Chapter 24 The Great Wall Blocks the Way
In the seventeenth year of King Min of Qi, King Zhao of Yan appointed Le Yi as a general and led the five kingdoms of Yan, Zhao, Han, Wei, and Qin to attack Qi. Le Yi captured more than 70 cities in one fell swoop, and King Qi Min fled in panic, and finally fled to Jucheng. The state of Qi was about to die, and the king of Chu Qingxiang planned for his country and sent the general Naoya to save Qi. When King Qi Min heard this, he lost his mind in order to obtain this life-saving straw, just as a man who was about to drown saw a glimmer of hope for survival. He ceded all the land acquired by the Qi State due to the Battle of Shuisha during the reign of King Xuan of Qi to the State of Chu.
The Battle of Droisha was a famous night battle in the Warring States Period, and this battle played the border line that had not changed for 20 years. In the fourteenth year of King Zhou, the Qi general Kuang Zhang, the Wei general Gongsun Xi, and the Han general Storm Kite led the troops of the three kingdoms to attack the Chu State, and the Chu State sent the general Tang Yi to lead the army to resist the armies of the three kingdoms of Qi, Han and Wei. The Triple Alliance attacked the city of Fangcheng in the state of Chu, and the two sides lined up for six months at the border of the Tang River in the southwest of present-day Henan, downstream to Xiangfan and into the Han River. King Xuan of Qi was impatient with the delay in the war, so he sent his envoy Zhou Zhi to the position and urged Kuang Zhang to cross the river quickly and fight with harsh words. Later, with the help of the local natives, Kuang Xuan sent elite soldiers to cross the river at night from the heavily defended place of the Chu army, launched a surprise attack on the Chu army, and defeated the Chu army at the weesha next to the river. Chu general Tang Yi relaxed his guard because the coalition forces had not made much movement for more than six months, and only after knowing that the coalition forces had come ashore did he hastily transfer troops to respond to the battle. The Chu army was defeated, thousands of people died, and Chu killed Tang Yi in battle. After the Battle of Chuisha, the coalition forces took advantage of the victory to capture a large area of land north of Chuiqiu, Wancheng, and Yecheng. After this battle, the border of Qi and Chu was not easy for nearly 20 years, and the border garrison of Qi has been coercing the border garrison of Chu State.
King Qi Min's actions were to make the pride of the Qi people disappear in front of the Chu people, which naturally met with the opposition of the people, but King Qi Min insisted on going his own way and appointed Nao Ya as the prime minister, which made the people lose their hearts. In the end, King Min of Qi was killed by Naoya, and at this time he also showed the original intention of this trip: he had no intention of saving Qi, but he had the intention to carve up Qi with Yan State. During the war, the state of Chu occupied large areas of land such as Huaibei in the name of helping Qi.
After King Xiang of Qi ascended the throne, Xiangguo Tiandan led the army to conquer the east and west, expelling the armies of the five countries that occupied the Qi State, and never took care of the Chu State in the south. When Tiandan drove away the armies of the five kingdoms entrenched in Qi, all the Qi monarchs and ministers found that Chu had occupied the land of Huaibei and pushed the border line across the Great Wall of Qi. So just after the bloody battle with the Five Kingdoms, the athletes of the Qi State went to the south to recover the land occupied by the Chu State, and after a few bloody battles with the mourning army to win, the Qi people drove the Chu army to the south of the Great Wall of Qi, recovered all the land north of the Great Wall, and formed a confrontation with the Chu army here, so they established a defensive line here, and the Great Wall of Qi became their border.
The Great Wall of Qi was built in the Spring and Autumn Period, completed in the period of King Xuan of Qi in the Warring States Period, divided into two sections, from the bank of the Yellow River in the west, to the coast of the Yellow Sea in the east, the Great Wall of Qi is mostly built according to the mountainous situation, and the land of the mountain range is built at the top of the peak, so the Great Wall of Qi is called "Great Wall Ridge" again. However, there is also a flat land along the Great Wall, so the overall architectural structure design and city wall structure of the Great Wall of Qi are different. The city walls built with the mountain are mostly made of natural stones of different sizes, and generally do not need to be solidified by mortar and other materials. The Great Wall built in the plain valley is mostly rammed, and the earthen city wall is also called Jufang or Fangmen. or the building materials of the city wall, mostly take the nearest materials, the mountain section of the city wall, because of the convenience of taking stones, that is, with stone; Flat area, because there is no stone, it is taken, that is, it is built with earth. The construction of the Great Wall of Qi makes full use of the mountain danger to replace the role of the Great Wall and can save people and property, and the city wall is the main body of the Great Wall; The beacon tower is mostly located at the high peak of the mountain range, which is a facility for military fortification to transmit signals; The Guanhan and Fangmen are mostly located in the valleys of the plains, which are the necessary places to enter and exit the country, and they are also the key areas of the Great Wall. Two-story city walls are generally built here, and there are also many checkpoints and gates to defend the Great Wall in the undulating mountains.
Looking at the architectural structure design of the Great Wall of Qi, there are the characteristics of adapting measures to local conditions, making full use of the terrain, and taking local materials, and the majestic momentum and grand scale of the Great Wall of Qi integrate the wisdom, will, perseverance and endurance of the ancients, and it is also the crystallization of the great strength and wisdom of the people of Qi.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, the princes of the countries, competing with each other, some of them built embankments by the river, some set up barriers along the mountains to guard, what they sought was only their own safety, to the Warring States, the car war withdrew from the historical stage, the use of cavalry and iron weapons was gradually extensive, and the scope of the war was therefore expanded, so there was the construction of the Great Wall to block the attack of the enemy army, to prevent the opponent's soldiers and horses from galloping arbitrarily in the plains, and the Qi State also built the Great Wall of Qi for this reason, and the function of this section of the Great Wall was mainly to guard against the Chu State in the south.
