The History of China - #20 - Qin 1: There Can Be Only One

Episode Date: April 28, 2014

In this final conclusion of the Warring States Period, the King of Qin at last begins his campaign to destroy the other six kingdoms and unify China under a new dynasty. But he'll have to contend with military setbacks, tenacious defenders, and assassins who will do anything to stop him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 18, Part 2, There Can Be Only One. In Part 1, we covered Qin's war with Zhao, culminating in the horrific slaughter following the Battle of Changping Pass, in which some 450,000 Zhao soldiers were buried alive by the butcher of men, General Bai Qi. And though Qin was ultimately unable to force total Zhao capitulation. It was now on an irrevocable, unstoppable course toward Chinese unification, a goal made all the more clear by its occupation of Chengzhou and extermination of the last of the Zhou dynasty.

Now in Part 2, Qin finishes the job and brings the Warring States period to a climactic end. In order to best pursue its ultimate goal of Chinese unification, the Kingdom of Qin had developed a remarkably devious set of foreign policy initiatives. It was based on three principles. 1. Maintain good relations with the distant and powerful states, Qi and Yan. 2. Suppress the growth and power of its strong neighbors, Wei and Shu,

and 3. smash its weaker neighbors, Zhao and Han, in short, divide and conquer. This policy had been put into place by the new, young king of Qin, Ying Zheng. Born in 259 BCE and enthroned at only 13 years of age in Q47. His reign had begun following the unexpected death of his father, King Zhuangxiang, but due to his extreme youth, his advisors had set up a regency to rule in his name until the king's 22nd birthday in 238. But once King Ying Zheng took up the reins of power in his own right, there was no looking

back. Just two years after he began to rule, he renewed Qin's assault on Zhao, in which, in spite of gaining a reprieve of some three decades, he still remained severely weakened from the devastation of the Battle of Changping. Nevertheless, the army of Zhao, led by yet another of our four great generals of the Battle of Changping. Nevertheless, the army of Zhao, led by yet another of our four great generals of the warring states, Li Mu, put up a fierce resistance. General Li had built his reputation and career along the northern border of Zhao, which is to say against the terrifying horse warriors of the Xiongnu clans. Like his predecessor, Lian Po, he had quickly learned that

offensive maneuvers into the wilds of the Asian steppes is a great way to get real dead, real fast. Thus, like General Lian before him, he had based his career around brilliant defensive tactics, and, like Lian, was repeatedly accused of bald-faced cowardice for it. Nevertheless, the fact that his strategies had so crushingly defeated the last Xiongnu invasion force to dare cross Zhao's border that they wouldn't try again for 30 years pretty well earned him the good graces of the King of Zhao. His mastery of defense made him the number one expert in countering, delaying, and bleeding the advancing Qin army at every turn. But it turned out, even that would not be enough. The superior maneuverability and numbers of the seemingly endless Qin waves

broke against Li Mu's much smaller defensive lines. Slowly and inexorably, he was driven back further and further into Zhao. And by 232 BCE, in spite of a legendary rearguard defense, Li Mu's army was effectively able to only protect the capital of Zhao itself. The rest of the kingdom was lost. Zhao effectively out of contention, Qin then turned towards the other prime target, Han, or at least the vestigial rump that still remained. It was the Minister of the Interior, Teng, who had lead the Qin division across the Yellow River and into Han in 230 BCE,

encountering very little resistance to their advance. There was, frankly, virtually nothing and no one left to resist. By year's end, the Qin detachment had not only besieged, but outright captured Han's capital city, Zheng. Seeing the writing on the wall, King An of Han had opted to surrender to the forces massed outside of his walls in order to spare himself and his people. Just like that, the seven warring states became six, and what had been the kingdom of Han would ultimately be reorganized into the Yingchuan Prefecture. But back in Zhao, General Li Mu was somehow still managing to resist what ought to have been the overwhelming might of the Qin northern expedition.

