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In early 632 BC, Duke Wen of Jin led the main force of the Jin army to approach the Jin-Wei border. He used Cao Gonggong's rudeness to himself as an excuse to requisition Cao Guo, borrowed from Wei Guo, and was rejected by Wei Chenggong. Jin Wen's troops crossed the Yellow River around the Nanhe River (南津, in present-day southern Qi County, Henan, and north of Yanjin County), then took the opportunity to capture Wulu (present-day southern Puyang, Henan) and at the same time marched into The Imperial Guard (present-day southeast of Puyang, Henan), leaving the Jin army about 30 kilometers east of the Wei capital Chuqiu, about 120 kilometers east of Qizhi Grain, and about 80 kilometers south of Cao Du Dingtao.
According to this, the Jin army forced the Wei capital in the west, the Chu army in the east to defend the grain, and the southern Cao state, which was in a favorable strategic position. Duke Wen of Jin then carried out diplomatic activities here, and held an alliance with Qi Zhaogong in Shuomeng to make a good alliance with the State of Qi. Wei Chenggong saw that Jin and Qi were united, and wanted to request an alliance with Jin, but was rejected by Jin Wengong. Wei Chenggong had no choice but to appeal to Chu, but was opposed by the people and expelled from Weidu.
The Jin army then easily occupied the entire Weiguo. The Wei state was attacked and destroyed by the Jin, which caused a great shock among the princes, and the State of Lu was originally an ally of Chu, who had sent troops to aid the guards, and at this time also turned to maintain an equal distance from Jin and Chu. Duke Wen of Jin took advantage of this favorable situation and unified his army to attack Cao in the south. In March of the same year, he conquered taoqiu (陶丘, in modern Dingtao, Shandong), the capital of the Cao state, and captured Cao Gonggong, the ruler of the cao state.
The Original Intention of the Jin Army in attacking Cao and Wei was to lure the Chu army north, rescue Song Wei, and wait for the opportunity to maneuver to annihilate the enemy. However, the Chu army was not moved, and instead stepped up the siege of the Song capital Shangqiu. Therefore, Song Chenggong sent Men Yin to Jin for urgent help. This made Jin Wengong feel a dilemma: "The Song people are in a hurry, and if they give up, they will never give up." Tell Chu not to allow it, I want to fight Qi, Qin Wei can not, if not." That is, if you do not send troops to help, you will not only be sorry for the courtesy of Song Xianggong during the Song Dynasty, but also inevitably lose Song, an ally, and damage your plan to dominate the Central Plains; but if you send troops to help, the strategic intention of inducing the Chu army to fight a decisive battle in the land of Cao and Wei will be frustrated, and in the case that Qi and Qin have no intention of engaging Chu, their own troops are limited, and it is difficult to win against the Chu army under conditions far from the mainland, and this also violates the oath with the King of Chu in the past.
To this end, The Duke Wen of Jin once again summoned the ministers for consultation, and the new marshal Xianxun carefully analyzed the situation and suggested that the State of Song should be ostensibly estranged from the State of Jin, and then the State of Song would come forward and send generous gifts to Qi and Qin, who would mediate and request the withdrawal of the Chu army. At the same time, the State of Jin gave part of the land of Cao and Wei to the State of Song to strengthen the determination of the State of Song to resist the Chu army.
Xianxun further pointed out that the Chu state was originally allied with Cao and Wei, and now that it saw that Cao and Wei's land was occupied by Song, it would definitely refuse the mediation of Qi and Qin. Since Qi and Qin had accepted the generous gifts of the Song State, they would complain that the Chu State did not listen to the persuasion, so they stood with the Jin State and sent troops to fight against Chu. Jin Wengong was quite appreciative of this plan and immediately implemented it one by one. King Cheng of Chu did not accept the mediation of Qi and Qin, and Qi and Qin were greatly annoyed when they saw that Chu did not give themselves face, so they sent troops to help Jin.
