Text/Kingdom Building
In The history of China, due to the continuous change of regime and frequent wars, there are countless famous battles. However, if I had to list a few major battles that won more with less, I think the following battles are worth reading and studying by the lovers of history.
1. The Battle of the Giant Deer (Xiang Yu vs. Zhang Handan and Wang Li)
The Battle of Julu, which took place in December 207 BC, was a decisive battle between the peasant rebels and the main force of the Qin army at the end of the Qin Dynasty.
The reasons for the engagement will not be repeated. The qin army's main general Zhang Handan and deputy general Wang Li had 400,000 troops. After Xiang Yu killed the main general Song Yi, the army under his direct command was 50,000 people, and there were more than 100,000 reinforcements in the various princely states around the giant deer, but they did not dare to engage the Qin army. After Xiang Yu crossed the Yellow River, he personally led 9,000 Jiangdong disciples to engage 100,000 people in the Qin army's forward Wang Li, winning 9 battles and 9 victories, defeating dozens of times the enemy with the most incredible courage in the history of human warfare, and winning the most crucial victory in the war against Qin. After the war, the qin general Zhang Handan surrendered to Xiang Yu, and more than 200,000 Qin troops who surrendered were killed by Xiang Yu, and all the princes and generals of various countries who watched the battle bowed to Xiang Yu, and Xiang Yu also proclaimed himself the overlord of Western Chu.
Less than a month after the Battle of Julu, Qin II was murdered by Zhao Gao, and the State of Qin lost control of the Central Plains and in fact died in name only.
2. Battle of Kunyang (Liu Xiu vs. Wang Yi and Wang Xun)
The Battle of Kunyang took place from May to June 23 AD, and the two sides of the battle were a decisive battle between the new regime army led by Wang Mang and the Green Forest Army led by the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu.
The military generals of the new regime were mainly Wang Mang's relatives Wang Yi and Wang Xun, with more than 430,000 troops and sufficient food. The main leader of the Green Forest Army will be Liu Xiu, a descendant of the Western Han Dynasty, with an army of 17,000 people, most of whom are rural farmers. Judging from the number of troops on both sides alone, the new army is 25 times that of the Green Forest Army, and the comprehensive quality of the soldiers is also high, so it is reasonable to say that defeating the Green Forest Army is a matter of course. However, unexpectedly, Liu Xiu exerted his superhuman military command ability, and defeated dozens of enemy troops dozens of times that of himself, laying the foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the Battle of Kunyang, Wang Yi, the commander of the new army, vainly tried to break through Kunyang with the advantage of the sea of people, and did not hesitate to shout out the slogan: "Slaughter this city, advance with blood, sing before and dance after, and take care of unhappiness and evil." Unfortunately, the long-besieged Kunyang City broke the new army soldiers' desire to win, and also gave Liu Xiu the opportunity to turn over. In June 23 AD, Liu Xiuqin led 3,000 thousand death squads to rush out of Kunyang City and kill the new army general Wang Xun, and the 420,000 new army collapsed in an instant, scrambling to escape, and only more than a thousand people followed Wang Yi back to Luoyang. It took more than a month for Liu Xiu's Green Forest Army to pick up the discarded materials of the new army, and it was difficult to get rich.
Shortly after the Battle of Kunyang, the Green Forest Army invaded Chang'an, beheaded the new emperor Wang Mang, and restored the Western Han dynasty.
3. Battle of Chibi (Liu Bei and Zhou Yu vs. Cao Cao)
The Battle of Chibi took place in 207 AD and was fought by a coalition of Cao Cao, the eastern Han Dynasty chancellor, and the local princes Liu Bei and Sun Quan.
