Diplomatic issues have always been a top priority for the current Zhao State.

The great leader once said: "In the course of the struggle, we must pay attention to uniting the majority and striking at the minority." For this sentence, Zhao Dan thought so.

As the second eldest of the Seven Heroes of Zhao State, he rashly jumped out and went head-to-head with the big brother of Qin State, and then engaged in a lose-lose situation like the result of the Battle of Changping in history? It's stupid.

It doesn't matter if you can't beat you alone, I'll call someone, and I'll beat you in groups. I can't beat one, I can't beat five?

More than 20 years ago, King Qi annexed the Song Kingdom, which made the Qi State at that time unique for a while, and it was the veritable first in the world, Niu B, right? Then the State of Qi suffered from the Five Kingdoms and was beaten by the other six countries, and if it weren't for Youtian Dan, even the country would have been destroyed.

Now feng shui takes turns, and it is the turn of Qin Guo to be the boss. But can the boss of Qin Guo deal with the group fight led by the second Zhao State? Obviously, it is not good, because compared with the current Qin State and the Qi State back then, it is actually a country on the same level. Strong is strong, but not to the point of crushing.

Today's Zhao State is undoubtedly at a disadvantage in terms of national strength, so Zhao Dan believes that if he wants to overthrow the Qin State, then this principle of "uniting the majority (the other five countries) and attacking a small group (Qin)" is necessary to adhere to for a long time.

Under such a premise, the diplomatic trends of Wei and Yan, which have not yet joined the anti-Qin alliance, are worth paying attention to.

Of course, Zhao Dan had already made separate arrangements in advance, and now he has recruited several ministers, mainly because the situation in these two countries (mainly Yan State) has changed again.

Two days ago, the fast horse from Yan brought back a secret letter written by Pang Xuan, who was the envoy of Zhao to Yan State, in which Pang Xuan briefly described his envoy experience, judging from Pang Xuan's description, King Yan was obviously not too interested in Pang Xuan, the envoy of Zhao State.

What made Zhao Dan vigilant was a sentence mentioned in Pang Xuan's letter: "The minister traveled all the way, although the Yan people deliberately covered it up, but the minister found that although there were many women and children in the farmland next to Yanguo Road, there were few Ding Zhuang. This autumn's harvest is approaching, and this matter seems to be strange, and the king is asked to investigate. ”

When Zhao Dan took out the letter and circulated it to the ministers present, all the ministers of Zhao Guo present noticed this and frowned in unison.

As usual, at the time of the autumn harvest, it should be the season when a family of men, women, and children are mobilized to fight, but there are only women and children in the farmland of Yan Kingdom, and the most important young and middle-aged labor force is very scarce, which is undoubtedly very unreasonable.

In addition, the people of Yan State are secretive about this scene and do not want to be discovered by Pang Yuan, the envoy of Zhao State, the meaning of this is very elusive.

In this era, under what circumstances can a country mobilize a large number of young and strong workers? Generally speaking, there are two kinds, one is that the country wants to build a big project, and the other is that the country wants to start a war.

Although Yan has such a national level of the Great Wall of Yan, but the Great Wall of Yan has been completed as early as the era of King Yan Zhao and King Yan Hui, over the years, Yan has basically repaired and repaired, and immediately after the autumn harvest is not suitable for the winter to start work, at this time it is obviously a very stupid act to levy farmers to repair the Great Wall, and this possibility can basically be ruled out.

Since this is the case, then there is obviously only one behavior that can explain the movement of Yan Kingdom, and that is - war!

Zhao Sheng, the king of the plains, snorted heavily, and said, "That Yan Kingdom and my Zhao Kingdom are in-laws country, could it be that the Yan Kingdom wants to start a war with my Zhao Kingdom at this moment?" ”

Pingyang Jun Zhao Bao frowned, glanced at Zhao Dan, and said with some caution: "I have heard that because Empress Yan has no children, King Yan seems to have some dislike for Empress Yan. In addition, a few years ago, Tian Xiang led his division to cut down Yan, and Yan Qin has been very close in recent years, so it is necessary to guard against it. ”

Pingyang Jun said that "Tian Xiang cut Yan", referring to the fact that when Zhao Dan's biological mother Zhao Weihou was still in the regent of the Linzhao Dynasty a few years ago, the then Zhao State Minister Bang Tiandan once led the border army of the five northern counties of Zhao State to crusade against Yan State.

Although that incident finally ended with King Yan marrying the eldest princess of Zhao (now Empress Yan) as a bargaining chip to make peace with Zhao, it also caused a rift in the relationship between Yan and Zhao, which had been friends for decades and reached the peak of the honeymoon period during the war of the Five Kingdoms.

After that, Yan began to change its diplomatic strategy, gradually alienating Zhao and moving closer to Zhao's greatest rival, Qin.

