In the turbulent times of the Spring and Autumn Period, wolf smoke is everywhere, and Zhou Tianzi's control has gradually declined. In order to have a better future in this troubled world, the princes of all parties have been engaged in various open and secret battles for a long time. Every aspiring prince understands that if he wants to survive in this terrible and chaotic world, he must weaken or even destroy all opponents as much as possible. In this seemingly vast, prosperous and rich land, there can only be one owner in the end.

The Zhou Dynasty was clearly once the co-ruler of the world, but the wealth left by the ancestors had long since bottomed out in the continuous squandering and waste. The once noble and graceful court clothes have long been covered with dust that is difficult to sweep away. The dust is heavy, because it contains the power of time and fate. The status of the once powerful and commanding the world has also quietly dissipated like a cloud with the continuous weakening of the military power of the Zhou royal family. The former vassals began to grow tired of the troublesome life of paying tribute year after year, and the growing strength of the army also gave the princes the confidence to covet the throne.

Just as the Western Zhou Dynasty collapsed after many years, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, although crumbling, was still the nominal co-ruler of the world. The complete destruction of a dynasty requires not only a long time, but also countless blood sacrifices. Therefore, the establishment of a new era must not be determined by one or two geniuses. All the princes who have ambitions for this world also understand that wanting to become the sole master of this land is by no means something that can be achieved overnight.

The princes of all walks of life are constantly accumulating their own strength, constantly encroaching and weakening and suppressing all opponents. In these chaotic times, it is clear that multi-party games will not be superficial. Although it is true that you can achieve your goals by taking up your sword and guns in person, you can also use the situation to gain national interests.

In 585 B.C., the growing strength of the Chu State made the countries of the Jiangbei Central Plains sit on pins and needles. However, if you pour out all your own soldiers and raise troops to crusade against a fierce Chu State with thousands of miles of land and millions of armor, it is obvious that no prince is willing to do it easily. No matter how strong or weak it is, once a real war with the Chu State starts, it will be an incomparably heavy burden and an incomparably huge risk for any Central Plains prince. At this time, the Jin State, a major power in the Central Plains whose status was most shaken by the rise of the Chu State, made up its mind and began to support the Wu State, which was close to the Chu land, to continuously consume and attack the Chu State by driving away the wolf and devouring the tiger. Even though Wu Wang Shoumeng knew that behind the support of the Jin State was a big gamble with Wu people's lives as a bargaining chip, as a small country, if he didn't give it a fight, how could he talk about the future?

Knowing that his kingdom has become a pawn in the struggle between the great powers, the state of Wu has no choice, and the frequent harassment of "no year without a master of Wu" has greatly restrained the pace of the progress of the state of Chu, and the state of Chu, which is overwhelmed, under the control of the countries of the Central Plains in the north, cannot draw enough strength to exterminate the state of Wu in one fell swoop, and the state of Wu has gradually risen with the support of all parties, both openly and secretly, and has become a powerful force to contain the state of Chu.

Under the unfavorable situation of being restrained by the northern princes in the front and constantly intruding by the Wu state in the back, the state of Chu finally decided to adopt the same means as the princes of the Central Plains. On the one hand, the state of Chu concentrated its forces to resist the oppression and infiltration of the northern countries; On the one hand, it integrated resources and began to support the Yue State on the border with Wu State. At this point, the prelude to Wu Yue's struggle for hegemony slowly opened.

In 515 BC, King Ping of Chu died, and the state of Chu was in turmoil. Shoumeng's grandson, King Wu, raised an army to attack Chu, sent his mother and younger brother Gongzi Baoyu and Gongzi Zhuyong to lead an army to surround the Liu, Qianeryi of Chu, and sent Ji Za to envoy Jin to secretly monitor the princes of the north. However, the Chu soldiers could not hold out, and at the same time, the military horses from all walks of life in the country quickly gathered to cut off the rear route of the Wu army, and the Wu army was trapped and difficult to withdraw. The eldest brother Wu Gongziguang, who failed to inherit the throne, is obviously not like his father, and he can still insist on family affection in front of the imperial power. So he recruited assassins to specialize, Chen said that he was powerful, and said that the state of Wu would surely perish under the control of his mediocre and warlike younger brother, and he himself was the generation of saints who could truly lead the state of Wu to the top. Zhuan Zhu was moved by it and was ordered to assassinate the king of Wu.