Attribute it to a career built on repelling some of the most terrifying barbarians in history, perhaps, or maybe just a stubborn refusal to admit the cause was lost. Whatever it was, it was really beginning to get under the King of Qin's skin. Seriously, how could this war not be over yet? Han has already fallen, but we can't take a single northern capital? Fortunately for King Yingzhen, force of arms was not the only weapon at his disposal. He now turned to subterfuge, all with the goal of getting that pesky, too resilient for his own good General Li Mu out of the picture, and getting on with the conquest of Zhao. As the agents of Qin had done

with the former commander-in-chief of Zhao, Lian Po, they once again started a smear campaign against the stalwart Li, bribing,ing cajoling and even threatening outright officials surrounding zhao's king to convince him that lee mu held far too much power and was in fact plotting a rebellion against him Now highly concerned with the concentration of power Li Mu possessed, ordered his top general to relinquish command of his armies to his subordinates, Zhao Cong and Yan Zhu. But General Li knew that Qingqian were, you know, in the middle of a war, one that's not going well, one we haven't lost yet only because of everything I'm doing, things my lieutenants can't manage themselves. Li refused to give up command, and in spite of it being objectively the right call, that only served to confirm to King Qin his general's treachery. He ordered his men to take Li Mu by force and execute him for treason.

And with Li Mu, so too died any chance for Zhao against Qin. His lieutenant, Zhao Cong, though a competent commander, was nowhere near up to the task of keeping the many balls Li Mu had been juggling in the air. He would prove easy enough to outthink and outmaneuver, especially inheriting such a dire, frankly unwinnable situation. It would have taken a strategic genius to pull off anything but abject defeat, and that genius just got his head lopped off by his own paranoid king. For its part, Qin learned of Limu's execution in 228, and immediately redoubled its efforts against Zhao. They first laid siege to one of the only cities other than Handan still under Zhao control, Dongyang, and crushed the meager attacking force mustered to break it.

The attack, led by Zhao Kong himself, resulted in the new Zhao commander's death and further turmoil for the kingdom. A mere seven months later, Handan itself, which under Li Mu had resisted the absolute worst Qin could throw at it, fell. Zhao would become the second casualty of the unification war, though King Qian's younger brother, Prince Jia, would escape with a remnant force and established what he called the Kingdom of Dai, which would manage to hold out for an impressive six years, before ultimately being subsumed by Qin. With Han and Zhao now fully incorporated into Qin, the next obvious target, both in terms of relative strength and,

hey, since we're now sharing a border and all, was the northernmost state, Yan. So in 228, the main thrust of Qin's northern expedition stationed themselves in chung shan which had been consumed by his top ministers to forge alliances with Qi, Chu, heck, even that splinter state calling itself Dai, and to make peace on any terms with the Xiongnu, anything,

just to strengthen their borders against that Qin invasion that was set to occur pretty much any day now. But while the king weighed his options, his son, the crowned prince Dan, felt a more direct approach to yen's salvation was necessary even if his father managed to secure all the alliances he was seeking a dubious proposition at best rather than avert it. Winning against Qin could not be done by fighting its body,

but Prince Dan reasoned that striking at the beast's head could bring the whole monstrosity down at once. And so, the Prince of Yan dispatched his trusted agent, Jing Ke, to carry out the assassination of the King of Qin. Agent Jing had a near-perfect set of talents for this mission. He hailed from a portion of Wei that had been absorbed into Qin, so he would not seem out of place at the capital. He was a learned scholar, at home in the company of officials and royalty, and above all, he was an expert swordsman. But gaining an audience with the King of Qin, much less getting close enough to land a killing blow, would be no simple feat. It would require gifts, valuable gifts. And Prince Don knew of just the pair.