Yu Xin also said: "Now that my Zhao State is friendly with Qi State, I will be dissatisfied with this if I want to come to Yan State, but after two months, it will be winter, and Yan Country is in the bitter cold, and if I want to come to Yan King, I will have the heart to start a war, and I need to wait until next spring." ”

The current territory of the Yan Kingdom is mainly the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Dynasty and the Liaodong Peninsula in later generations, which cannot be compared with the Taihang Mountains in the Central Plains and the Jianghan Plain further south.

This is the reason why Yu Xin thinks that the Central Plains countries can fight, but the Yan Kingdom should not move.

In this era when cotton was not planted on a large scale and used to sew clothes in China, the attrition caused by the cold in winter was very terrible.

Freezing a hand or a foot when you get up and sleeping, and suddenly falling off your ears while walking, this is not a joke, but a cold and cruel fact, otherwise the population of Yan Country will not always be the bottom of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States.

But Lin Xiangru had a different opinion on this, and saw that this Zhao Shangqing first coughed for a while, and then said with some difficulty: "This King Yan is a person who ganged up with Gongsun to kill the monarch and stand on his own, and his person is capricious and arrogant, and it is not common sense. In my opinion, Yan Guo must not be guarded! ”

The reigning King Yan is actually not a descendant of the previous monarch, King Yan Hui, but the brother of King Yan Hui.

Twelve years ago, the king of Yan and the general of Yan Guo, Gongsun Cao, staged a coup d'état, killed the then monarch Yan Hui Wang and ascended to the throne, which caused the dissatisfaction of Zhao State, and Zhao Xiangtian's single attack on Yan came from this.

For such a usurper, Lin Xiangru was obviously skeptical.

After some discussion, Zhao Dan finally made a decision and made a decision: "Order the border soldiers of Dai County and Yanmen County to be vigilant, in case the Yan State suddenly sends troops to our Zhao State, and make the five northern counties ready for mobilization, if the Yan people attack, there will be border soldiers from the five northern counties to meet them!" ”

The five northern counties of Zhao State refer to the five counties of Wuyuan County, Jiuyuan County, Yunzhong County, Yanmen County and Dai County. The five northern counties are inhabited by a large number of nomadic people (such as Loufu and Linhu) who were conquered by Zhao, and they are also the horse breeding base and cavalry base camp of Zhao.

Although Zhao Dan had previously dispatched 50,000 elite cavalry to the south to support the Changping battlefield, with the population of about 400,000 in the five northern counties now, it is not too big to gather an army of 50,000 or 60,000 with the strength of the five counties.

In fact, this army is the last bit of strength that Zhao can gather at the moment, and most of Zhao's army has already gathered on the Changping line, and is in a confrontation with the Qin army.

Yu Xin thought for a while, and said: "King, Qi Yan is a country of old enemies, if Yan and my Zhao country go to war, the king may as well send an envoy to Qi State, if Qi State is willing to send troops to help my Zhao State resist the Yan State army, then my Zhao State can be worry-free." ”

This sentence woke up Zhao Dan in an instant.

You must know that more than 20 years ago, the Five Kingdoms Expedition to Qi was the commander of Yan State, and the Yan State occupied the most territory in the battle to destroy Qi, and most of the losses of Qi State had to be recorded on the head of Yan State.

Therefore, after the restoration of the country, the Qi people have always regarded Yan as the culprit of the five countries to attack Qi, and the hatred of Yan State is very serious at the top level or among the people.

Besides, Zhao Dan borrowed grain from Qi in order to find the State of Qi, but even sent away rare treasures like He's Bi, which can be regarded as a line with Qi Wangjian and Hou Sheng, the pair of faint monarchs and ministers. Isn't it a pity that this line, which was built at such a great cost, was left unused after being used once?

So Zhao Dan said: "Yu Qing's words, good! In this case, the widow will be responsible for this matter with the pedestrian Su Dai, if Yan Guo dares to send troops to my Zhao State, then Su Dai will be sent to Qi State again! ”

This meeting has come to an end with the matter on the Yan side.

As for the Wei side, due to the failure of the envoy of Zhao Sheng, the monarch of the Plains, the monarchs and ministers of the Zhao State couldn't think of any good way for a while.

However, because the situation at the moment is relatively optimistic, the monarchs and ministers of Zhao quickly reached a consensus that as long as Wei can maintain neutrality, it will be good news for Zhao.

Therefore, after the topic of Yan and Wei ended, the monarchs and ministers of Zhao discussed some specific issues in terms of grain and grass logistics, and then the meeting was over.

But what the monarchs and ministers of Zhao who were immersed in optimism did not know was that a great trouble of Zhao was coming, and the source of this trouble came from Daliang City, the capital of Wei that they had intentionally or unintentionally ignored.