"And to the First Emperor, Yu Lie of the Sixth Emperor, Zhen Chang Ce and Yu Yu Nei, swallowing the princes of the Second Week and dying, performing the supreme and making the Liuhe, and beating and whipping the world, and the mighty zhen all over the world." Taking the land of Baiyue in the south, thinking that guilin and Xiang County, the king of Baiyue bowed his head and tied his neck, and entrusted his subordinates. It was to make Meng Tian build the Great Wall and defend the fence, but the Xiongnu were more than seven hundred miles; the Hu people did not dare to go south and herd horses, and the soldiers did not dare to bend their bows and complain. ”
This is the Western Han Dynasty literary scholar Jia Yi's evaluation of the merits of Qin Shi Huang in "On Passing the Qin". After unifying the Six Kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang also launched two large-scale wars in order to expand his territory, both of which were against the Xiongnu and Baiyue. Qin Shi Huang mainly adopted a defensive strategy against the Xiongnu, and actively conquered Baiyue.
The Qin Dynasty's war against Baiyue
In "On Passing the Qin Dynasty", Jia Yi summarized Qin Shi Huang's war against Baiyue in a few sentences: taking the land of Baiyue in the south, thinking that guilin and Xiang County; the king of Baiyue bowed his head and tied his neck, and entrusted his subordinates. From here we learn that the Qin Dynasty conquered Baiyue, and the prince of Baiyue did not dare to have the slightest intention of resisting Qin Shi Huang, and the Qin Dynasty also established two large counties on the territory of Baiyue: Guilin County and Xiang County.
The "Treatise on Passing the Qin Dynasty" only briefly outlines the merits of Qin Shi Huang in pacifying Baiyue, giving people the feeling that the Qin Dynasty's conquest of Baiyue was very easy. However, in fact, the Qin Dynasty's war against Baiyue was very difficult.
In 223 BC, Qin Shi Huang sent the general Tu Sui to lead an army to the south to conquer Baiyue. Most of the Baiyue area is lofty mountains, and although the Qin army is fierce in battle, it is not advantageous. The Qin army had to dig canals to transport grain on the way to the march, and by the time the Qin army penetrated deep into the land of Baiyue, the enemies had already fled without a trace. The long-distance expedition, coupled with the complex combat terrain, dragged down the logistics support of the Qin army, and finally there was a situation of running out of ammunition and food, and the Yue people took the opportunity to rebel and defeat the Qin army.
He also made Wei Tu Sui dig a canal to transport grain, go deeper into Vietnam, and the more people fled. The protracted period was protracted, the grain was absolutely scarce, and the More people attacked it, the Qin soldiers were greatly defeated. Qin Nai made Wei Tuo (尉佗) the general Shu Yue .e. History Volume 112 Marquis of Pingjin Patriarch Biography 52
According to the Huainan Zi, the Qin state mobilized 500,000 troops in this military campaign to conquer Baiyue in the south. If the record is true, then the scale of this war is indeed rare in the history of ancient warfare. Tu Sui commanded 500,000 Qin troops to quickly capture the Baiyue region in five routes, but the Yue people were unwilling to easily submit to the Qin Dynasty. During the Qin army's occupation of Baiyue, it was stubbornly resisted by the Yue people. In the end, the Qin army was counterattacked by the Yue people, and the Qin army not only lost 100,000 people, but also the general Tu Sui was also killed by the Yue people.
It is the envoy Tu Sui who sent half a million soldiers to the fifth army, one army to plug the ridge of the city, one army to guard the nine doubts of the plug, one army to the capital of Panyu, one army to guard the boundary of the southern wilderness, and one army to balance the dry water. For three years, the crossbow was not dissolved, so that Linlu could not be paid. He also dug a canal and opened a grain road with a pawn to fight the Vietnamese and kill xi yijun to translate the Song Dynasty. And the Yue people are all in the bushes, and the beasts, Moken is qin. Xiang Jun thought that he would be a general, and attacked the Qin people at night, and broke it. The slaughter of lieutenants and the blood of hundreds of thousands of corpses were sent out in preparation. "Huainanzi"
Tu Sui's death actually represented the failure of the Qin state to conquer Baiyue, but Qin Shi Huang was not willing to admit defeat, and then he sent Ren Huo and Zhao Tuo to lead a large army to garrison Baiyue, so that Baiyue did not break away from the control of the Qin Dynasty. Therefore, the Qin state conquered the Baiyue region after a difficult war, but the conquest here was only a military conquest.
Why didn't the Baiyue Qin army save the Qin Dynasty
After the death of Qin Shi Huang, his successor Qin II ascended the throne. Qin II did not have the great talent of Qin Shi Huang, he was only a puppet emperor on the eunuch Zhao Gaoshi. Soon after the second emperor ascended the throne, rebel armies rose up all over the Qin state, and the Qin Dynasty also collapsed after a short period of unification. So when the Qin Dynasty was in danger, why did the Qin army in the southern Baiyue watch the destruction of the Qin state indifferently?
