As the old saying goes: "One person prospers, one person loses the country", outstanding soul figures often have a profound impact on the development of the overall situation, and in history, an important figure can even directly change the luck of a dynasty.
In the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Former Qin Dynasty had a soul figure who changed history by relying on a battle, and the "artifact" used by Jian Jian to change history was the famous "Battle of Shuishui" in history.
It is said that the reason why the "Battle of Shuishui" was out of the circle was not only because this battle changed the fate of Former Qin, but also because a generation of male lords, Jian Jian, had not yet started a business and bent his waist, and even lost a face of ignorance, until the end of the battle, he did not understand that his hundreds of thousands of troops occupied the superiority of troops, how could he lose to the other side's 80,000 horses?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >01</h1>
Time goes back 66 years before the Battle of Shuishui. In this year, Liu Yao's Han army attacked the capital of the Western Jin Dynasty, officially announcing the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty. The remnants of the Western Jin Dynasty had to help the old and young to cross the south with their young and miserable, and together with the Jiangnan Shi clan, they supported Sima Rui as the Emperor of Jin yuan, thus opening the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
After the Jin Dynasty forces were in a corner of the country, the north became a gladiatorial arena for various ethnic minority forces. Among them, former Qin established by the Qi people was the most powerful, this force successively destroyed small states such as Former Yan and Former Liang, and then Former Qin's Jian Jian successfully killed the tyrant Fu Sheng in 357 AD and established himself as the Heavenly King of Great Qin, ending the long-term great division in the northern region and bringing the local people a precious period of peace.
However, as the recuperation in the north gradually regained its vitality, Jian Jian couldn't help but want to compete with the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the south. In his opinion, Former Qin's army was strong enough to "throw whips and cut off water", and it was not a problem at all to deal with the weak Eastern Jin Dynasty.
What's more, as early as the last year of the Three Kingdoms, the northern army left behind a successful case against the southern regime. Jian Jian also remembered that it was the Battle of Jin and Wu, when the Western Jin soldiers divided into three roads, one way out of the Three Gorges to take Jianye, so that the Yangtze River natural danger of Eastern Wu could not play a role at all; the other way went straight to the important town of Jiangling in Eastern Wu, and the last large army fought all the way from Qingzhou and Xuzhou to the Yangtze River, and together with the first two large armies, they formed a pinch attack on Eastern Wu, forcing Eastern Wu to bow down to him in minutes.
The Battle of Jin against Wu gave inspiration to Jian Jian, who calculated that there were hundreds of thousands of troops he could mobilize now, while the Eastern Jin Dynasty could only mobilize a maximum of 70,000 to 80,000 people. The absolute superiority of the troops made Jian Jian more convinced that he could perfectly reproduce the battle of Jin and Wu.
In 378, Jian Jian ordered Shangshu Ling Pi to lead 70,000 infantry to attack Xiangyang, Tun Riding Colonel Lieutenant Shi Yue led 10,000 cavalry to Henan to maneuver, Jingzhao Yin Murong Chui and Yang Wu general Yao Cang led 50,000 troops out of Nanxiang, Hubei, and the leading general Gou Chi and the crossbow general Wang Xian led an army of 40,000 out of Wudang, divided into four roads, a total of 170,000 troops, and officially declared war on the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="77" >02 Battle of Shuishui</h1>
What Jian Jian did not expect was that the Eastern Jin Dynasty was not Eastern Wu. After the outbreak of war, the Eastern Jin Dynasty quickly sent Xie Xuan to lead 50,000 Northern Fu troops to meet the Former Qin army, at the same time, Xie An also took over the military of Yangzhou, Yuzhou, Xuzhou, Yanzhou, and Qingzhou, and strengthened the defense of Jiankang City to fully oppose the Former Qin army.
The momentum of the Eastern Jin Dynasty's desperate battle surprised Jian Jian, but fortunately this did not affect the morale of Former Qin's troops attacking Xiangyang. On this road, the former Qin army, under the leadership of Gong Pi, killed all the way to the north bank of the ChuShui River, and it was possible to take Xiangyang City.
At this juncture, zhu Xu, the Xiangyang defender of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, misjudged Former Qin. In Zhu Xu's view, the Former Qin army was a northerner, unfamiliar with water warfare and had no ships, and could not pose a threat to Xiangyang.
Who expected that the Former Qin army actually sent the vanguard troops to cross the river on war horses, robbed Zhu Xu's ships to meet the follow-up large troops to cross the river, forcing Zhu Xu to retreat to the inner city.
However, the Former Qin army was not willing to stop at this, and they did not stop at nothing, buying Li Bohu in the city as an internal response, and the inside and outside should be combined to capture Zhu Xu alive, and captured the city of Xiangyang in one fell swoop.
Unfortunately, after taking Xiangyang, the shortcomings of the Former Qin army's inability to practice water warfare were completely exposed. You know, the nine counties of Jingxiang are not only one Xiangyang, but the important towns of Jiangling and Wuchang are still in the hands of the Eastern Jin Dynasty defender Huan Chong.
Huan Chong was a famous general in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and had rich experience in water warfare. Under his obstruction, the Former Qin army fought hard one after another, but it could not break through the blockade, so it was forced to stay in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. This directly led to the whole war from this moment on, completely out of line with the development trend of the Jin and Wu wars.
Because, the western Jin army, all the way along the Yangtze River, not only strangled the remnants of Eastern Wu's forces left in Jingzhou, but also destroyed Eastern Wu's logistical supplies, providing a perfect assist for teammates.