On April Bingzi Day of the same year, the son's photovoltaic armor soldiers were in the dark room and feasted his brother Wu Wangfang. Wu seemed to sense the danger. Under the protection of a large number of guards, go to the banquet. From the palace to the seats, all the faithful servants were servants. When the banquet was opened, Gongzi Guang excused himself from his foot illness, entered the dark room, and specially hid the dagger in the belly of the fish, and pretended to present it. Zhuzhu, who was close to the fish, took out the dagger from the belly of the fish at a very fast speed, stabbed Wu Wang, and the wingman was killed on the spot, at the age of Chinese New Year's Eve and eight. Historically, it is known as "the assassin of the king". And this dagger that killed Wu Wangbian is the legendary blade - the fish intestine sword.

Zhuan Zhu was then stabbed to death by the sword of the left and right guards of the Wu Wang, and the armor soldiers who were ambushed in the dark room rushed out and killed all the cronies brought by the Wu Wang. At this point, Gongzi Guang took the position of King Wu and replaced him, and was known as King Wu Lu in history. After ascending the throne, he immediately named the son of Zhuan Zhu as Shangqing.

April Bingzi, light wine please Wang Bureaucracy. The wine was drunk, and the son pretended to be a foot disease, and entered the cave room, so that he put the dagger in the belly of the fish and entered it. And when he came to the king, he devoted himself to breaking fish, because he stabbed the king's officials with a dagger, and the king's officials died immediately. The left and right also killed the Zhu, and the king disturbed. Gongzi Guang came out of his armor to attack the king's subordinates, and destroyed them, so he set himself up as the king, which was for the sake of the king. He Lu is the son of Feng Zhuzhu, and he thinks that he is the king.

- "Historical Records"

After he became king, he rectified the rule of officials and accumulated strength. In 514 BC, Wu Zixu, a famous fugitive general of the Chu State, was activated. In 512 BC, Wu Zixu introduced Sun Wu, and He Lu began to reform the military system drastically, making the Wu army's combat effectiveness stronger and stronger. When he had enough power, it was only natural that the ambitious king wanted to gain a position worthy of his strength. The two brothers of Wu Wangyi, who surrendered and went into exile after being trapped in the Chu State, became an outlet for He Lu to vent his desires. This emperor, who has enough wisdom and courage to dare to kill his brother and ascend the throne, certainly knows the truth of cutting grass and eradicating roots. Although the two sons in exile no longer have the capital to threaten their imperial power again, it is obviously justified to punish them in the name of blaming them for betraying the country. Of course, He Lu knew that Xu Guo (near present-day Sixian County, Anhui) and Zhong Wuguo (near present-day Suqian and Xinyi, Jiangsu), who accepted the two princes of Wu, would not agree to Wu's request, whether it was out of the original kinship, or out of the consideration of mutual checks and balances between countries, as well as the secret support and instruction of Chu State for the two countries behind it. Therefore, for Wu Wang Lu, this request is nothing more than an excuse for temptation and expansion in the name of imperial internal affairs.

Although the two sons have special statuses, it is obviously difficult to reach the level of strong diplomatic collision. However, in the summer of 512 BCE, the state of Wu sent envoys of very high standards, and ordered the state of Xu and Zhong Wuguo to return Gongzi Baoyu and Gongzi Zhuyong, who were leading the troops abroad.

The two countries, which had received the support and instruction of the Chu State, obviously did not take the newly rising power of the Wu State to heart. Instead of acceding to Wu's diplomatic demands, he intensified his support for the two exiled sons to undermine and influence Wu's regime. The Wu army, which had been trained and integrated by Sun Wu and Wu Zixu and other famous ministers, also seemed to smell the breath of war, and was ready to go.

Upon learning that his request had been rejected, he was furious and ordered the Wu army to march immediately to attack Xu. Xu Guo, who originally hoped that the State of Chu would be able to support him at this time, suddenly found that when the Wu army came to the city, the State of Chu, which had promised to support, suddenly stopped helping. At this point, Xu Guo realized that as a weak person, in the game between powerful countries, he was the first chess piece to be lost.

After the destruction of the Xu State, the morale of the Wu army was high, and there was a bit of a tendency to move towards the Chu State. Wu Zixu, the general who led the army, even had a grudge against the king of Chu for killing his father. The state of Chu was under the interference of the northern states, and obviously did not intend to start a war with the ambitious but powerful enemy of the Wu state. In the battle of Wu to destroy Xu, Chu has tried its best to shrink and tolerate out of the consideration of its own interests, but unexpectedly, the Wu army led by Wu Zixu and others is still aggressive, and it is quite uncontrollable.

