Chapter 46 45 King Qin destroys the six kingdoms

Qin Wangzheng killed Jing Ke, and immediately ordered General Wang Jian to step up the attack on Yan State.Prince Dan of Yan led his troops to resist, no matter who was the opponent of the Qin army, he was immediately beaten by the Qin army.Yan Wangxi and Prince Dan fled to Liaodong.Qin Wangzheng sent troops to pursue him again, but he refused to stop until Prince Dan was captured.King Yan was so overjoyed that he had no choice but to kill Prince Dan and apologize to Qin for peace. Qin Wangzheng asked Wei Liao for advice.Wei Liao said: "Korea has been annexed by us. There is only one generation city left in Zhao State (now Yuxian County, Hebei). King Yan has fled to Liaodong, and they are almost finished. It is cold now, why not go to conquer Wei Guohe in the south first. Chu State."

Qin Wangzheng followed Wei Liao's strategy and sent Wang Jian's son Wang Ben (sound ben) to lead an army of 100,000 to attack Wei first.The king of Wei sent someone to ask for help from the state of Qi, but King Jian of Qi ignored him.In 225 BC, Wang Ben destroyed the state of Wei, captured the king of Wei and his ministers, and took them to Xianyang. Then, Qin Wangzheng planned to attack Chu.He called the generals to discuss it, and first asked the young general Li Xin how many troops he would need to attack Chu.Li Xin said, "It's only two hundred thousand." He asked the old general Wang Jian again.Wang Jian replied: "Chu is a big country, and it is not enough to use 200,000 people to attack Chu. Yichen estimated that 600,000 must be."

Qin Wangzheng was very upset and said: "General Wang is old, why is he so timid? I think General Li is right." He sent Li Xin to lead 200,000 troops to the south. Seeing that the king of Qin would not listen to his opinion, Wang Jian reported his illness and went back to his hometown. Li Xin brought 200,000 troops to the state of Chu. As Wang Jian expected, he was defeated. Many soldiers were killed and injured, and seven generals died, so he had to flee back. Qin Wangzheng was furious, dismissed Li Xin, went to Wang Jian's hometown in person, asked him to come out to lead the army, and said, "I was wrong last time, and I didn't listen to the general. Li Xin really made a mistake. This time, the general must be called in." "

Wang Jian said: "Your Majesty wants me to lead the army, and it must be 600,000. Chu has a large land and many people, and it is not difficult for them to mobilize a million troops. I said we will send 600,000 troops, but I am not afraid. That's enough. If it's less, it won't work." Qin Wangzheng smiled and said: "This time I listened to the general!" He gave Wang Jian 600,000 horses.On the day of dispatching troops, he personally went to Bashang to serve Wang Jian wine to see him off. " Wang Jian's army attacked Chu State mightily.Chu State also mobilized all troops to resist.

Wang Jian went to the front and asked the soldiers to build barriers so that they would not be allowed to fight.Xiang Yan, the general of the state of Chu, challenged him again and again, but he ignored him. After a while, Xiang Yan thought: "Wang Jian was stationed here." He didn't pay much attention to Qin's army.Unexpectedly, when Xiang Yan was not on guard, the Qin army suddenly launched an offensive, and 600,000 horses rushed past like mountains and seas.The soldiers of the Chu State seemed to be slapped on the head in a dream, resisted for a while, and ran for their lives.The soldiers and horses of the Chu State fought less and less, and lost more and more places.The Qin army fought until Shouchun (now west of Shouxian County, Anhui Province) and captured King Chu of Chu.

Xiang Yan heard the news that the king of Chu had been captured, crossed the Yangtze River, and wanted to continue to resist.Wang Jian built many warships, trained the navy, and crossed the river to pursue them.Xiang Yan felt that the situation was over, sighed, and drew his sword to commit suicide. After Wang Jian destroyed Chu, he returned to Xianyang.His son Wang Ben took over as general, and then he went to clean up Yan.Yan Guo was already very weak, how could it withstand the attack of the Qin army.In 222 BC, Wang Ben destroyed the Yan State and captured the last remaining Dai City of the Zhao State.

By this time, there is only one Qi country left.The Minister of Qi State has already been bought by Qin State with a lot of money.Qi Wangjian never dared to offend Qin.Every time the princes asked him for help, he always refused.He fully thought that Qi State was far away from Qin State, and as long as he listened to Qin State's words wholeheartedly, he didn't have to worry about Qin State's attack.When the other five countries were annexed by Qin State one by one, he became anxious and sent troops to guard the western border. But it was too late. In 221 BC, Wang Ben led hundreds of thousands of Qin soldiers from the south of Yan State to Linzi like Mount Tai.At this time, Qi Wangjian felt that he was alone, but the other vassal states were finished, where could he go to ask for help?Within a few days, the Qin army entered Linzi, and Qi Wangjian surrendered without saying anything.

The princes of the six countries only wanted to maintain their own positions, and attacked each other, wanting to use other countries' land to compensate for their own losses, trying to maintain a small-scale separatist regime, and giving Qin the opportunity to defeat each other.At that time, Qin not only had advantages in politics, economy and military, but more importantly, it conformed to the historical trend of unification, so in less than ten years, the six countries were wiped out one by one. Since the beginning of the Warring States period in 475 BC, after more than 250 years of disputes among the vassal states, the long-term separatist regime finally ended and a unified multi-ethnic feudal state - the Qin Dynasty was established.