Le Yi took more than seventy cities of the State of Qi in half a year, seeing that the State of Qi was about to perish, but in the end the Yan army fell short, and more than seventy cities were recovered by Tian Dan, what kind of person was Tian Dan, and how did he do it?
The danger of annihilation
Tian Danben was a distant relative of the Qi guotian clan, and during the time of King Qi Min, Tian Dan had always been an obscure grassroots civil servant in the state of Qi, never known, let alone reused. Later, the State of Qi was attacked by the Five-Nation Alliance, and the Yan general Le Yi led the Five-Nation Alliance to defeat the main force of the Qi army in the west of Jishui, and the Qi army was defeated again and again under the pursuit of the Yan army, and the King of Qi Min was forced to flee from the capital Linzi to Jucheng.
Under the fierce attack of the Yan army, the Qi army collapsed, and the Qi people also scattered and fled. Tian Dan led the clan to flee to Jimo.
At this time, the Yan army had already taken most of the cities and pools of the State of Qi, leaving only Jucheng and Jimo. The Yan army heard that King Qi Min was in Jucheng, so they joined forces to besiege Jucheng. However, King Min of Qi was killed by Huan Ya at this time, because jucheng was strong, and the Qi army struggled to resist the Yan army for several years. The Yan army could not be attacked for a long time, and then turned to besiege Jimo, and the General of Jimo fought and resisted, and as a result, he was defeated and killed. In Jimo City, Tian Dan was jointly elected, believing that Tian Dan had general talents and was familiar with the art of war, and supported Tian Dan as a general, and Tian Dan began to rely on Jimo alone to resist the Yan army.
The last two cities of the State of Qi were very strong, and the Yan army was difficult to break through, and the general Le Yi of the State of Yan turned his strategic thinking to mainly to gather the hearts of the people of the State of Qi, and besieged the last two isolated cities without attacking, gradually encroaching on and disintegrating the resistance of the Qi people. Jimo City has been a rich land since ancient times, with a large population and sufficient grain, and Tian Dan took advantage of jimo City at this time to personally go up to the city wall, and mobilized the Qi people to strengthen the defense, and even incorporated his clan's wives and concubines into the army, preparing for a protracted war with the Yan army and a long-term confrontation.
The tide of battle has turned
Tian Dan soon waited for the opportunity. Soon after, King Yan Zhao died and King Hui of Yan succeeded to the throne. Tian Shan knew that King Yanhui had been at odds with Le Yi before he succeeded to the throne, so he used a counter-plan and sent people to spread rumors to provoke King Hui of Yan and Le Yi. King Hui of Yan listened to rumors and suspicions about Le Yi, so he sent a horse raid to replace Le Yi, and Le Yi fled to the Zhao state after being stripped of his military power. Tian Dan also spread rumors in Jimo City, saying that the Qi people were most afraid of being cut off by the Yan army and digging up ancestral graves. The cavalry robbery was indeed successful, cutting off the noses of the Qi prisoners, so that the Qi soldiers' originally weakened resistance heart instantly turned into a vow of death resistance; the cavalry robbery also ordered the Yan army to dig up the ancestral graves of the Qi people, which made the Qi people very angry and scrambled to ask Tian Dan for battle.
Tian Shan saw that the army's will to fight had reached an extremely high point, and he knew that the opportunity to counterattack had arrived. He personally took the lead in building fortifications, shared the hard work with the soldiers, and took out all the grain in his house to treat the sergeants, which won the support of the Qi soldiers.
Tian Dan ordered all the elite of the Qi army to hide in the city, let the old and weak women and children in the city climb the city wall, show weakness to the enemy, and send emissaries to surrender to the Yan army. The Yan army has been fighting abroad for many years, and the desire to return to the hometown has been very strong, and the news of the surrender of the Qi army has made the Yan army shout long live. Tian Shan ordered the rich men of Jimo City to give a large amount of gold to the robbers, and asked the robbers not to harm their wives and concubines. The robber was very happy to hear this, and his heart was already convinced that the Qi army was sincerely surrendering. Originally, Le Yi was replaced by a horse robbery, and most of the soldiers of the Yan Army were unconvinced and indignant, and now the news of the surrender of the Qi Army made the Yan Army even more sluggish.
Fire bull breaks the enemy
Tian Dan prepared five thousand elite soldiers and more than a thousand cattle in the city, and tied sharp knives to the horns of the cows and reeds covered with grease on the tails of the oxen. At night, the tail of the ox was lit, and more than a thousand fire cattle rushed out of the city and rushed to the Yan army camp, followed by the five thousand elites of the Qi army. The Yan army originally had no intention of fighting again, and in the face of the sudden appearance of thousands of fire cattle and the fierce morale of the Qi army, the Yan army was in a state of confusion. At this time, the Qi people in Jimo City were beating drums and shouting, and even the old and weak women and children struck the bronze objects in the home, and the sound was earth-shaking. Thousands of fire bulls burst into flames, and under the impact of the fire bulls, the Yan army was either killed or wounded, and then thousands of elite Qi troops rushed to the Yan army in the earth-shattering drumming and shouting, and the Yan army was very frightened and collapsed at a touch. The Qi army killed the main general of the Yan army in the midst of the rebellion, leaving the Yan army leaderless and fleeing all the way.
Tian Dan led the Qi army in pursuit, and all the Qi towns occupied and suppressed by the Yan army were all returned to Shun Tian Dan. Tian Dan's troops fought more and more, and taking advantage of the morale and military prestige brought by the victory, he drove all the Yan troops back to the Yan state with a single blow, took back all the more than seventy cities of the original Qi state, and went to Jucheng to welcome the King of Qi Xiang back to the capital City of Linzi, and was crowned by the King of Qi Xiang as the Prince of Anping.
In the Battle of Jimo, did Tian Dan defeat the Yan army only by relying on the Fire Bull Array? In fact, Tian Dan's victory over the Yan army mainly relied on the following three points.
First, unite the hearts and minds of the military. It is very important that Tian Dan can get the support of the Qi army, that he really achieved the first soldier, not only personally building the fortifications, but also incorporating his own wives and concubines into the Qi army, so that the original scattered military heart of the Qi army was re-condensed.
Second, the will to fight. Tian Dan first designed the Yan army to do a lot of things out of the ordinary, which stimulated the anger of the Qi army, so that the Qi army had a determination to fight to the end, and the will to fight was very strong; secondly, it sent people to surrender, so that the Yan army, which had a great reduction in the will to fight because of the change of generals, was weakened again, resulting in the final Yan army almost collapsing at a touch.
Third, surprise wins. Tian Dan sent old and weak women and children to the city wall, surrendered, and donated money, and a series of operations were all to show the enemy to be weak, let the enemy troops relax their vigilance, and then take out the fire bull array to attack the Yan army when the enemy army did not expect it.
Although many scholars now have great doubts about the Fire Bull Array, believing that it may be a folk legend, regardless of whether the Fire Bull Array really exists, with the will to fight between the Yan and Qi sides at that time, coupled with the surprise of the Qi Army, the rout of the Yan Army is also an inevitable result.
What happened after Tian Dan welcomed back The King of Qi Xiang, why did Tian Dan finally become a general of the Zhao State? Please share below.