The Battle of Changping was a war fought between the Qin state and the Army of the State of Zhao in the area of Changping (長平, northwest of present-day Gaoping, Jincheng, Shanxi). This battle was a strategic decisive battle between Qin and Zhao. The State of Qin won several battles in a row, resulting in heavy losses to the Zhao army, and the situation on the battlefield was extremely unfavorable to the State of Zhao. King Zhao, due to successive defeats in the war, sought peace with the State of Qin, but was not to be teased, coupled with Lian Po's stubbornness in not fighting, which disgraced the State of Zhao. When Qin saw that the State of Zhao was stubbornly holding out no battle, he sent emissaries to spread rumors of Lianpo's surrender and threatened that Qin was not afraid of Lianpo, and that he was afraid of Zhao Kuo, the son of Zhao Hao (who had defeated the Qin state). Therefore, King Xiaocheng of Zhao did not listen to the advice of Yu Qing and Lin Xiangru, and insisted on replacing Lian Po with Zhao Kuo; Zhao Kuo followed Zhao Xiaocheng's intentions, changed LianPo's defensive deployment and military rules, replaced the generals, and organized the attack.
In this regard, the State of Qin secretly appointed the famous general Bai Qi as the commander,and in view of Zhao Kuo's weakness in his eagerness to win, Bai Qi adopted the operational policy of pretending to be defeated and retreating, luring the enemy out of the position, and then dividing the encirclement, cutting off the zhao army's grain route, and annihilating it, and finally winning the war. Therefore, although Zhao Kuo had an unshirkable responsibility for the defeat in the Battle of Changping, it was naturally difficult to blame Zhao Xiaocheng, who was about to change generals. What is more crucial is that in the Battle of Changping, King Xiaocheng of Zhao failed to attack Qin, causing the State of Zhao to fight alone, which was also the place of his dereliction of duty, of course, after the Battle of Changping, King Xiaocheng of Zhao finally woke up and destroyed the 200,000 troops of the State of Qin in one fell swoop!
One
First of all, the past is not forgotten, and the teacher of the future is a Chinese word, which is a metaphor for people to remember the previous lessons learned as a reference for future actions. From "Warring States Policy Zhao Ce I": "The past is not forgotten, and the future is the teacher." In this regard, in the author's opinion, as far as Zhao Xiaocheng wang is concerned, he obviously absorbed the mistakes made in the Battle of Changping and corrected them in the Battle of Handan, thus achieving the elimination of 200,000 Qin troops and thus saving the Zhao state. In the seventh year of King Xiaocheng of Zhao (259 BC), after the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi wanted to take advantage of the victory to besiege the Zhao capital Handan and attack the Zhao state. The State of Zhao and Korea were afraid, so they sent Su Dai with rich money to lobby Fan Ju, the chancellor of the State of Qin, and Fan Sui, jealous of Bai Qi's merits, suggested that Korea cede Yuanyong and Zhao Guo to cede the six cities to please peace, and King Zhaoxiang of Qin agreed.
When King Xiaocheng of Zhao was preparing to cede the six cities according to the peace treaty, however, the chancellor Yu Qing believed that by cutting off the land with Qin, Qin was stronger, and Zhao "had exhausted the land and Qin's desire was exhausted", so Zhao would perish. Yu Qing suggested using the six cities to bribe the State of Qi and unite to resist Qin. King Zhaoxiang of Qin, seeing that Zhao had defaulted on not cutting off the six cities, but instead joined forces with the eastern states to deal with the Qin state, so in October 259 BC he ordered the fifth master Wang Ling to lead an army to attack the Zhao capital Handan. As a result, the Battle of Handan, which can be called one of the turning points in the history of the Warring States, officially broke out in 259 BC. In this battle, if the Zhao State is defeated again, that is, it loses like the Battle of Changping, the result will be that the Zhao State will perish in advance.
Two
Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Qin troops, King Xiaocheng of Zhao did not make another mistake. On the one hand, he used Lian Po, who had previously been replaced by Zhao Kuo, and as for the Zhao State Xiangguo Pingyuan Jun, he also threw himself into the Battle of Handan against the Qin army. In this regard, in the author's opinion, among the four famous generals of the Warring States, compared with Wang Qi and Bai Qi, Lian Po is undoubtedly more good at defense. Therefore, letting Lian Po and others command the Battle of Handan is naturally the embodiment of rational employment. Moreover, Lian Po spent his life in the Zhao State and had a high prestige among the generals of the Zhao State. And this, undoubtedly, helps to unite people's hearts and minds, so as to play the effect of unity of purpose. In ancient siege battles, the defending side undoubtedly had the advantage of objective conditions such as the city wall. However, the reason why the city was breached was often the collapse of internal morale and even the emergence of traitors.