First, a detailed map of the Dukang region in Yan, a fertile farmland and likely Qin's first target for conquest. The second gift took a bit more work, the head of a traitorous Qin general, Fan Wuji, who had deserted Qin and fled to Yan, thus earning a price on his head of a thousand gold pieces. The prince and the general met and discussed the plan to kill the king of Qin, and, both convinced of the plan and seeking any form of revenge against Qin he could, Fan Wuji agreed to help by committing suicide, though his head could be presented. Records of the interaction indicate that this was, though encouraged, not a compulsory act,

and it was willingly committed by General Fan. The final gift for the king of Qin was to be presented only after the first two. Concealed within the map scroll, the sharpest possible dagger Prince Dan could have forged, laced with a potent poison to ensure even a minor nick would seal the king's fate. Prepared, Jingke set out for Qin in 227 BCE, accompanied by his assistant and fellow assassin, Qin Wuyang. The pair sent messages ahead, notifying the king of their arrival, their peaceful intentions, and the gifts they brought. Well, the first two anyway. King Yingzheng was pleased to hear of their arrival, and granted them an immediate audience.

Upon entering the king's presence, though, they hit their first road bump. Jingke's assistant was dumbstruck and all but paralyzed, either overawed by the majesty of the palace, or maybe just getting cold feet over the upcoming assassination. It was such an awkward situation that Jing Ke found himself needing to repeatedly explain and excuse his friend's behavior as him being a simple country peasant who had never seen the world before.

So, yeah, he wasn't about to be of any help. Undeterred, Jing Ke presented Ying Zheng with the head of his traitorous general. Delighted, the king then inquired as to the map of Yan that had been announced. He summoned Jing Ke to his throne and bid him unroll the scroll so he could see the contents. The time had come. Unfurling the map, Jing Ke seized the poison dagger and struck at the king of Qin, but ying zheng showing remarkable agility dodged the strike and fell back away from his attacker the slash had been so close however that he lost a sleeve of his robe in the process he fled on foot pursued by jing ke all the while attempting to unsheathe his own blade but the ceremonial weapon on his hip was too long to easily unsheathe while running for one's life.

Worse yet, the interior of the palace was a weapons-free zone, for specifically this reason, and all of the king's officials were unarmed, while the palace guards were stationed outside, too far away to render assistance to their imperiled king. As the pair circled around a pillar, the royal physician hurled his medical bag at Jing Ke, striking him in the head and giving Ying Zheng the few strides of space he needed. He shifted his scabbard behind him and drew the overlong sword from behind his back, just in time to slam its edge down into Jing Ke's thigh as the assassin approached, rendering him immobilized.

In a desperate final attempt to complete his mission, he hurled the dagger at the king of Qin, but missed the mark completely. Now injured and disarmed, the king approached his would-be murderer and stabbed him eight more times, mortally wounding him. And like the paid mooks they were, it was only now that the palace guards managed to show up to finish off Jing Ke and execute Qing Wuyang as he fled. Well done, security team, well done. Qing Yingzhang had a bit of a sit-down, as one is wont to do after the adrenaline rush of a near-death experience. But when at last he stirred from his throne, one thing was very, very clear. Yan would pay for this assassination attempt,

no matter the cost. Ying Zheng would see that kingdom ground to dust before him. In 226, Qin's fury was unleashed, as expected, beginning with the Dukang region, which its army now had a handy map of. The Qin and Yan armies clashed along the eastern banks of the Yi River, where Yan was, to no one's great surprise, soundly defeated. Crown Prince Dan led a force to protect Yan's capital city, Ji, or Yanjing, better known today as Beijing, but it was no use. Yan's capital swiftly fell to the Qin army,

and both King Xi and Prince Dan were only barely able to escape north to the Liaodong Peninsula. The whole way, the Qin army pursued closely, and when the Yan royal bodyguard was forced to pause to cross the Yang River, the Qin struck again, trapping the bulk of the army against the riverbank and annihilating them. Though the royal family managed to make it across the river, King Shi knew all was lost for his kingdom and people. In desperation, he ordered the unthinkable, the execution of his own son, Prince Dan, and sent his head to the King of Qin as an apology for the assassination attempt, along with a plea for peace. Over in Xinyang, King Yingzheng accepted the offering

