Chapter 7 The third quarter Changping decisive battle

King Qin was very happy when he heard that Zhao Kuo had been replaced by the general of Zhao Guo, thinking that the good opportunity to defeat Zhao Guo had come.He appointed Bai Qi, a famous general of the Qin State, as the general, and Wang Yan as the partial general. He sent a large number of troops to attack Zhao, and formulated a combat plan to attack Zhao.He also ordered the entire army to keep secrets, and no one was allowed to disclose the news that Bai Qi was the chief general, so as not to attract Zhao Jun's attention. Aiming at Zhao Kuo's weakness of inexperience in combat and reckless underestimation of the enemy, Bai Qi decided to adopt a roundabout and outflanking tactic against the Zhao army, and made specific combat deployments: first, form a pocket position on the long wall, and use the main force to hold on to the camp. Prevent the Zhao army from attacking; second, use the troops on the front line as decoy troops, order them to retreat to the long wall when they are attacked by the Zhao army, and lure the Zhao army to go deep into the encirclement; third, arrange troops on the two wings of the long wall. 22,000 elite soldiers are going to insert into the rear of Zhao army by surprise, cut off its food road, and assist Changbi's troops to surround the attacking Zhao army; Zhao Jun was divided into two parts, so that Zhao Jun could not look at each other from head to tail.

In August 260 BC, Zhao Kuo, who acted rashly, commanded the Zhao army to launch a large-scale attack on the Qin army.The vanguard of the Qin army pretended to be defeated.Zhao Kuo didn't know the truth, so he ordered Zhao Jun to pursue him.Zhao Jun chased to Changbi, but met with strong resistance from Qin Jun.At this time, the 22,000 Qin troops deployed on the two wings immediately dispatched to the rear of the Zhao army and seized the west barrier (now the Hanwang Mountain Highland in the north of Gaoping County, Shanxi Province), forming an encircling formation. 5,000 cavalry also rushed in quickly, going back and forth to raid the Zhao army.Zhao Jun launched several attacks without success, so he had to build a camp on the spot, changing from offense to defense, and waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

The news of Qin's encirclement of Zhao's army spread to Xianyang, the capital of Qin State (northwest of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province today), and King Qin personally came to Hanoi (in Qinyang County, Henan Province today), and formed an army of all local males over 15 years old. Transferred to the Changping battlefield, occupied the highlands northeast of Changping, and cut off Zhao Kuo's reinforcements and food transportation.Encircled by the Qin army on all sides, Zhao's reinforcements were unable to pass through, and the army's supplies were also cut off.By September of this year, the Zhao army had been out of food for 46 days. The soldiers were so hungry that they killed each other secretly, and the situation was extremely serious.Zhao Kuo organized four breakout troops to beat drums and clash together in an attempt to open a way out, but they broke through four or five times in a row without success.In desperation, he decided to select an elite army, all put on thick armor, mounted on horses, led by him himself, and forcibly broke through.Unexpectedly, as soon as Zhao Kuo appeared in front of the formation, he was shot dead by the Qin army's random arrows.The Zhao army lost its chief general and had no one to command, and immediately fell into chaos.Qin Jun took the opportunity to launch a fierce attack and defeated Zhao Jun.The Battle of Changping ended with the victory of the Qin army and the disastrous defeat of the Zhao army.For the 400,000 Zhao troops who surrendered, Bai Qi buried them all alive!This is a typical example of the extremely brutal killing of prisoners of war in history.

In the Battle of Changping, the Qin army wiped out a total of 450,000 Zhao troops, and achieved a major military victory.This battle not only greatly weakened Zhao State, but also subdued the eastern countries, creating extremely favorable conditions for Qin State to complete the great cause of reunification later.The result of this war is that Qin wins and Zhao loses, why?From Qin's point of view, the implementation of "distance and close attack" isolated Zhao, and the use of countermeasures made Zhao replace the main general, and adopted correct strategies and tactics such as retreating to lure the enemy and dividing and encircling.Of course, these played a great role in the victory; but the more important reason was that Zhao's monarchs and ministers were reckless and self-willed, overestimated their capabilities, and rashly fought a decisive battle with a powerful enemy when they were completely unsure.The tragic failure of Zhao Kuo, a military strategist who "talked about war on paper", is an important historical lesson for all those who only talk about empty principles and do not pay attention to reality.