Therefore, letting Lian Po command the Battle of Handan was obviously a correct decision made by King Xiaocheng of Zhao, and it was also a correction of the mistakes he made in the Battle of Changping. No one is a sage, and no one can be blameless. Knowing mistakes can be corrected, and good deeds can be great. Of course, relying only on the persistence of Lian Po, Pingyuan Jun Zhao Sheng and others, Zhao Guo still did not have the possibility of winning the Battle of Handan. This is because in the Battle of Changping, Zhao Guo had just lost 450,000 elite soldiers. In the Battle of Handan, the Zhao State was almost left with only old and weak soldiers, whether in terms of combat effectiveness or the scale of the troops, there was a huge gap between the Zhao State and the Qin State at that time, which was not a gap that could be erased by will alone.
Three
On the other hand, for the monarch of Zhao Xiaocheng, it is obvious that he learned the lessons of fighting alone in the Battle of Changping. In the Battle of Changping, in order to paralyze and isolate the State of Zhao, prevent the countries from joining forces and cross-borders, and buy time and strengthen combat preparations, so as to deal a serious blow to the Zhao army, the State of Qin chose to take advantage of the opportunity of the Zhao State's peacemaking and received the envoy of the State of Zhao, Zheng Zhu, with the intention of publicizing that Qin and Zhao had been reconciled, so as to prevent the countries from sending troops to save Zhao. As a result, Zhao Guo's situation was even more isolated. However, in the Battle of Handan, King Xiaocheng of Zhao took the initiative to send people to the State of Wei and the State of Chu for help, which became the key to the final victory of the State of Zhao.
In the eighth year of King Xiaocheng of Zhao (258 BC), Zhao Sheng, the Prince of Pingyuan, was ordered to send an envoy to the Chu State. He wanted to select twenty people from among the doormen, but only nineteen were selected. A customer self-recommendation follows the past, which is the historical origin of the idiom allusion "Mao Sui self-recommendation". Pingyuan Jun and his party came to the Chu kingdom and explained to King Chu Kao Lie the stakes of joining forces against Qin, and after Mao Sui knew that he was sympathetic and reasonable, King Chu Kaolie agreed to send a large army to support the Zhao state. On the side of the State of Wei, after the State of Zhao issued a request for rescue, The Prince of Xinling, One of the Four Princes of the Warring States, Wei Wuji, chose to steal a charm to save Zhao, and also led a large army to support the capital of the State of Zhao, Handan.
Four
Finally, in the ninth year of King Xiaocheng of Zhao (257 BC), the wei and Chu armies successively entered the outskirts of Handan and attacked the Qin army. The Defenders of the State of Zhao cooperated with the Wei and Chu armies outside the city to go out of the city to counterattack. From this, it is very obvious that in the Battle of Handan, although in the early days, it was the Zhao State that was alone against the Zhao State. However, in 257 BC, when the Qin and Zhao armies were very tired, reinforcements from the Wei and Chu states finally arrived. Under the internal and external attacks of the three armies, the Qin army was defeated and suffered heavy losses. Wang Gong fled back to Fencheng with the remnants, and the Qin general Zheng Anping's army of more than 20,000 people was surrounded by a coalition regiment, so they had to surrender to Zhao, and the siege of Handan was lifted.
It is worth noting that in the Battle of Handan, the Qin state lost 200,000 elite soldiers. Although the Qin state had a great cause, the death of these 200,000 elite soldiers undoubtedly disrupted the qin state's next battle plan, and in addition, the qin state also lost hundreds of thousands of troops in the Battle of Changping, so this meant that the qin state after the Shang martingale changed the law, and suffered an unprecedented heavy blow. In summary, after the Battle of Changping, the monarch of Zhao Xiaocheng finally woke up, or came to the time when he had to wake up. On this basis, King Xiaocheng of Zhao calmly commanded in the Battle of Handan, thus achieving the achievement of destroying 200,000 troops of the Qin state in one fell swoop. In the hundreds of years of history of the Warring States, this should be one of the battles with the greatest losses of the Qin State. In this regard, in the author's opinion, if King Xiaocheng of Zhao fails to win the Battle of Handan, not only will the capital of the Zhao state of Handan be breached, the time of the fall of the Zhao state will be decades in advance, and even the establishment time of the Qin Dynasty will be significantly advanced. What do you think about the Battle of Handan?