At the beginning of the establishment of the Western Jin Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Jin was greatly enfeoffed as a meritorious man, and in just a few years, a total of 57 kings were sealed, and 500 Emperor Wu adopted the method of winning over and buying people's hearts and minds to stabilize officials at all levels to ensure a stable transition of society. Because at this time, although the Shu Han Dynasty was dead, Eastern Wu was not destroyed, and the whole country was not yet unified. Emperor Wu of Jin began to plan to destroy Eastern Wu and end the division of the country.
As early as the establishment of the Three Kingdoms, the power of the State of Wei had surpassed that of Shu and Wu, and in terms of population, Wei accounted for about 4/7 of the country's population, and Shu and Wu accounted for 37. In 263 AD, after Wei destroyed Shu, the Three Kingdoms became a confrontation between the north and the south, and Wei's power was even stronger. After Emperor Wu of The Jin Dynasty replaced Wei, he was ambitious and ready to send troops to destroy Wu and unify the whole country.
The whole country of the Western Jin Dynasty was in a positive situation, while the State of Wu was in decline. The absurdity and cruelty of Sun Hao, the lord of Wu, deprived the State of Wu of the opportunity to regroup. Sun Hao ordered the ministers' daughters to be selected by him first, and the beautiful harem was for him to enjoy, and the rest could talk about marriage, which made him lose the support of the ministers, self-destruct, and eventually became a lonely man. Instead of receiving his praise, He Shao was brutally sawn off his tongue with a red-hot saw blade. One of Sun Hao's concubines instructed his men to go down the street to rob the people of their belongings, and Si Shizhonglang disposed of Chen Sheng according to law. The concubine then called out to Sun Hao, and Sun Hao casually found a reason to arrest Chen Sheng, saw off Chen Sheng's head with a red-hot chainsaw, and then threw Chen Sheng's body under the Siwang Mountain. Zhang Yong, the county magistrate of Xiangdong Commandery (湘東郡, in present-day Hengyang, Hunan), refused to pay the population tax, and Sun Hao sent people to behead him in the county government and send the heads to the counties to tour the county. Che Jun, the county magistrate of Huiji County (present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang), was just and honest, and had excellent political achievements, but just in the event of a severe drought, the fields were scorched, the people had no grain, hunger and misery, Che Jun asked for relief and salvation, Sun Hao thought that he had bought people's hearts and sent people to behead him in the county government. Shang Shu Xiong Mu advised Sun Hao, sun Hao used the handle of the knife to smash him to death, Xiong Mu was full of wounds, and there was no complete piece of skin. The eastern Wu monarch was no different from the Shang King.
Sun Hao's methods of killing people are many and cruel: gouging out his eyes, peeling his face, cutting off his feet, and doing everything to the extreme. Sun Hao's brutality doomed eastern Wu to extinction. His generals also lost confidence in him and surrendered to the Western Jin Dynasty. The ministers of the Western Jin Dynasty saw that the strength of the State of Wu was declining and the political situation was unstable, and they also persuaded Sima Yan to take the opportunity to destroy the State of Wu.
However, Emperor Wu of Jin was opposed by conservatives led by Jia Chong, the Shang Shu of The Taiwei Lu Shang, who believed that Wu had a natural danger on the Yangtze River and was good at water warfare, and it was difficult for the Northerners to win. Moreover, in recent years, Xi Xianbei has raised troops against the Jin Dynasty, and it is not the right time to fight against Wu at this time.
Jia Chong was an important figure during the period of Emperor Wu of Jin, and has always appeared in the history books as a traitor. His most important activity in the early period was to make a decision on the spot, ordering the killing of the Wei emperor Cao Xian during the critical period of Sima Shi's seizure of power, so he was highly valued by Sima Zhao, and later sided with Sima Yan in the Lichu Incident, becoming Emperor Wu of Jin's most trusted minister. This man came from a family of law scholars, was quite talented, and once presided over the revision of the Tai Shi Law, which made great contributions to the Western Jin Dynasty. He did have his own reasons for his strong opposition to Wu: the Western Jin Dynasty really did not have a certainty of victory in pacifying Eastern Wu, and the shadow of Cao Cao's defeat at Chibi was still there, and he believed that the emperor should not take jiangshan to risk. This extreme caution led to gains and losses in action, and Jia Chong became an extreme anti-war faction.
Yang Hu, Zhang Hua, Du Xian, and others held that Emperor Wu's Sun Hao was so corrupt that he not only brutally exploited and suppressed the broad masses of the people, but also excluded dissidents from within the ruling clique and used cruel torture. Sun Wu is currently "centrifugal up and down", and if he sends troops at this moment, he "can win without a fight." If you miss the opportunity, "the Wu people are more established as the present lord", and it will be quite difficult to destroy Wu again.