The concession and weakness of the Chu State made the Wu army rub their hands, and Wu Zixu, who had the revenge of killing his father, even expressed to He Lu his strong willingness to lead the army to attack the Chu State. Through the battle to destroy Xu, He Lu tested the attitude of the Jiangbei princes towards the situation in the south, and also discovered that the seemingly powerful Chu State was actually very weak. The rise of Wu has become unstoppable, and the ambitious Lu seems to have seen the dawn of the struggle for world domination. However, the Yue State, supported by the Chu State, has always been developing intensively, accumulating strength, and waiting for opportunities. This country, which also has ambitions and desires, hides itself very well, and both Chu and Wu are trembling and cautiously waiting for a big gamble on the future fate of the two countries, and consciously or unconsciously ignoring this "little neighbor" who is dormant like a hibernating snake.

After continuous exploration, mediation, and balancing the forces of all sides, Wu and Chu seem to have smelled the breath of a tragic war. On the side of Wu, whether it is out of the personal grudge of Wu Zixu, an important minister of the state, or the ambition of the king, Chu is a tiger in front of Wu. Instead of continuing to test without pain, it is better to simply do nothing. On the Chu side, although they had already sensed the Wu army's cold killing intent and desire to fight, they had never completely formulated a feasible strategic plan to completely solve the Wu and Chu problems. The constant friction and disputes did not fade with the passage of time, but intensified, making the monarchs and ministers of Chu quite uneasy.

Wu gradually digested the fruits of the victory of destroying Xu and Zhongwu, and at the same time, according to the strategy of Wu Zixu and Sun Wu and others, the morale of the Wu army was adjusted to three, and a six-year attack on Chu began. The three armies of the Wu army took turns to attack, but most of the Chu army, which was superior in strength, had a fatal weakness - lack of mobility. Once the Wu army found out that the main force of the Chu State was coming to meet it, they quickly withdrew, and when the Chu army returned in vain, they raided again. Although the strength of the army was far inferior to that of the Chu army, the military quality of the Wu army was far superior to that of the enemy due to the training of Sun Wu, Wu Zixu and others. The three Wu armies formed a bad situation of harassment and provocation on the border, but they never fell into the bad situation of the Chu army's encirclement.

Under the constant harassment of the state of Wu for six years, the state of Chu was overwhelmed, sleepy and demoralized. The frequent and troublesome harassment battles made it difficult for the main forces of the Chu State to get a normal rest. In addition to keeping the soldiers in a depressed mental state, the constant tense nerves also exposed the lack of systematic training, rotation and low quality of the Chu troops.

In 507 BC, the state of Cai and Tang among the vassal states of Chu received the secret support and instruction of the northern princes, and their monarchs Cai Zhaohou and Tang Chenggong decided to rebel against Chu and announced that they would break off diplomatic relations with Chu and form an alliance with Jin and Wu. Since then, the northern part of Chu has lost its barrier, and in the face of the strong pressure of the Central Plains countries, the Chu army has no choice but to frequently mobilize garrisons between the western border of Chu and the northern defense line, exhausted and greatly reduced.

In 506 B.C., at the request of Cai Guo, the princes of the eighteen kingdoms led by Jin, Qi, Lu, and Song met in Yuncheng to discuss the invasion of Chu. In the fourth lunar month of the same year, the Jin State instructed the Cai State to send troops to attack the Shen State, a vassal of Chu. In the face of the increasing oppression and attacks of the princes of the Central Plains in the north, the state of Chu finally made up its mind to fight hard. In the autumn of the same year, the state of Chu sent troops, led by Ling Yin Zichang, to storm the state of Cai.

The opportunity to attack Chu that the monarchs and ministers of Wu had been waiting for had arrived, and He Lu decided to use the power of the whole country to attack Chu in the name of saving Cai. King Wu personally took command, with Sun Wu and Wu Zixu as generals, and his brother-in-law as the vanguard, poured 30,000 land and water divisions across the country, took a warship, traced the water from the Huai River, and went straight to Cai Jing. Zichang Wu's army was fierce, gave up the siege of Cai, and returned to the division to defend the mainland. Soon after the Wu and Cai armies met, the Tang troops also happened to arrive. Wu, Cai, and Tang formed a coalition army and marched westward against the Huaishui. When the troops arrived at Huaiwei (now Huangchuan, Henan, now Fengtai, Anhui), Sun Wu suddenly ordered the boat to land, and the army turned around and marched from west to south. Wu Zixu was puzzled by Sun Wu's plan, and once asked: "Wu Shanshui battle, why did he abandon the boat to land?" Sun Wu replied: "The soldiers are fast, and they should be taken by surprise and attacked unprepared." Sailing against the current, the troops are slow, delaying the fighters, the Chu army will become a stubborn situation, although the Wu army is fierce but lacks the strength to attack, it cannot be attacked for a long time, and the Chu state is strong, then the battle will be defeated. ”

