy's local disadvantage and passivity, winning one battle, and then breaking through the rest, so that the overall situation becomes an advantage and an initiative.

Sun Tzu's most basic military thinking originated from our ancestors.

Another clever thing about Xianzhen was to let Xu Chen put the tiger skin on the horse he was driving and rushed towards Chen Cai's troops.

Although it is not clear where Xianzhen collected so many tiger skins, this time, the tiger skins have made a great contribution.

The horse covered with a tiger skin, of course, can't scare people, but it can scare the horse, Chen Caijun's war horse saw that the tiger was coming, and he was so frightened that he turned around and ran, and he couldn't pull it.

The old horse and tiger, stupid and unclear, the word sloppy, probably that's how it came from!

Chen Cai's soldiers were already very bad at fighting, but now that the war horses don't listen to the command, they are even more useless in martial arts, and they are beaten by the Jin army one by one, and they can't form an army!

In fact, they can't be blamed for this, from ancient times to the present, how can anyone fight like this!

It was these seemingly stupid methods of warfare that prompted the later soldiers' trips

But it's weird, it's weird, he's too creative first. This is simply a deep-seated psychological warfare, which involves many aspects such as zoology and psychology, and is very high-tech, which also shows that the pioneers made very sufficient preparations before the war.

The ending can be imagined, Chen Cai's troops disrupted the position of the Chu army, and the right division of Chu was defeated, and the Chu general Dou Bo was seriously injured and left the field.

Chu's right division lost so unexplained, but that day it was windy and sandy, and the vision was extremely blurred, so Chu Shuai Cheng Dechen did not know the true situation of his right flank, he was anxious, and was about to send scouts to reconnoitre, when suddenly a few Chen Cai's soldiers came to report: "The right division has won, please march quickly and cooperate with our division to attack the Jinzhong army and make great contributions together!" ”

Of course, these people were spies sent by Xianzhen to confuse the Chu army.

This trick has been said again, and it is called "use room" in the art of war, and it was also pioneered by Xianzhen.

Cheng Dechen immediately boarded the chariot after receiving the report, picked up the binoculars, and looked to the right, but saw that the Jin army was rushing north, and the smoke and dust covered the sky, he couldn't help but be overjoyed: "The Jin army is defeated!" Zixi (that is, the commander of the Chu Left Division, Dou Yishen, the word Zixi), you rate the left division to attack the Jin Shang Army, and I will personally attack the Jin Zhong Army. If the three armies are victorious, great things can be accomplished! ”

Did the Jin army really run away? Win or run?

Of course it can't be, it turns out that this is another trick of Xianzhen, he sent the sixth commander of the Jin army, "Xia Jun Zuo" Luan Zhi, to lead a small number of Jin army officers and soldiers to drag the branches cut down from the nearby mountains behind the chariot, and ran up dusty, creating the illusion that the whole army of the lower army was retreating, so as to confuse the Chu army and lure the enemy to attack, but in fact, the main force of Xu Chen's lower army had already been under the command of Xu Chen, ready to rush up to block the Chu army at any time. I can only say, Xianzhen, you are really the world's earliest special effects master, and you don't lose your life if you cheat the dead!

So, Zixi received the order and led the left division of Chu to attack the Jin army led by Hu Yan, the third commander of the Jin army.

The fox Yan did not entangle with it, and after a few battles, he returned to the army and left.

Zixi rushed up and was about to fight to the death with the Jin army, when he suddenly saw the Jin army retreating backwards like a tide, and the handsome car of the fox was pulling two big flags, hula hula, running faster than anyone else!

Changed to a soldier in later generations, at a glance, he knew that the fox was retreating, and Sun Tzu said in the thirteenth chapter: "Don't follow the north." "When the enemy fights, the situation is not declining, and those who run and fight will have strange ambushes, which must not be pursued. But don't forget, at that time, it was still the early Spring and Autumn period when "war was a courtesy", and the word "retreat" had not yet been invented, and the army at that time would only retreat if it lost or was afraid, and it was unheard of to take the initiative to retreat strategically.

So although Zixi was a little confused, he didn't have time to think about it so much, the victory in hand must not let it slip away, chase it!