Yang Hu wrote: "History proves that any country that is preserved because of the dangers of border defense must have a prerequisite, that is, it is equal to the strength of the enemy. If the internal affairs are chaotic and the country's power is weakened, even the most sinister barrier cannot save itself. The border of the Shu Han Dynasty was not unsurpassed, but when the army attacked, it could not see the restrictions of the barriers, and took advantage of the victory, just like the roll, directly arrived in Chengdu, and no one dared to come out to fight, not because there was no heart to fight, but because the strength was not enough and could not resist. When Liu Chan surrendered, the strongholds dispersed.
When the Shu Han Dynasty perished, everyone in the world thought that Eastern Wu would follow suit. However, by now, it has been delayed for 13 years. The dangers of the Yangtze river and the Huai River are not as good as the Sword Pavilion. Sun Hao's brutality far exceeded that of Liu Chan. The suffering of the people of Eastern Wu was even greater than that of the Shu Han. The strength of our Jin Dynasty government is stronger than before, and it is not at this time to sweep the four seas, but only sticks to the border, watching the soldiers go from prime to old age, which is really a bit unwilling.
Now, if the troops of Liang Prefecture (present-day northeastern Sichuan and southern Shaanxi Province) and Yizhou (present-day central Sichuan) marched on land and water, down the Yangtze River, the troops of Jingzhou (present-day northern Hubei) and the former Chu Kingdom advanced into Jiangling (present-day Jiangling County, Hubei), and the Pingnan generals Hu Fen and Yuzhou Shi WangRong marched directly to Xiakou (present-day Wuhan, Hubei). The troops of Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Qingzhou, and Yanzhou met at Jianye (東武都, in modern Nanjing, Jiangsu). The little Eastern Wu could never have the strength to resist a large army attacking from all sides. As long as there is a breakthrough, it will definitely shake up and down Eastern Wu, and even if a person with great wisdom appears, it will not be able to save the overthrow.
Eastern Wu relied on the Yangtze River to build a country, which stretched for thousands of miles from east to west, and there were too many places to withstand enemy attacks, and there was never a rest. And Sun Hao indulged in willfulness and was jealous of his subordinates. The central government did not trust the generals, the soldiers were trapped in the wilderness, there was no plan to defend the territory, and there was no loyalty to stabilize the country. Ordinary days are still half-hearted, once the soldiers approach, there will inevitably be people who surrender and respond, I can assert, then there will never be the same heart, for the country to die.
Moreover, the army of Eastern Wu, the offensive is fierce, but it can not last, only water combat, is their strength. However, once our large army crosses the border, they will not be able to protect the Yangtze River, and they must retreat to the city, then the advantages are useless, but if they use the weaknesses, they cannot be our opponents. Our army has penetrated deep into the enemy's territory, because there are enemies everywhere, so everyone must fight to the death, and the morale is high. The Eastern Wu soldiers, on the other hand, were fighting on their own homeland, worried about the safety of their families, and everyone had a sense of separation, and it would not take long to achieve victory. ”
Sima Yan deeply agreed, but always disagreed under the influence of Jia Chong, Gou Xun, Shen Tong, and others. Yang Hu was very worried and indignant, and sighed: "The world is not satisfactory, and there are seven or eight of the ten." Now that Heaven has given us such a good opportunity, do we have to wait until we miss it before regretting it? "A few years later, Yang Hu fell seriously ill. Before dying, he asked Zhang Hua to relay to Sima Yan that now that Sun Hao was violent and had lost the hearts of the people of Jiangdong, he would definitely succeed in attacking Eastern Wu by taking advantage of this opportunity. But if Sun Hao dies, there will be another wise and capable person to inherit his position, regain the hearts and minds of the people of Jiangnan, and adjust the strategy when the time comes, coupled with the natural dangers of the Yangtze River, I am afraid that the Western Jin Dynasty will be more difficult to destroy the State of Wu, and then there will be endless troubles. In the end, he recommended Du Pre to the imperial court and asked him to continue to complete his uncompetited career.
Yang Hu died, Sima Yan wept, very sad, that day, the weather was cold, Sima Yan tears flowed to his beard, all condensed into ice. Yang Hu's will: It is forbidden to bury the seal letter of the "Marquis of Nancheng County" with the coffin. Sima Yan said: "For several years, Yang Hu has been refusing the title of county marquis, and he has not died, but this feeling still exists, and now he is still restoring his original county marquis title to show his noble virtues." "When the people of Jingzhou heard the news of Yang Hu's death, the streets and alleys were full of crying, and the store doors automatically closed. The officers and men of the Eastern Wu Border Defense Army also shed tears. When Yang Hu was in Xiangyang, he liked to visit Da Nang Mountain, and the Xiangyang people built monuments and temples on it, and every year at festivals, they sacrificed on time, and people who saw the monument could not help but sob and shed tears, so they called the monument "Tear Monument"
After Yang Hu's death, Sima Yan issued an edict appointing Du Qian as the general of Zhennan and the governor of Jingzhou.