Therefore, Sun Wu selected more than 3,000 elite soldiers as the vanguard, and in a very short period of time, he successively broke through the three dangerous passes of the Great Tunnel, Zhiyuan, and Shenqian in the north of Chu (the border area between the southern part of Xinyang, Henan Province and the northern part of Suizhou, Hubei), along the Han River, broke into the hinterland of the Chu State, controlled the east bank of the Han River, and pointed directly at the Chu capital Yingcheng, completing the strategic surprise attack that shocked the princes of all walks of life.

In order to stabilize the situation, he analyzed the shortcomings of Wu and Chu, and advised King Zhao of Chu to call on the divisions of the Qin kings in various places to step up their assembly and hold, and he personally led a group to detour the back road of the Wu army, and completed the encirclement and annihilation of the Wu army with the strong strength of the Chu State. At first, King Zhao of Chu followed the plan and confronted the Wu army at Baiju (Macheng, Hubei Province, Hanchuan, Hubei). However, after the situation stabilized a little, Chu generals Wu Chenghei and Emperor Shi of the Great Doctor took refuge in Ling Yin's forces, and began to persuade Ling Yin to change his strategy and take the initiative to engage the Wu army in order to compete for merit. As a result, Zichang led his troops to attack, intending to fight a decisive battle with the Wu army in advance.

However, the main force of the Chu State, which was shaken in its military spirit and unstable in combat strength, was defeated three times in three battles and was defeated for thousands of miles. During the pursuit, Zichang abandoned the army and fled, Shi Huang was killed in battle, and Zuo Sima Shen Yinshu, who led his troops to gallop back and tried to save the rout, was surrounded by the main force of the Wu army led by Sun Wu.

On the 29th day of the 11th lunar month in 506 BC, the Wu army broke through the capital of Ying, Wu Zixu slaughtered the city, and sought to kill the tomb of the king of Chu Ping, the enemy of his father, dug the grave and opened the coffin, and whipped the corpse of 300.

Chu Chen Shen Baoxu fled to the Qin State, and in front of the palace of the King of Qin, he pleaded in pain all night, and the wailing did not stop for seven days and seven nights. Out of consideration for the interests of the future development situation of the Qin State and appreciation of Shen Baoxu, Qin Aigong finally decided to send troops to aid Chu, and the Qin army, composed of 500 military vehicles, began to march towards Chu.

Just when the state of Wu was about to realize the ideals that generations would fulfill, there was a fatal split within the Wu army. No matter what era it is, it has always been possible to fight the world together but it is difficult to defend the world together, originally a robe of birth and death, but in the face of the temptation of huge power and interests, it has finally become an enemy who has broken the net.

When the Wu army broke the Chu army and Wu Zixu took revenge, the Qin reinforcements arrived and engaged the Wu army on a small scale, and the two sides won and lost each other. However, something happened that all the princes did not expect: even if the state of Chu was facing the crisis of national destruction, the state of Yue, which had been dormant all the time, suddenly attacked the state of Wu itself.

Under the attack from both sides, the Wu army resisted vigorously, but the vanguard general Fu Yi quietly led his troops to withdraw to Wu and established himself as king. As a last resort, He Lu had to lead the army to retreat and return to China to quell the rebellion. At this point, the dream of several generations of people in Wu to annex Chu and dominate the world in one fell swoop was shattered in this raid of Yue.

He Lu, who led the troops back to China to quell the rebellion, quickly defeated Fu Xuan, and soon after, ordered to attack Yue, Wu and Yue armies fought a big battle in Li Li (now west of Jiaxing, Zhejiang), and Goujian, the king of Yue, used ruthless means such as the assault of the dead soldiers and the self-killing of prisoners in front of the battle, and won a surprise victory, defeating the Wu army and seriously wounding He Lu.

Wu Jun retreated only seven miles, He Lu was seriously injured and died, and when he was dying, he told his son and husband that he would not forget the revenge of attacking the country and killing his father!