"Talking on paper" is an idiom that we are very familiar with, and the source of the idiom is very simple: during the Warring States period, Qin and Zhao confronted each other, and King Zhao Xiaocheng fell into the alienation plan of the Qin State, removed the veteran general Lian Po, who insisted on defending, and let the newcomer Zhao Kuo command the big battle. Zhao Kuo talked endlessly about the art of war, but the level of real practice was very worrying, so that the white regiment was surrounded and annihilated, and more than 400,000 Zhao troops were beheaded and killed.
This battle, known in history as the "Battle of Changping", occurred in 260 BC, was a life-and-death duel between Qin and Zhao Erqiang, Qin defeated Zhao, and since then it is only a matter of time before the Qin state unifies the six kingdoms, after which although the Zhao state won the defense war of Handan, it also failed to prevent Qin Dong from coming out, and 39 years after the Battle of Changping, the Qin king Yingzheng was determined to destroy the six kingdoms and complete the unification, and the history of the Qin Dynasty began.
It can be said that without the outcome of the Battle of Changping, it is not easy to predict how the historical trend of the Warring States will be, and if this battle is a victory for the Zhao State, it will be a question whether even The person of Yingzheng will appear. Then why did Zhao Guo lose so badly?
There are many different answers to this question. The fuse of the Battle of Changping was that Zhao Guo took over Shangdang, and the "Chronicle of History" records: "In the forty-seventh year, Qin attacked Han Shangdang, Shangdang surrendered to Zhao, Qin attacked Zhao, and Zhao sent troops to attack Qin, at a distance. ”
According to the history we know, the reason for the Battle of Changping was that the Zhao State robbed the qin state of the land (although it was originally Korean), and the defeat of the Zhao state in the Battle of Changping was because Zhao Kuo changed the defense to the active attack and dragged the entire Zhao state into the abyss, but is this really the case? Judging from a stone stele excavated near Gaoping in Shanxi, Zhao Kuo is likely to have carried a pot for more than 2,000 years.
At that time, Qin Fabing occupied the wild king of Korea, that is, the area of present-day Qinyang, Henan, so the Shangdang County, which originally belonged to Korea, and the rest of Korea itself were cut off by the Qin army, where did Korea have the strength to confront the Qin state? The King of Han planned to drink and quench his thirst and dedicate shangdang to the Qin state, hoping that the qin state would not destroy Korea completely, which of course was a trick, and the shangdang soldiers and civilians did not agree, and turned to the embrace of the Zhao state.
The history books record that at that time, the first and second figures of the Zhao Kingdom (King Xiaocheng of Zhao and his uncle Pingyuan Jun) expressed a very enthusiastic intention to accept such a land that fell from the sky of Shangdang, and Zhao Bao, the King of Pingyang, opposed it, but it was of no use.
So the State of Qin was enraged and sent troops to attack Zhao, and war broke out, and King Xiaocheng of Zhao, feeling that King Zhaoxiang of Qin would definitely send destructive weapons to Bai, asked Pingyuan Jun worriedly what to do. PingYuan Jun said that this is no problem, and I Zhao Guo also has weapons: "Lian is quite a person, brave and loves soldiers, knows difficulties and endures shame, and it is not as good as fighting with them in the field, and it is enough to hold on to it." ”
Everyone knows what happened next...
Lian Po is indeed a veteran general, even if the attack is not as good as Bai Qi, but the ability to defend is indeed very eye-catching, in order to keep the Qin army out of the Shangdang, he built a defensive line in the dangerous empty Cangling, this defense line includes 3 barriers, but Lian Po underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Qin army, the Qin army actually took only a few months to capture the barrier of the Zhao army, the Zhao army retreated to the northeast side of Danshui, and the Qin army occupied the southwest of Danshui to confront Zhao.
As a veteran general, Lian Quite was characterized by being very cautious and careful, the defense was airtight, the first line of defense was breached, there was a second and a third road, the second road was the barrier built by the Zhao army along Danshui, the third road was only guguan and Changping Pass, the 100-mile stone Great Wall, the north slope was gentle and conducive to the Zhao army transporting grain and grass from Handan, and the steep south slope was not conducive to the Qin attack.