Yang Hu was right, and Du Xuan was indeed an excellent commander. After Du Pre arrived in Xiangyang to take over, he selected elite troops to attack Zhang Zheng's army, the governor of Eastern Wu Xiling, and destroyed the Eastern Wu army. Zhang Zheng was a famous general in Eastern Wu, who was defeated without warning of himself, which was greatly humiliated and humiliated, and he was unwilling to report the actual losses suffered to Sun Hao. Du Pre then devised a divisive plan, wrote to the center, and sent all the captives back to Eastern Wu. Sun Hao did indeed dismiss Zhang Zheng from his post, recall him to The Capital Division, and send Wuchang To prison to take over. The strength of the Wu army on the western front was weakened.
A few months later, Du Pre once again asked the imperial court to attack Wu, and Sima Yan fell into hesitation.
At this time, king Yizhou also wrote to Emperor Wu to request an army. In order to build warships to attack Eastern Wu, he went to Sichuan a few years ago and built a large number of ships in Yizhou. Initially, Sima Zhao ordered Wang Rong to revoke the reclamation and use manpower to build ships. He Pan, yizhou bei driver (general affairs officer), said: "The reclamation troops are only five or six hundred people, and the construction of ships is not an overnight thing, if the number is too small, the ships in the back have not yet been caused, and the ships in the front have decayed." I propose to recruit the militia of each county, gather more than 10,000 people, and work together to rush the work, which can be completed in one year. Wang Rong planned to report first, and He Pan said: "As soon as the central authorities hear about the collection of ten thousand troops at once, it must not be allowed, it is better to act arbitrarily, in case of a batch of refutations, the official documents come and go, we have already started construction, and the situation cannot be stopped." Wang Rong accepted it and ordered He Pan to preside. So the huge shipbuilding plan was put into practice. The largest battleship was 120 steps long and could carry more than 2,000 infantrymen. Castles were built on ships of hard wood, and observation decks were built on castles, and doors were opened on all sides, and horses could be galloped on plywoods. This huge shipbuilding plan lasted 7 years, and the day the ship was completed, that is, the time of the demise of Eastern Wu.
At that time, the short wooden fragments cut during shipbuilding were all over the water of the Yangtze River, floating down the Yangtze River to Eastern Wu, and Wu Yan, the county magistrate of Jianping County (present-day Wushan County, Chongqing) of the Eastern Wu Empire, guessed the strategic intentions of the Western Jin Dynasty, and presented these short wood fragments collected to Sun Hao, reporting: "The Jin Dynasty must have a plan to attack us, and it is best to increase the defense force of Jianping County to block the enemy's key points." Sun Hao completely ignored it. Wu Yan then used thick iron chains to cross the two sides of the river and block the Yangtze River.
Initially, Wang Rong joined the army as Yang Hu, and Yang Hu knew Wang Rong the most. Yang Hu's nephew Yang Ji reminded Yang Hu: "Wang Rong is a person with great ambitions, but he lives a luxurious life and cannot assume major responsibilities. It should be constrained. Yang Hu said: "Wang Rong's talent is very high, enough to fulfill his desires, may as well be developed by him." Wang Rong was later transferred to the CheQi General's Mansion to join the army, and during his tenure as governor of Yizhou, he established a majestic reputation, and most of the barbarians were annexed. Soon, Wang Guan was promoted to the post of Grand Si Nong. At that time, Sima Yan and Yang Kui secretly planned a war against Eastern Wu, and Yang Hu believed that military operations against Eastern Wu should use the power of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. So he secretly wrote a letter asking Wang to return to Ren yizhou and put him in charge of establishing the Yangtze River fleet, and Sima Yan agreed.
In order to complete the great cause of destroying Wu, Emperor Wu of Jin made full strategic preparations. As early as 269 AD, he sent Yang Kui to sit in the military town of Jingzhou and began preparations to destroy Wu. After Yang Hu sat in Jingzhou, reduced taxes and calmed the people's hearts, Jingzhou was closest to the Eastern Wu town of Shicheng (present-day Zhongxiang County, Hubei), and the Jin army adopted a strategy of "winning with goodness" and gave great favors to the Wu army. They were open and honest with the border guards of the Eastern Wu Empire. Those who surrendered to Return to Eastern Wu were to respect their decision. The Border Patrol force was reduced, and the reduced soldiers were ordered to reclaim the wasteland, totaling more than 800 hectares of wasteland. When Yang Hu first arrived, the troops did not have 100 days of grain storage, but later they accumulated enough grain for 10 years.
Yang Hu concentrated on establishing the credibility of Ende in the local area and confusing the hearts of the people of Eastern Wu. Every time an attack was launched, it was fought on an agreed date with the Eastern Wu Border Guard Army, and never sneaked in. When some of the generals contributed ingenious ideas, they drunk them with fine wine and made them speechless. The Yanghu troops passed through the border of Eastern Wu, harvested the mature rice in the field as military food, calculated the price of the rice, and sent it to the silk as a substitute. Each hunt was limited to the territory of the Jin Dynasty, never crossing the border, and if the frightened beasts were first wounded by the Eastern Wu people, and then captured by the Jin army, they were returned one by one. As a result, the people on the border of Eastern Wu were all satisfied with Yang Hu.