During the reign of King Qi, he was strong in power and destroyed Zhongshan and the Song kingdoms successively. Seeing that the State of Qi was about to become a monopoly, this aroused the vigilance and dissatisfaction of other princely states. Therefore, King Yan Zhao took the opportunity to send people to lobby the four kingdoms of Zhao, Chu, Han, and Wei, saying that they would send troops together to fight Qi. No matter how strong the State of Qi was, it was not an opponent of the Five-Nation Alliance, and in the end, Le Yi led the Five-Nation Alliance to defeat the Qi army, and the King of Qi fled to Linzi. The coalition forces took the opportunity to attack the city in the State of Qi and seize the spoils of war.
At that time, the object of Zhao Guo's attack was Maiqiu, and it was said that in the case of the great defeat of the Qi army, this isolated city should be very good to take, but the Zhao army's repeated consecutive attacks were repelled by the defenders. Why is Maichu so hard to beat? Because there is a tall man in the city, who is this tall man? It was the very famous Mo family disciple at that time. Among the hundred families of the Sons, the Mo family is a very special faction, which advocates both love, non-attack, and frugality, and opposes any form of aggressive war. In addition, the reason why the Mo family is special is that in addition to these theories, they are also masters of defending the city, and it is with the help of this group of Mo family disciples that Mai Qiu has repeatedly defeated the Zhao Army.
Mai Qiu could not attack for a long time, and King Huiwen of Zhao was very angry, so he sent Zhao Hao to serve as the main commander of the attack city, and limited one month to take Mai Qiu. After Zhao Hao took office, he was also ready to attack, but his son Zhao Kuo advised him to find out the situation before proceeding. Zhao Hao thought that his son's words were purely a delay in time, so he sent troops to fight directly, and as a result, the soldiers were damaged and returned without success. After learning that the Mo family's disciples were powerful, Zhao Hao began to follow his son's advice and treated the captured prisoners well, and Zhao Hao's move touched some of the prisoners, and they confessed that there was already a shortage of grain in Maiqiu City, and the only remaining grain was controlled by the defenders, and the people had long been deprived of grain.
After learning of this situation, many subordinates advised Zhao Hao to take the opportunity to attack. However, Zhao Kuo did not approve of this, he believed that if he attacked at this time, the people would definitely cooperate with the defenders to defend the city with all their strength in order to protect themselves, so that the Zhao army could only increase casualties in vain. Zhao Hao took his son's advice, not only did not attack the city, but also released the captives, and gave them food for them to take back to the city for their families to eat. After these people returned, they all said good things about Zhao Hao, and the people in the city who were still hungry wanted to come out and surrender. When General Qi saw that the captives had brought disturbances to the city, he locked them up, which caused resentment among the people.
At this time, Zhao Hao was not idle, and he ordered the soldiers to use trebuchets every day to deliver grain to the city of Maiqiu. When this grain fell into the city, it was controlled by the defenders, and the hungry people did not receive food, and they resented the defenders even more. The Mo family's disciples had a set of rules for defending the city, but they could not appease these increasingly restless people. When General Qi saw that people's hearts were unstable, he sent people out of the city to issue a battle letter to Zhao Hao and agree on a date for a decisive battle. However, Zhao Hao ignored it and still threw grain into the city every day. Within a few days, the news came that the residents of Maiqiu had revolted, and they had killed the Qi general who was guarding the city and surrendered to Zhao Hao. At this time, the people who were originally dissatisfied with Zhao Hao's delivery of grain to the enemy changed their mouths one after another, and Qi praised him for saying that this method was really very clever.