In this way, hundreds of chariots of the Chu Zuo Division marched at the same time, chasing after them violently, and disappeared into the sand and dust in the sky after a while.

Well, the people of Chu have been fooled, and now what the Jin army has to do is to put the victory in a bag, tighten the bag, zip it up, and pack it home.

At that time, there was a war salute: "No more than 100 paces to run, no more than 30 paces", which means that after defeating the enemy, the pursuit inside the battlefield should not exceed 100 steps, and the depth of the pursuit outside the battlefield should not exceed 90 miles. In fact, this is not entirely a matter of etiquette, but also a need for tactics. Because the war at that time relied on the coordinated operation of the chariot and the infantry, generally speaking, a chariot was equipped with 72 infantrymen, 24 on the left and right, and 24 on the left and right, responsible for covering the flanks and rear of the chariot, in order to make up for the shortcomings of the chariot's strong impact but weak defense. Therefore, the depth of the pursuit of the enemy in chariots must not be too long, otherwise the infantry is likely to be left behind, resulting in the destruction of the enemy on both sides.

It's a pity that Zixi, who was carried away by the victory, completely threw the most basic truth on this battlefield out of the clouds. He chased and chased vigorously, unaware that the infantry running wildly behind him had long been out of touch with the chariots in front.

The chariot of the Chu State was chasing hard, but the Jin army suddenly stopped and did not run, the flying dust dispersed, Zixi was surprised to find that the chariot of the Jin State in front of him was actually lined up in an arc, slowly advancing towards himself, the war drums sounded, one after another, and knocked heavily on the hearts of the soldiers of the Chu army, as if they were ringing their death knell!

A hint of foreboding flashed in Zixi's heart: something is going to happen!

Sure enough, his premonition was quickly confirmed, and in the panicked shouts of the Chu soldiers, behind his flank, countless Jin soldiers rushed towards them in black, and it turned out to be the Jin Zhong Army that was supposed to be fighting with the Chu Zhong Army, the most elite Gong Clan unit in the Jin Army!

An extremely terrible thought flashed through Zixi's heart: he was besieged by the Jin Shang Army and the Zhong Army, and the Jin Zhong Army was able to get out of the confrontation with the Chu Zhong Army and come to attack him, the only possibility was that the Chu Zhong Army was blocked by another army, and which army was the Jin Xia Army that had already been defeated by the Chu Right Division in the legend?

Poor Zixi, he was really completely stunned, according to the rules handed down by the ancestors: the two sides are against each other, and the three armies should fight in turn, their own left army against the enemy's right army, their own right army against the enemy's left army, and finally the Chinese army against the Chinese army, beating the drum and hitting it, a total of three battles, the rules of the game are a bit like today's best-of-two elimination ball game. And every time they competed, the other armies waited and watched until the winner was decided. How can they Jin people not play cards according to the rules?

Zixi is very funny, why should he play cards according to the rules, he can't set his own cards? His card theory is to concentrate superior forces to attack the enemy and fight a war of annihilation, and all soldiers must learn his card theory in the future, and if they don't learn, they will have to lose the battle. This is what Sun Tzu called "and the enemy has always been; I'm the enemy. ”

It's not that I don't understand, the world is changing fast, this is where the sadness of Song Xianggong and Zixi's generation lies.

Poor Zixi, the more he thought about it, the more confused he became, and he completely forgot to command the army. The battlefield is changing rapidly, when Zixi was still stupid, the Jin Zhong army led by Xian Zhen has quickly killed, surrounded the Chu infantry left behind, without the cover of the chariot, the Chu infantry with short arms and exhaustion can only let the Jin chariot slaughter. Zixi watched as his infantry was crushed into meatloaf by the huge chariot of the Jin army, and those who escaped were also cut in half by the armor soldiers on the chariot, killing and wounding countless people.

