Maling Road was the place where the famous Wei general Pang Juan died. His decades-long feud with his classmate Sun Bin was completely settled here. It is said that when Pang Juan was jealous of Sun Zhen's talents, he played a conspiracy to frame Sun Zhen and abolished his knees, Sun Zhen endured humiliation to survive, fled to the State of Qi, and did everything possible to win the trust of the King of Qi, hoping to use the power of the State of Qi to complete his revenge against Pang Juan and the State of Wei.
At that time, the State of Wei was one of the most powerful military powers in the world, and the Wei army was well-trained and brave and fierce in battle. As for the State of Qi, although it is a great power of ten thousand multipliers, the qi army's combat style is weak, and its combat effectiveness is relatively low, and if it is facing the Wei army, it is not very likely to win. However, Sun Zhi was not in a hurry, because he soberly analyzed the international situation and knew that the Wei state was poor and militaristic, and there were enemies on all sides, and several major powers of Qi, Qin, and Chu were dissatisfied with the Wei state. He just had to wait quietly, and the day of Wei Guo's self-destruction would soon come.
In the fifteenth year of King Xian of Zhou (354 BC), the State of Wei united with the State of Wei and the State of Song to attack the State of Zhao. Pang Juan led the Three-Nation Alliance to march directly to the Zhao capital Handan, hoping to destroy Zhao in one fell swoop. Zhao Guo was not an opponent, and only held the city to the ground while asking for help from the State of Qi. King Le of Qi wei sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight, and waited until Wei and Zhao had been fighting each other for more than a year, and when Handan was about to fall, he appointed Tian Ji as the main general and Sun Zhen as the military division, commanding the main force of the Qi army to save Zhao.
What followed was the drama of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao" planned by Sun Bing. He used the strategic idea of "avoiding the real and attacking the false, attacking it and saving it", and asked him not to go to the frontal battlefield of the Zhao state, but to lead the Qi army to quickly advance towards the Wei capital Daliang. The Wei army was outside, the country was empty, and Pang Juan had no choice but to abandon the city of Handan that he had just captured and return to the division to save himself. However, Sun Bing's siege of Daliang was only a cover, but in fact he set up an ambush at Guiling to intercept the Wei army that returned to help. The Wei army had exhausted its strength for many years of conquest, and it was exhausted and unprepared, and was defeated by the Qi army in the Battle of Guiling, and the hard-won city of Handan was also lost.
However, the defeat at the Battle of Guiling not only did not awaken the State of Wei, but on the contrary, it plunged the state of Wei into a frenzy of revenge. The monarchs and subjects of the State of Wei unanimously determined that the Qi people and Sun Zhen were sinister and vicious, taking advantage of the danger of others, despicable and shameless, and that we in the State of Wei had only accidentally suffered a conspiracy; They are still far from fighting with us.
After thirteen years of fierce fighting, in the twenty-eighth year of King Xianwang of Zhou (341 BC), the State of Wei once again launched a military campaign of heavenly scale—this time targeting Korea.
Everything seems to repeat the history of thirteen years ago: South Korea resists and asks the State of Qi for help; The State of Qi also waited for the State of Wei and Korea to be exhausted before coming to the rescue; Tian Ji and Sun Bin also did not go to Handi, and led the troops directly to the Wei state of Daliang, preparing to "encircle Wei and save Han" again.
The only difference is that Pang Juan was prepared for this. Before the expedition to Korea, King Wei and Pang Juan had established a strategic policy: if the State of Qi did not come to make trouble, it would eliminate Korea and increase its strength; If the State of Qi sent troops to the rescue, it would turn to attacking the Qi army with all its strength and seize the opportunity to annihilate the main force of the Qi army. Therefore, as soon as he found out the news that the State of Qi had sent troops, Pang Juan immediately left Korea and led the whole army to quickly kill back the State of Wei.
After Pang Juan rushed back to Daliang, King Hui of Wei gave him all the troops he had at hand to Pang Juan, ordered him to meet the Qi army, and asked Crown Prince Shen to accompany the army to take command. At this time, the Qi army had retreated to the east, but Pang Juan led the large army in hot pursuit, vowing to fight with the Qi army to the death. Seeing that the Wei army was coming fiercely, Tian Ji hurriedly asked Sun Zhi for advice. Sun Zhizhu was in his hands and said without hurrying: "The Wei people have always thought that the Qi people were cowardly and afraid of war, and I just took advantage of their prejudice to lure them into a deception with the tactic of 'luring the enemy deeper.'"
In order to fascinate Pang Juan, Sun Bing used the famous "stove reduction meter" to reduce the number of stoves built in the camp day by day. Pang Juan chased after Sun Bing's ass for three days, and every time he rushed to the Qi camp, he found that the number of stoves had decreased significantly. By the time of the third day, the number of Qi army stoves was only three-tenths of the first day.
"I knew that qi people were cowards and cowards. No, we chased them for three days, and the Qi soldiers had already fled for a long time. Pang Juan excitedly said to his subordinates, "This time we must eat them all, the shame of the Battle of Yixue Guiling!"
Therefore, Pang Juan abandoned the infantry, abandoned all the weights, and brought only a small number of light cavalry, and pursued the army day and night. Pang Juan did not know that his arrogance and rashness of the enemy had put him in a dangerous situation of no return. The next thing Sun Bin had to do was to set up an ambush according to the danger and fight a beautiful annihilation war.
At this time, the Qi army had been "defeated" and retreated to Maling near the border between Qi and Wei. The narrow roads and deep valleys here were suitable for ambushes, and sun bin chose it as a battlefield to eliminate the Wei army.
Sun Bin estimated the itinerary and decided that Pang Juan would arrive at Maling after dark. So he arranged for 10,000 qi soldiers who were good at shooting to ambush on both sides of Maling Road, and ordered them to "see the fire and shoot ten thousand arrows in unison"; He also ordered the trees to be cut down, block the road, leave only a towering tree next to the road, cut off a section of bark, and engrave the words "Pang Juan died under this tree".
Everything was arranged to stop, and that night, Pang Juan did chase after him with a light horse. After discovering that the road was blocked, Pang Juan personally went forward to inspect it. Seeing that there were faint words on the trees beside the road, Pang Juan ordered someone to light a torch to take care of it. "Pang Juan died..." Just after reading a few words, Pang Juan suddenly realized that he had been deceived.
But it was too late, the archers of the Qi army saw the fire, and they released their arrows together, and for a time the arrows rained down, and the Wei army was suddenly in chaos. Pang Juan quickly led his army to break through, but several times he was killed by the ambush troops of the Qi army, and he himself was hit by several arrows. Pang Juan knew that the defeat was decided, and in order not to be a prisoner, he had to sigh and draw his sword to kill himself.
After ambushing and killing Pang Juan, the Qi army took advantage of the victory to pursue, completely destroyed the wei army's follow-up troops, and captured the Wei prince Shen, achieving brilliant results. The defeated side of the Battle of Maling, the State of Wei, was seriously injured and lost the ability to compete with Qi and Qin for hegemony.
The Battle of Maling made Sun Bin famous in the world and reached the peak of his career. However, Sun Zhenyi, who had been revenge by heaven, soon quietly went into hiding.
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