As a result, at that time, the Qin general Wang Gong could not break through the second and third lines of defense no matter what, and could only follow the Danshui Repair Barrier and the Zhao Army for a long time, and this confrontation was 3 years later! On the stone stele found in the ancient battlefield of Gaoping Laomaling in Shanxi, it is recorded: "At the intersection of Gaoping and Qinshui, there are mountains and empty warehouses... Inquiring about the natives, the Qin Baiqi set up an empty warehouse to curse Zhao Kuo. ”
That is to say, when Lian Po was replaced by Zhao Kuo, Zhao Kuo took the initiative to attack, and Bai Qi used the granary as bait to lure Zhao Kuo into the encirclement, and finally achieved the goal of annihilating more than 400,000 Zhao troops. But why did Zhao Kuo change his incorruptible defensive countermeasures and switch to an active attack? This point is explained in the history books: King Xiaocheng of Zhao was very dissatisfied with Lian Po's long-term inability to keep it.
Why are you dissatisfied? Because the long-term confrontation was a great test of how much the two armies were prepared for war, the Qin army had a bashu granary, but the Zhao army did not, although Qin Zhao had greatly depleted its strength because of the 3-year confrontation, but the Zhao state was obviously more indebted, and King Zhao Xiaocheng felt that he could not continue like this, but Lian Po still insisted on defending, so King Zhao Xiaocheng became angry and sent Zhao Kuo, who advocated attacking to break the deadlock.
After Qin heard the news of the Zhao army's change of command, he immediately secretly sent Bai Qi to the front line to command the battle, Zhao Kuo did not know that he was facing Bai Qi (which showed that Zhao Guo's intelligence work was not as good as that of Qin Guo), in order to seize the grain and grass that the Qin army had hoarded in the Empty Cangling Ridge (in fact, it was just bait) took the initiative to attack, the plan was made, it was surrounded, and Bai Qi divided the Zhao army step by step, Zhao Kuo's mountains were exhausted, and the end of the Zhao army arrived.
From this point of view, Zhao Kuo is indeed responsible, but after the defeat of Zhao Guo in the Battle of Changping, Zhao Kuo's full responsibility is really fair? I am afraid that not necessarily, we have been ignoring why Zhao Kuo took the initiative to attack, that is, in the early stage, the incorruptible long-term defense of the Zhao state was exhausted, and although he would defend, he did not have the sensitivity of the overall situation, and did not take into account the problem that the supply line of the Zhao army was inferior to that of the Qin state.
The "Chronicle of History" says: "The Qin army was defeated and left, and Zhang Erqi's soldiers robbed it... Posthumously build The Qin Wall. Bi Jian refused to enter, and after Qin Qi's twenty-five thousand soldiers exterminated the Zhao army, another army of five thousand rode away from the Zhao army, and the Zhao army was divided into two, and the grain road was absolutely extinct... The King of Qin heard that Zhao was absolutely esophageal, and the king from Hanoi gave the people a knighthood of each rank, and sent more than fifteen years old to learn Changping, covering Zhao's rescue and grain. ”
This record tells us that when King Zhaoxiang of Qin learned that the Zhao army was besieged to death, he actually went to Hanoi to supervise the battle himself, tried his best for the Qin state, and vowed to beat the Zhao state to no chance of fighting back! That is to say, King Zhaoxiang of Qin had realized that this was a life-and-death duel between Qin and Zhao, but Lian Po did not have such a consciousness, and in the early stage, he was ignorant and procrastinating, and finally dragged the Zhao army to a passive unfavorable situation.
Zhao Kuo alone carried the pot for more than 2,000 years, and Lian Po, who was known as a famous general of the Warring States, should actually bear the responsibility for zhao Guochangping's defeat in the war. "Talking on paper" is a textbook story, real history will not be so simple, so the study of history only to understand those allusions is not enough, we must find the truth from the clues of the history books, combined with archaeological research, in order to be truly wise.
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