Cao Cao coerced Tianzi to order the princes to have an army of more than 600,000 people, and the actual army involved in the Battle of Chibi exceeded 400,000 people (neither the 800,000 as the novel calls it, nor the 200,000 people that some historians studied, both of which do not match historical facts. History buffs can refer to the Battle of Guandu and the Battle of Liu Biao's army of Cao Cao). The combined forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan had 160,000 troops (30,000 for Liu Bei and 130,000 for Sun Quan), and the actual number of troops who participated in the Battle of Chibi was 50,000. Why the actual number of people participating in the battle will be less than the number of troops he has, the reason is very simple, Cao Cao wanted to prevent Ma Chao and Han Sui from sneaking attacks in the north, leaving more than 100,000 troops to guard the rear; Liu Bei was defeated by Cao Cao, indeed there were no soldiers on his hands, Sun Quan Although he had 130,000 troops, but he could not concentrate in a short time, for the needs of the war, he selected 30,000 elite soldiers to take the lead, and the remaining army was to be gathered as the second echelon. Therefore, the actual strength of the Battle of Chibi was compared to cao cao's army of 400,000 people against 50,000 people of Sun and Liu's combined forces, and the ratio of 8 to 1 was 8 to 1, and Cao Cao had an absolute advantage.
The specific campaign process of the Battle of Chibi will not be introduced here. In any case, Cao Cao's army, which was not accustomed to water warfare, was caught in the fire plan of Sun and Liu's combined forces, and was defeated. More than 400,000 troops followed Cao Cao to escape to the day of his birth, but only tens of thousands (not the dozens of people mentioned in the novel), and could no longer launch a large-scale war against Jiangnan in a short period of time.
The Battle of Chibi laid the foundation for the establishment of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. From then on, three local governments were formed, mainly Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Sun Wu, and the Eastern Han Dynasty collapsed.
4. The Battle of Shuishui (Xie An and Xie Xuan vs. Fu Jian)
The Battle of Shuishui took place in 383 AD, and the two sides of the battle were the Former Qin regimes led by Fu Jian against the Eastern Jin Dynasty, with Xie An and Xie Xuan as the main military commanders.
In terms of military strength, the Former Qin Emperor Fu Jian went out to the country, and the actual number of troops participating in the battle exceeded 1.17 million. Although the Eastern Jin Dynasty also had an army of no less than 500,000 people, these armies were scattered in the hands of the Huan, Wang, and Xie clans. In order to contain Former Qin, Huan Chong and Wang Yun did not participate in the Battle of Shuishui with more than 200,000 troops in their hands. The Eastern Jin dynasty army that actually directly participated in the Battle of Shuishui was the 80,000 Beifu soldiers in the hands of Xie An's nephew Xie Xuan, and more than 100,000 troops were assembled in the rear, and these troops did not participate until the end of the battle.
Former Qin Emperor Fu Jian attacked the widow with many people, determined to win, and committed the taboo of arrogant soldiers and defeat. When he retreated, he was disturbed by the Eastern Jin general Zhu Xu, who shouted: "The Qin army has been defeated!" The Former Qin soldiers, believing that their army had been defeated, scrambled to flee backwards, and the millions of troops were lost, and the relatives who followed Fu Jian back to the capital were only 800 horses.
The Battle of Shuishui shattered Former Qin's dream of unifying China, while also extending the reign of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
5. The Battle of Suiyang (Zhang Tour vs. Ling Fox Tide)
The Battle of Suiyang, also known as the Suiyang Defensive Battle, took place in 756 AD, and the two sides of the battle were an official army led by the Tang Dynasty Suiyang defender Zhang Zhu against the rebels who surrendered to An Lushan led by Ling Huchao.
From the perspective of literal troop strength, The number of troops participating in the battle before and after Zhang's patrol department was 7,000 people, and there were more than 30,000 ordinary people. The total number of troops that Linghu Chao put into attacking Suiyang totaled more than 180,000 people.
The process of the campaign is not much to say, but to briefly introduce the results of the campaign. With a strength of 7,000 troops, Zhang Patrol held Suiyang for half a year, killing and wounding more than 120,000 rebels, and finally the entire army was destroyed. After the Anshi Rebellion, Emperor Suzong of Tang posthumously made Zhang The Governor of Yangzhou and the Duke of Deng. Later emperors posthumously honored Zhang Tour as the Third Prince of Tongzhen, posthumously honored Lei Wanchun as the Great General of Thunder Exorcism, and posthumously honored Zhang Patrol as the Second Dragon Divine Prince of Qinzhou Huiyin Mountain Zhaoyou Jiaze.