However, Former Qin's army was doomed to be unable to help his teammates contain the enemy. Affected by this, another large army of Former Qin fought particularly the Huainan battlefield. According to historical records, this large army encountered 50,000 Beifu soldiers led by Xie Xuan, and the Beifu soldiers were originally elite, and they fought at home, all the way invincible, four battles and four victories, killing the Former Qin army could only trap Pengcheng.
In this way, the rapid blockade battle of Jin and Wu was reproduced in the plan of Jian Jian, which forced the Eastern Jin army to drag into a protracted war and a war of attrition. However, the expedition of the Former Qin Laoshi Division was unfavorable for a long time, and Jian Jian had to change the battle plan, relying on the superiority of his own troops, and resolutely launching the Battle of Shuishui despite the opposition of the courtiers.
In 383, Gong Jian sent his younger brother Yangping Gong Rong to lead 250,000 troops as the vanguard, personally leading 600,000 infantry and 270,000 cavalry, declaring a million troops to kill the capital of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty sent Xie Xuan as the vanguard, with 80,000 elite troops "Beifu Army", along the Huai River west to meet the main force of Former Qin.
The large armies of the two sides soon met at Mishui, and due to the scale of the battle, the military horses of both sides were densely packed on both sides of the mishui river, and they could not be unleashed at all. Xie Xuan, a general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who had great combat experience, and others suddenly had a plan when they saw it. They quietly sent envoys to convey to Jian Jian the famous declaration of war: "Your Excellency's lone army is deep, and it is advisable to fight a quick battle, but now your army is lined up along the river, and there is no appearance that you want to fight quickly." In this way, your excellency will move the army back a little, leave a vacant land for us to stay, and when our Eastern Jin army crosses the river, how about everyone fight to the death? ”
After hearing this, Jian Jian couldn't help but think to himself: If the Jin army crosses the river to the halfway point, I will suddenly strike "half a crossing and attack", and I will definitely be able to achieve victory. Thinking of this, Jian Jian painfully agreed to the proposal of Xie Xuan and others, and ordered the Former Qin army to retreat a little.
However, Former Qin's army was too much, and when the front army was ordered to retreat, the army behind it did not know what was happening, and what Xie Xuan and others wanted was this once-in-a-lifetime information asymmetry.
As a result, As soon as Former Qin's army near the river bank began to retreat, someone suddenly shouted, "The Qin army has been defeated!" Everybody run away! This shouting could not be stopped, the Former Qin army behind it had seen the change in the front, and was secretly strange to it, and then heard the shouting of "the Qin army was defeated", and at the moment, it was impossible to carefully distinguish between true and false, and subconsciously turned around and fled.
People have the same heart, the same heart, the Former Qin army, which was originally neatly arranged, instantly became a pot of porridge. As soon as the Eastern Jin forces saw that the Former Qin army was in disarray, they also immediately launched a charge, killing the Former Qin army and abandoning its armor, killing the commander Gong Rong, shooting and wounding Jian Jian, and recovering almost all the lost land occupied by Former Qin.
Those Former Qin soldiers who were busy fleeing for their lives were all frightened, they heard the sound of the wind blowing and the chirping of flying cranes, they all thought that the Jin soldiers were still chasing after them, so they raced for their lives even more frantically, leaving behind the legend of "the sound of the wind and the crane".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="78" >03 guard the Central Plains civilization</h1>
The Battle of Shuishui made the dream of unifying the north and south of The Jian jian come to naught. Only 2 years later, Jian Jian was killed by the Qiang nobleman Yao Cang, and the already peaceful Central Plains were once again in a state of disintegration.
Looking closely at the Battle of Shuishui, which changed the direction of Former Qin and even the entire historical trend, it is difficult for us to say that the fiasco of Former Qin was only a bloody case caused by retreat, just as all accidents are inevitable, and the defeat of Former Qin actually had a premonition.
In the words of the scholar Qian Mu, in the decades between the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty and the Shuishui, more and more northern scholars have found it difficult for the Hu regime to reuse itself, and the hidden worry that "if it is not my race, its heart will be different" is established everywhere.
Some of these Han Chinese who were treated unfairly overcame all odds to come to the Eastern Jin Dynasty and formed the "Beifu Army" with explosive combat effectiveness, that is, the main force that defeated Jian Jian in the Battle of Shuishui.
The soldiers of the "Beifu Army" had suffered a lot of suffering, and when they saw Jian Jian coming, they immediately took up arms and fought fiercely to the last moment. Because they understood that the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which was in a quiet corner, was the last flame of the Central Plains civilization and must not fall into the hands of the Hu people.
And the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the public, in the face of former Qin, a strong enemy, also temporarily put aside their past grievances and worked together to defend their homeland, and even Xie An, the former prime minister who lived in seclusion in Dongshan, also went out to the mountains to direct the battle, and also left an idiom of "comeback".
On the other hand, although Former Qin's military strength was far superior to that of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it was a ragtag group. Among the millions of troops, there were many forcibly recruited soldiers, these people were already tired of war, and there was no combat effectiveness to speak of, and among the soldiers who volunteered to participate in the war, there were also a large number of non-Qi troops, who did not have the same national beliefs and lacked loyalty to Former Qin.
From a certain point of view, the Battle of Shuishui awakened people's sense of belonging to their homeland. People suddenly discovered that the independent and long-standing Civilization of the Central Plains is the common wealth of the sons and daughters of China. Protecting the civilization and country to which they belong is the unshirkable responsibility of everyone, and this is also the most important internal motivation for the Han people to defeat Former Qin with fewer victories and more victories in the Battle of Shuishui.
Author: Guest author Zhu Yingyuejiang