and called off his armies. After all, Yan was all but destroyed regardless, reduced to a rump state on the border of Korea, and Yingzheng, quite frankly, had much bigger fish to fry. The time had come for Wei, the last Qin standing and longtime thorn in Qin's side, to fall. Wei, however, would require a bit more finesse than the straight-out attacks on Han, Zhao, and Yan. After all, Chu still loomed large in the south, and might well take the opportunity to conduct a massive broadside on the Qin army as it attacked Wei. Showing a level of military thinking that displayed just how vastly superior the Qin army was to any other state in the region, the Qin high command had a fairly straightforward solution to such a conundrum. The Qin army would only be vulnerable on its flanks once it had

engaged Wei directly. So the easiest way to guard against a surprise attack by Chu would be to preemptively invade and conquer ten cities in the north of the Chu kingdom, and have them serve as a defensive barrier against further Chu interference as Wei was conquered. Simple, right? All of this, the conquest of Chu cities, garrisoning them, and then turning north into Wei, would require, according to the calculations of Qin's general Wang Ben, upwards of 600,000 soldiers, to which King Yingzhang said something to the effect of, yeah, sure, no problem. The sheer numbers are mind-boggling for a 3rd century BCE military. To put them into some kind of perspective, this same century, on the other side of the world, the army of the Roman Republic would be absolutely crushed by Hannibal of Carthage at the Battle of

Cannae in 216 BCE. This enormous Roman army boasted a mere 86,000 soldiers that faced off against some 50,000 Carthaginians. Taken together, not even a third of what Qin was purported to be mobilizing for this operation. I say purported because, once again, the only real guesstimates of these numbers come from Sima Qian, and he had quite a few reasons to bend the truth by tacking on a few hundred thousand soldiers here and there. So take those numbers as you will. The preemptory invasion of Chu's border went off without a hitch, and quickly the main Qin force had turned north and struck toward Wei's capital, Daliang. Here was the first real test of the Qin's siege stratagem, because Daliang was just about as hard a target as could be envisioned.

Protected on three sides by the confluence of the Sui and Ying rivers, the side of Daliang's impenetrable outer walls that faced land was blocked by a wide moat, and all five of its entrances accessible only by drawbridge. When under attack, it would become essentially an island, totally inaccessible to a besieging army. But General Wang Ben knew his history, and specifically the history of the Three Jins. As had been the case during the partition of Jin, where water flowed, it could be turned into a potent siege weapon. But General Wang wasn't planning to use something so small as the River Fun like in the days of Yor. No, he was into thinking big, and so he instructed his

siege engineers to begin diverting the Yellow River itself directly into Dalyang by strategically destroying the untamable river's protective dikes. The work took three months to accomplish, all while the rest of the Qin army maintained their siege of the capital. But despite the effort, it proved a fantastic success in the end. Dalyang was engulfed by the rampaging waters and heavily damaged. The uncontrollable flooding was estimated to have killed at least 100,000 residents, both military and civilian. Qingjia of Wei was forced to surrender to Qin, and the kingdoms of China were now down to four. By 224 BCE, the kingdom of Chu was a shadow of its former self, and ripe for conquest

on the heels of Wei's destruction. Once again, King Yingzheng asked his top general Wang Ben how many men he would need to conquer the southern state, and once again Wang replied 600,000. But here, a younger general piped in, Li Xin, claiming he could conquer Chu with a third of that number. Intrigued, King Ying Zheng gave General Li command and his 200,000 soldiers. Wang Ben, rather humiliated at being passed over, retired to his home, citing illness. Li Xin's strategies initially proved quite fruitful, and he was able to take the cities Pingyu and Qingyu in short order. As the Qing force pressed inward, however, they could only afford to leave token forces in either of the cities,

and not long after the bulk of the army left, rebellions began popping up. All the while, the main Chu army continued to keep its distance and refused to engage directly. It was waiting for the opportune moment, which came when the Chu army launched a night attack on the Qin encampment, coordinated with the rebel units to cut off the Qin's rear. Lixian's force of 200,000 was ambushed and destroyed by Chu's defenders, the greatest numerical setback Qin would ever experience over the course of its conquest. But while any other state would have made peace and licked its wounds after losing 200,000 soldiers in defeat,