In the long history of the world, there have always been many phenomena that are contrary to the subconscious beliefs of most people. In the common belief, the construction of the Great Wall was often filled with the figure of death, so many people believe that the Great Wall was built by the monarchs who forced the common people to build. However, the problem is that in the process of the establishment of the Great Wall of Qi, there is no record of large-scale death in the history books of Qi, and there is no record of persecution of the people causing public resentment to boil. The Confucian sages, who were known for their love for the people, did not accuse the Qi State of spending the people's efforts to build the Great Wall, and the Mohists, who were known for their preaching of love and love, did not accuse or even mention the form of the Qi State in building the Great Wall. In fact, not only the Great Wall of Qi, the Great Wall of Zhao, the Great Wall of Yan, and the Great Wall of Chu are the same, there is no record of death, and the accusations of the saints, as if in the era of the country, building the Great Wall was an ordinary and safe thing. Looking at later generations, the Great Wall of the Han Dynasty, the Great Wall of the Tang Dynasty, and the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty do not seem to have any records of boiling public resentment. In the entire 5,000-year history of China, it seems that only the Qin Dynasty built the Great Wall and the people's grievances boiled. When our minds come to mind, we should think about what caused this situation.
Zhao Jie had systematically considered this issue in his previous life, and in his concept, he had his unique opinion. He believes that there was no public resentment when the Great Wall of Qi was established because the people knew that the establishment of the Great Wall was to protect their own land of the Qi people, and the centripetal force of the Qi people was extremely strong at that time, and the people of Qi were proud of the Qi people and the people of the King of Qi, so they were willing to build the Great Wall. Zhao, Yan, and Chu are also similar. The people of the six countries of Shandong did not consider themselves to be the people of the Qin state, so they naturally would not do their best to protect the interests of the king of Qin and the Qin state, and the people of the Qin state asked them to do their best, so a contradiction arose, and this contradiction can only end with death. Soon after, the first emperor died, the second emperor was established, and the six kingdoms of Shandong were restored. The same reason is that Emperor Yang of Sui dug a canal.
Many people believe that the construction of the Great Wall was the wishful thinking of the emperor, that the Great Wall could easily be attacked, that it was a sign of the emperor's fear, and that it was a wrong policy. Not really.
The defensive role of the Great Wall is not manifested in the "not to be captured" as ordinary people think; The real use of this is that the invaders may be able to concentrate their forces on the occasional breach of one or two passes and break into the interior, but as long as there is a strong army stationed along the entire length of the Wall, the invaders are always in danger of being blocked and ambushed and unable to return home.
The Great Wall was not built by the emperor because he was afraid. When the Great Wall is built, it will be the time when the Central Plains is victorious. Qin was in Mengtian but the Xiongnu more than 700 miles, when the Hu people did not dare to go south and herd horses, the king of Qin ordered the Great Wall to be built in the north and guarded the fence; Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was after the Xiongnu withdrew from the south and north of the desert, and Emperor Wu built a fortress, a pavilion and a fire, built an outer city, and set up a garrison to defend it; "King Zhao Wuling was in the "vulgar Hu clothes, Xi cavalry shooting", extinguishing Zhongshan, chasing Lin Hu, defeating the building after the annoyance, Zhao Wuling King ordered to build the Great Wall, since the generation and Yin Mountain, the highest Que for the stopper. In fact, the Qin Emperor and Han Wu, including the early Ming Dynasty, all built the Great Wall when they took the initiative and achieved overwhelming military superiority. This shows that the construction of the Great Wall is not only an active defense, but also a strategy to accumulate strength and continue to forge ahead.
The original intention of building the Great Wall was to take positive measures against the actual situation in the border areas, and to turn the passive into the active, because for the enemy, if you make a great conquest, he will definitely flee and ambush, and it is impossible to kill your enemy in a single battle. and the fleeing enemy after the great army has departed; The long-term stationing of large armies here also affected domestic production and the defense of other places, so the ancestors came up with a way: only by building a great wall could they defend against the enemy. The construction of the Great Wall is to rely on the facilities to play the greatest role with the least number of people and the least amount of goods, save manpower and money, prevent the enemy, and rest the people.
What's even more unbelievable is that in the eyes of most people, they think that the Great Wall is the forefront of the ancient country's defense against foreign enemies, that is, a line of defensive buildings, and the nomads can't enter the Central Plains because there are many soldiers stationed on the Great Wall, and they defend on the Great Wall, but in fact, it is not.
The Great Wall was not the front line of defense, and the troops deployed in front of the Great Wall penetrated far into the distance, and the front line was hundreds of miles north of the Great Wall. It is not a simple isolated first-line city wall, but from point to line, from line to surface, with the Great Wall as the line to connect the passes, military forts, gates and important military towns along the line into a tight network to form a complete defense system. The system of military forts, gates, and military towns has a variety of functions such as combat, command, observation, communication, and concealment, and is equipped with a point-line defense project of a long-term garrison. To put it simply, the Great Wall is a logistics base, a garrison area, and a fortified city on which the army rests.
Zhao Jie is facing such a defense system at this time, and it is naturally difficult for him to go to the sky if he wants to wear it.