Qi and Qin were both great powers at that time, and their abandonment of the neutral stance not only brought about a major change in the balance of power between the Jin and Chu sides, but also a huge change in the strategic posture, that is, the Chu state was in an unfavorable situation with a long front, an empty rear, and three sides of the enemy. It can be seen from this that Duke Wen of Jin won a crucial victory in the pre-war plot and the struggle to cut down diplomatic relations, while King Cheng of Chu made Chu passive because of his rash refusal to mediate and the promotion of the unification of the three kingdoms of Jin, Qi, and Qin.
King Cheng of Chu saw that the three great powers of Jin, Qi, and Qin had formed an alliance, and the situation was obviously unfavorable to himself.
He took the initiative to withdraw the Chu army directly under him to Shendi (申地, in modern Nanyang, Henan), and ordered Uncle Shen, the grand master of Shu Shou (穀邑) to leave the State of Qi quickly, and asked Yin Ziyu to withdraw the main force of the Chu army from the Song State to avoid direct conflict with the Jin army. He warned Ziyu that Jin Wengong was not an idle figure, and should not be underestimated, and that everything should be done according to one's ability, and that it would be appropriate to stop at the right time, and retreat in spite of difficulties.
However, Ziyu was proud and conceited, and could not listen to the advice of King Cheng of Chu at all, and still insisted that King Cheng of Chu allow him to fight a decisive battle with the Jin army in order to eliminate the rumors about his incompetence in command, "If you dare not have merit, you are willing to use the mouth of the emperor to be stubborn"; and asked King Chu Cheng to increase his troops.
King Cheng of Chu was dissatisfied with Ziyu's insistence on fighting the Jin dynasty, but he was indecisive and tried to win by chance. Therefore, he did not resolutely stop Ziyu's approach, nor did he allocate sufficient decisive troops to Ziyu, "less with his division", and only sent a small number of troops such as Xiguang, Donggong, and Ruo Aozhi's sixth pawn to reinforcements. This indecisive and indecisive approach undoubtedly had an extremely negative impact on the outcome of the future Battle of Chengpu.
After Ziyu received reinforcements from King Cheng of Chu, he strengthened his determination to fight against the Jin army. In order to find an excuse for a decisive battle, he sent the emissary Wanchun to the Jin army camp, deliberately proposing a harsh "truce" condition to the Jin army: the Jin army withdrew from Cao and Wei, and let Cao and Wei restore the country; the Chu army accordingly lifted the siege of the Song capital and withdrew from the Song state. Zi Yu's proposal was really ill-intentioned, and it gave Jin Guo a big problem.
If the State of Jin agrees, it will make the three kingdoms of Cao, Wei, and Song grateful to Chu, which is "Chu's words determine the three kingdoms"; if the State of Jin does not agree, then Song Wei will not understand, Cao and Wei will not return, then the three kingdoms will complain about Jin and kiss Chu, "Chu has three Shi, I have three grievances", which is equivalent to "dying in one word" The three kingdoms, not only the three kingdoms complain about themselves, but even other princes will accuse Gui jin of being rude and accumulating too many grievances, so how to break Chu's hegemony? This meant that the Jin state should give up the struggle for hegemony in the Central Plains and order the efforts of the princes.
However, Duke Wen of Jin was not overwhelmed in the end, and he adopted a more clever countermeasure from Xianxun: on the one hand, he would make a plan, and on the premise that Cao and Wei would break off diplomatic relations with the Chu state, he privately agreed to let Cao and Wei restore the country; in addition, he detained the envoy of the Chu state, Wanchun, in order to provoke Ziyu to come to seek war.
Zi Yu saw that the emissary was detained, and Cao and Wei betrayed their faith and rebelled against Jin, and they were really ashamed and angry, relying on the superiority of the combined forces of Chu, Chen, and Cai, and rushed towards the Jin army in a menacing manner, seeking a strategic decisive battle.