Qin Shi Huang had originally sent Ren Hu and Zhao Tuo to conquer Baiyue, and after the war, these two people were left in Baiyue Town to guard the place. During the reign of Qin II, Ren Hu served as the Nanhai Lieutenant, and Zhao Tuo was the Nanhai Longchuan Ling, and from the official position, Zhao Tuo was Ren Hu's direct subordinate. After Chen Sheng and Wu Guang raised their troops, Liu Bang, Xiang Yu and other Haojie also raised troops in response.
When the news of the Great Chaos in the Central Plains reached Nanhai County, Ren Hu called Zhao Tuo and said something heartfelt to him: "The world has been persecuted by the Qin Dynasty for too long, such as today's Haojie has successively rebelled against the Qin Dynasty, Nanhai County is remote, I am worried that there will be thieves and rebels invading here." Now I am ready to cut off the communication between Namhae County and the outside world to see how the world changes, but unfortunately I am not in good health now. The place we occupy is thousands of miles around and geographically advantageous, and with this we can also establish a country on our own. ”
Tuo, used in Qin times as the South China Sea Longchuan Order. By the time of the second dynasty, Nanhai Wei Ren was ill and dead, and summoned Longchuan to order Zhao Tuo to say: "Hearing that Chen Sheng and others are in turmoil, Qin is a wayless, the world is suffering, Xiang Yu, Liu Ji, Chen Sheng, Wu Guang and other prefectures and counties have gathered together, tigers are fighting for the world, China is disturbed, the unknown is safe, and Haojie and Qin are standing together." The South China Sea is far away, I am afraid that the pirates will invade the land to this point, I want to build up the army to eliminate the new way, prepare myself, and wait for the princes to change, and I will be very sick. And Panyu is dangerous in the mountains, blocking the South China Sea, thousands of miles from east to west, quite Chinese complement each other, and the lord of this state can also establish a country. The county magistrate has no feet to speak with, so he summons a public announcement. "That is, he was written by Tuo, and he did the Affairs of the South China Sea." History Volume 113 South VietnamEse Chronicles 53
From the conversation between Ren Hu and Zhao Tuo, it can be seen that he has no hope for the Qin State. Instead of trying to save the Qin Dynasty, Ren Huan wanted to take the opportunity to occupy the mountain as king and break away from the Qin Dynasty. So why did Ren Huo, a general of the Qin State, have such thoughts?
In the original words of Ren Huan, Qin is a no-dao, and the world suffers. That is to say, the Qin Dynasty has long lost the hearts of the people in the world. Of course, the people in the world here also include high-ranking Qin Dynasty officers like Ren Huan. When Ren Hu was seriously ill, he called Zhao Tuo out of his heart, which showed that Zhao Tuo and Ren Hu should be like-minded people. Therefore, Ren Huan asked Zhao Tuo to take over his post as a lieutenant in the South China Sea before his death.
At the beginning, after the unification of the Six Kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang began to attack the Xiongnu in the north and the Baiyue in the south. The war has been going on for more than a decade, and countless people have died for it. The fate of the Qin army that conquered Baiyue in the south was even more miserable than that of the Qin army that attacked the Xiongnu in the north. These Qin armies went far and wide into the barren land, and only completed the conquest of Baiyue under the premise of making great sacrifices. However, at the time of success, these Qin troops who marched south could not return to their hometown.
When it was, the Qin scourge was built in the north by Hu, and the south was hung in Yue, and the su soldiers were useless, and then they could not retreat. After more than ten years of travel, Ding Nan was converted by A and Ding Nu, suffering from life, passing through the Dao Tree, and the dead looked at each other. and the collapse of the Qin Emperor, the great rebellion of the world. History Volume 112 Marquis of Pingjin Patriarch Biography No. 52
Senior military officers of the Qin state, such as Ren Hu and Zhao Tuo, were also stranded in the land of Baiyue. What kind of feelings did these Qin troops who had to survive in the barren land have for the Qin State? This should be very clear without thinking about it. The Qin army that originally conquered Baiyue in the south had a hard time hitting Baiyue, and now they wanted them to fight back to qin from Baiyue. This is too difficult militarily and objectively speaking, and judging from the subjective will of the Qin soldiers, they are not willing to do another death long march. Therefore, after Zhao Tuo succeeded Ren Huo, he immediately cut off the communication between Nanhai County and the outside world. After the fall of the Qin state, Zhao Tuo sent troops to occupy Guilin and Xiang County to establish himself as the king of Nanyue.