the lesson King Yingzhang took away from this was simply that Wang Ben had been right all along, and more men were needed. The king apologized to General Wang and asked him to command his 600,000 men to secure Chu. Wang, of course, the ever-loyal general, agreed, and led his army back to occupied Pingyu, where he established a defensive perimeter and waited. Sure enough, the now emboldened army of Chu attempted to launch yet another surprise attack under cover of darkness, but more than prepared this time, the Qin force easily repulsed the Chu's offensive. The orders from General Wang were absolutely clear. Hold position and maintain

defense. Do not be goaded into attacking or pursuing when and where the Chu army wanted. Chu's commander, Xiang Yan, tried time and again to lure his enemy out of position, but they would not budge. Ultimately frustrated by the Qin army's refusal to bite at his lures, Xiang finally ordered the Chu army to decamp and retreat to find another way of forcing the Qin out. Little did he know, he'd just found one. As the Chu forces pulled back, Wang Ben ordered his soldiers to attack on his, not Xiang's, terms. In the resulting pursuit and battle, the Chu commander was killed and his army shattered. With little left to protect it, the Chu's new capital, Shouchun,

quickly joined its old capital, Yin, in becoming additions to the Qin kingdom in 223. King Fu Chu surrendered his crown, and the vast area would ultimately be reorganized into the Qin Empire's Kuaiji Prefecture. And just to cap off this astounding success in the field, General Wang immediately turned his vast army around and marched it to Liaodong Peninsula in the far north, finally bringing an end to the Yan remnant in 222. The former Yan kingdom would be reorganized into the Yuyang, Beiping, Liaoxi, and Liaodong prefectures. And then there were two.

Qin had long maintained a friendly face toward Qi, liberally greasing palms of every official and minister it could to keep its King Jian neutral and the powerful state from banding together with any of its weaker brothers as Qin picked them off one at a time. But as 221 BCE rolled around, it slowly dawned on King Jian and the rest of Qi that there was no one around left to help, and no one left to keep Qin's attention. No one except, well, them. By this point, of course, it was far too late. Though its armies were hurriedly mobilized to fortify the western border, the reality of the

situation was that no border was secure anymore. To the west, the Qin. To the north, Qin. To the south, Qin. And to the east, well, the Pacific. If anything, it's amusing that the King of Qin even bothered with giving a cosses belly, since such a thin veneer wasn't fooling anyone. But regardless, the reason for war came when the king of Qi refused to meet with a Qin envoy. Qi's heavily defended western border was almost casually skirted by Wang Ben's army, which simply diverted north through what had formerly been Yan, bypassed the Qi military entirely, and then plunged south headlong into the capital,

with almost no resistance. The king of Qi, taken by complete surprise at the enemy army knocking on his city door, was persuaded to surrender his throne in exchange for his and his subjects' lives. He had already lost, and he knew it. Thus, Qi,

the last of the seven warring kingdoms of China to stand against the might of Qin, went out with a whimper rather than a bang. The Warring States period was, after two centuries of brutal conflict and wholesale slaughter, at last at an end. His victory total and his unification of China complete, King Yingzhen of Qin established the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE to replace the former Zhou Dynasty. But unlike the Shang and Zhou kings of old, he was no mere monarch. Seven kingdoms required a king of kings, and so he proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

China's ancient era was over, and its imperial era, which would last until 1911, had begun. As his capital, Qin Shi Huang chose Xiangyang, on the outskirts of modern Xi'an. His would be a new China, a better China, and one not burdened by its past mistakes, whether the people liked it or not. But we'll get into that next time, as the first emperor of China remakes his nation in his image. Thank you for listening. 30-day trial of the service. With over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player, Audible is the nation's leading seller and producer of spoken audio content. The History of China podcast is available for download and subscription through SoundCloud,

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