Seeing that the Chu army was approaching Cao Du Taoqiu, in order to avoid the Chu army's sharp edge, he chose a favorable decisive battle opportunity, lured the enemy to go deeper, and then took the initiative to "retreat", so he ordered his troops to take the initiative to "retreat" and retreat north to the area of Chengpu (城濮, in present-day Linpuji, Pu County, Henan).
When the Jin army retreated, the military officials thought that it was a disgrace to hide from the ministers of the Chu state as the king of the Jin state, and the Chu army was tired and did not need to retreat. Jin Wengong said, "In the past in Chu, about three retreats, can be doubled (back)!" This means that this is to keep the promise made to King Chu Cheng. In fact, the Jin army's "retreat and avoidance" was an important and wonderful move for Jin Wengong to grasp the initiative and seek to defeat the enemy, and it won the initiative politically -- "the king retreats from the crime, and the song is on the other side", which has won the sympathy of public opinion. Militarily, it created superiority -- it was convenient to meet with the armies of Qi, Qin, and other allied countries and concentrate its forces; it was conducive to stimulating the mood of the Jin army's generals to fight and break the enemy; it was necessary to first take the battlefield and wait for work, etc., thus laying a solid foundation for the Jin army to attack later and win the decisive victory.
In response to the jin army's active retreat, many people in the Chu army felt that things were strange and advocated holding a heavy standby and stopping the pursuit. However, Ziyu, who was self-conscious, believed that this was a good time to gather the Jin army and retake Cao and Wei, so he waved his troops to track and pursue them to Chengpu. At this point, the Jin army had fully grasped the initiative in the battle, while the Chu army had completely fallen into strategic passivity, and its defeat was almost inevitable.
After the Jin army retreated to Chengpu, it was stationed, and the armies of Qi, Qin, and Song also arrived in the vicinity one after another to plan the actions of the Jin army. At that time, the strength of the Jin army was about 700 multipliers, while the strength of the Chu coalition army was 1500 multipliers, and in terms of strength, the Jin army was at a significant disadvantage.
For this reason, Jin Wengong still had some concerns, plus he had a strange dream the night before: he dreamed that King Chu Cheng was lying on his body and eating his brain, so he was worried that the Jin army would not be sure of victory, and he was also worried about the past favor of defeating King Chu Cheng in the decisive battle with Chu, so he had the idea of retiring. Fox Yan and Luan Zhi promptly intervened to dispel these hesitations of Jin Wengong, "Zhan Ye! If the war is victorious, it will win the princes; if it is not successful, the mountains and rivers in the table will be harmless", which means that if the war is won, it will dominate the Central Plains; in case of defeat, the Jin state will not be afraid of the danger of the mountains and rivers, and it will not be afraid of the enemy's attack. He also pointed out that "Hanyang Zhuji, Chu Shizhi, favor small favors and forget great shame", is inappropriate. Jin Wengong then finally made up his mind to go to war.
To this end, he actively deployed troops and sent soldiers to cut down trees to "benefit his soldiers". After the preparations were made, Jin Wengong reviewed the troops and believed that morale was high, the combat readiness was sufficient, and they could fight with the Chu army.
On the part of the Chu coalition forces, preparations for a decisive battle are also actively underway. Ziyu divided the Chu army and the armies of Chen and Cai into three armies: center, left, and right. The Chinese army was the main force and was under his direct command; the right wing army was composed of the armies of Chen and Cai, with weak combat effectiveness, commanded by the Chu general Zishang; the left wing army was also the Chu army, commanded by Zixi.
Zi Yu arrogantly declared that "there will be no Jin today" and sent someone to send a very arrogant and rude battle book to the Jin army, demanding the Battle of Japan. The Jin army had long been confident about this and was ready to fight, so that a major war that was of decisive significance to the course of Spring and Autumn history after Qi Huan's hegemony was about to erupt.
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