At the same time, the Jin army in front also rushed into the Chu army's chariot array, and without the cover of the infantry on both flanks and the rear of the chariot, the Chu army's chariot soldiers, who only had a single long weapon, also became vulnerable and fled one after another. Zixi saw that the general trend had gone, so he had to sigh, broke out of the encirclement under the protection of a few personal soldiers, and fled for his life by climbing the mountain in embarrassment. On the other hand, Cheng Dechen already knew that he had been scheming, because his Chinese army was stubbornly resisted by the legendary Jin army, which had been destroyed. Xu Chen, the "general of the lower army" of the Jin Dynasty, and "Luan Zhi", who was proficient in the car formation, were connected end to end with dozens of huge heavy vehicles, formed a ring, and lined up horizontally in front of the formation, as a barrier, and then deployed the archers and Changge soldiers in the rear of the heavy vehicles, while other mobile troops were hiding in the formation, layer by layer, impermeable, and the Chu Zhong army had failed to return several times, but left thousands of corpses of Chu warriors in front of the battle. Cheng Dechen's face is green, the death of the left and right people is uncertain, and it is difficult for him to enter, what can I do! He understood that the longer he dragged on here, the worse the situation would be for him, and victory was slipping away from him little by little.

So he ordered like crazy, rush, rush, rush!!

Of course, Xu Chen will not let the Chu army succeed, and the first hand handed over to him is a dead task: although the Jin army is the weakest combat effectiveness among the three armies of the Jin State, although the attack is insufficient, there are more than enough rules, so the first Zhen asked Xu Chen to hold the position, even if he kills the last person, he must not take half a step back, in short, he must ensure that the middle and upper second armies of the Jin State will comprehensively crush the left and right second divisions of the Chu State.

Of course, after all, the central army of Chu is the "Ruo Ao private pawn" that Cheng Dechen is most proud of, Cheng Dechen belongs to the Ruoao clan of Chu State, and is the strongest combat power among the princes of Chu State, and the Jin army soon fell into a bitter battle. At this moment, the soldiers on both sides stepped on the corpses like mountains and rivers of blood under their feet, opened their eyes that had been red, and pulled their throats that were already hoarse, and kept fighting and killing until they exhausted the last trace of strength and the last drop of blood on their bodies.

In the face of the flood of attacks of the Chu army, Xu Chen finally couldn't hold it anymore, and he was about to collapse, and on the horizon on the left and right sides of the battlefield, two long and boundless black lines suddenly appeared. Soon, the black line turned into two large pieces of black pressure, and the resolute and excited faces of the Jin soldiers were clearly visible.

"Hard work, Luan Zhi and Xu Chen, now come with us to receive the results!" Standing on a high chariot with his hands in his hands, his clothes fluttering, his long hair flying, like a god of war descending to earth.

Cheng Dechen finally met this fateful opponent face to face, and a feeling of despair spread from the soles of his feet, causing his body to collapse for a while. It's over, it's over, the left and right divisions are over! I lost first, and I lost my heart.

Now, only the lone army of Chu Zhongjun remains, and it is surrounded by the three armies of Jin, and the general trend has gone.

Cheng Dechen stomped his foot heavily: "Withdraw!" ”

Xian Zhen followed behind to cover up for a while, and finally let Cheng Dechen run away. He is not as stupid as Zixi, and chasing and fighting fiercely is a taboo in car battles.

In this battle, the invincible Chu division lost two-thirds of the troops of about 70,000 troops in Chengpu, and since then the vitality has been greatly injured, after many years have not recovered, the hegemony of the Chu State has fallen so far, and the hegemony of the Jin State has since begun, and has continued until the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, except for the blockbuster Nantian Divine Bird Chu Zhuang King, basically no one can move a bit.

After Cheng Dechen fled to Chu State, he had no shame to see Jiangdong's father, and the Chu army had the tradition of "covering the army and killing generals" since ancient times, so under the coercion of the King of Chu, Cheng Dechen committed suicide with a sword halfway through.

Every hero is born, and there will be several corpses of losers at his feet, and the altar of the god of war will be no exception.

The defeat of Cheng Dechen is not in his lack of courage, but in his undercounting. Sun Tzu said: "The husband is the victor without a fight, and he has to count a lot; The temple is not victorious without a fight, and it is considered to be less. More is better than nothing! "Cheng Dechen is brave and light, and he has few plans, and no matter how strong the combat effectiveness of the army he leads, it is useless.