Han Xin was one of the three masters of the early Han Dynasty, a famous military expert, who experienced hundreds of battles in his life, which can be described as "attacking and conquering, and winning battles", so he is known as a soldier immortal. In his lifetime, there are countless classic battles. In battle, Han Xin's brain hole is extremely large, and he has repeatedly made strange plans, and his wisdom and strategy will even make people feel incredible.
In October of the fourth year of Han Gaozu (203 BC), Han Xin successively destroyed the states of Dai, Zhao, and Yan, and led hundreds of thousands of troops to the State of Qi. Subsequently, Han Xin betrayed Liu Bang's heavy subjects and annihilated the State of Qi in one fell swoop. At that time, Xiang Yu, the king of Chu, was leading the main force to engage in a fierce tug-of-war with Liu Bang in the Xingyang area, while his old nest, Pengcheng, was directly exposed to the Han army led by Han Xin.
Because he was dragged by Liu Bang, he had to send his beloved general, Long Ji, to lead an army of 200,000 to stop Han Xin. In November, Long Ji and Han Xin fought against Weishui, known in history as the Battle of Weishui. Before the war, Han Xin ordered his men to urgently make more than 10,000 sandbags, and then threw them into the Weishui, blocking most of the flowing water.
Subsequently, Han Xin sent half of his army across the river to attack LongJi, and then ordered them to pretend to be invincible and "hastily" escape across the river. Seeing this, Long He said happily, "Han Xin and I are old colleagues, and we already know that he can't do it, and when I destroy Han Xin, even the State of Qi will be ours!" ”
Subsequently, Long He led his entire army across the river to attack Han Xin, who knew that the Chu army had just crossed half of the people, han Xin ordered his sergeants to dig a temporary embankment composed of sandbags upstream, and the river rushed down. The Chu army in Weishui was swept away by the river and turned into fish and turtles, while the Chu army that survived was divided into two parts. The army that had not yet crossed the river saw that the situation was unknown, pulled its leg and fled, while the Chu army that crossed the river was surrounded by the Han army on three sides, and eventually the entire army was destroyed, and Long He was also killed by Ding Fu, a subordinate of the infant.
After this battle, Han Xin was all in place, Liu Bang had two of the three divisions of the world, and Xiang Yu's demise was inevitable. As the saying goes, "soldiers are impermanent, water is impermanent." The Battle of Weishui was regarded as a typical example of Han Xin's battles, and has always been respected by later generations, and has been recorded in Sima Qian's "Records of History".
For the Battle of Weishui, later generations of soldiers have always been convinced, and many people have tried to follow suit. However, the result was without exception, all failed. In the late Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan also tried to copy Han Xin's miracles in the battle against the Taiping Army, but in the end he lost to the ground.
Painfully, Zeng Guofan gradually believed that Han Xin's "Weishui conspiracy" may have been fabricated by Sima Qian. He wrote in his diary:
"Sandbags of water, the bottom can leak, the side can overflow, self-non-construction is strictly blocked, can not be built into a large weir."
The simple translation is that the sandbag plug cannot block the flow of the big river, because the bottom will leak, the side will overflow, unless it is a strict river blocking project, otherwise it will not be able to block the river at all. If it is a small river, it is possible to block it, but it is impossible to form a lethal force on the enemy army, and it is not even a force that makes people unstable. Therefore, Zeng Guofan judged that Han Xin's "Weishui conspiracy" was not credible.
In Zeng Guofan's view, most Chinese historians did not understand the military, so they often made jokes when writing history books, and even rigorous such as the "History of History" and the "Book of Han" were not exempt from vulgarity. How can a scholar who has no power to bind a chicken know the method of marching and fighting? Therefore, in the history books, I always like to record these bizarre stories.
Just as practice is the only criterion for testing truth, Zeng Guofan, who had been superstitious in various tricks, began to tend to study the more realistic military book, the Ji Xiao New Book, after all, this book was written by Qi Jiguang, a professional who was proficient in military affairs. In the later battles, Zeng Guofan and other Xiang troops abandoned the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" style of strategy, adopted the "hard village, fight a stupid battle" style of play, and finally defeated the Taiping Army with civil engineering and powerful regular troops.
Although Han Xin's "Weishui Conspiracy" may be false, his record is real, after all, he did defeat Long He, but its specific details need our further investigation. Like the "Weishui Conspiracy", the "Fire Bull Array" of Tian Dan, a famous general of the State of Qi, has recently been widely questioned.
Since the Warring States, there have been people who have tried to replicate the Fire Bull Array, but the final result is like a joke. Those bulls with their butts on fire will not rush forward at all, but will scurry around, even self-defeating, and mess up the formation. During the Anshi Rebellion, the prime minister Fang Zhen used the Fire Bull Array against the rebels. Who knew that the cultivating cattle did not listen to the command at all, and instead rushed to their own people, resulting in a big defeat.
Just as the so-called letter is better than no book, everything needs to be practiced to believe. This is true of fighting wars, and it should be true of working life.