Wei Wuzu, who left a strong mark on history, was severely weakened in the Battle of Huayang and was reduced to the security force of Daliang. Although Daliang Wei's official position and rank remained unchanged, his power was not as good as before. Some people in the Wei Dynasty who have entered the military service as officials have begun to look for other opportunities. Others made remonstrances to the court, asking the King of Wei to recruit and replenish the soldiers, but they were like nothing. Both King Wei and Lord Xinling seemed to be more interested in Qin's civilian army. The newly appointed general Jin Bi, as well as the generals promoted from the military soldiers, were all sent to train the civilian army, and no one cared about the military soldiers anymore.
Because Si Mang served as the middle camp of Lord Xinling in Huayang and assisted Lord Xinling in commanding the rear army in battle, he was promoted to a high rank and became a school captain. At the same time that Zheng Anping was appointed as the commander, Si Mang was also appointed as Xinling Wei to manage Xinling's military affairs. When Lord Xinling met with Si Mang, he told him that in addition to maintaining law and order in the territory, he also had to undertake the task of training all the people of the city - this task was never the responsibility of local guards and lieutenants in Wei.
Xinling Lord's fiefdom, Xinling, was a city of 100,000 households, with a standing guard or security force of about 1,000 people. The job of the lieutenant is usually to manage these thousand people, to prevent bandits and bandits in each township, and to detect lawlessness. When Lord Xinling goes out to fight, he is responsible for following Lord Xinling's instructions to recruit the best people in the city to go with him. But the task given to him by Lord Xinling was to train 100,000 people of the city so that no matter they were strong or weak, they could all fight as long as they were small! This made Si Mang feel a huge challenge. Si Mang requested to redeploy more manpower, but was told that the military soldiers were already short of personnel and could not be redeployed. He could only train a thousand people in the standing army first, and then train others after they became proficient in fighting skills.
When the Battle of Huayang suffered a disastrous defeat, Lord Xinling did not participate, and neither did Si Mang. But the annihilation of all the Wei soldiers still gave him a heavy blow! In his opinion, even if one soldier cannot be equal to ten, there is always no problem in replacing one soldier with another. However, all 25,000 soldiers were killed, and the total losses of the Qin army were estimated to be less than 10,000. This was completely beyond Si Mang's expectation.
Si Mang wanted to find someone to understand the situation at that time, but almost all the soldiers who participated in the battle were killed on the battlefield. The general Mang Mao who commanded the battle and his Mang family were missing. Si Mang had a vague feeling that the destruction of the soldiers might be related to some conspiracy of the Mang family, but there was no basis for it. The disillusionment of faith in martial soldiers dealt Si Mang a very heavy blow. Even the training methods were questioned. Originally, according to his idea, as long as he trained these thousand standing soldiers into half-level soldiers, and then let them train the Yi people into 30%-level soldiers, it would be enough to defeat the Qin army and complete Lord Xinling's mission. But the current situation is that professional soldiers are no match for the Qin army. So how to train to defeat the Qin army? No one answered his question.
When the Qin people asked the Wei army to send troops to assist in the war, Si Mang took the initiative to lead the troops there, hoping to find training ideas from within the Qin people. He reported his thoughts to Lord Xinling, and Lord Xinling took the initiative to ask the King of Wei for a war, willing to send ten thousand troops from his fiefdom to fight on Wei's behalf. Naturally, the King of Wei had no objection, and specifically asked the Prime Minister of Wei, Wei, to prepare all the grain, equipment, and livestock needed by Lord Qi Xinling so that there would be no shortage. Wei Qi naturally knew that the role that King Wei obtained from the Qin people was to serve as a transport team and not to participate in the battle. The so-called food, livestock, and equipment were originally meant to be provided, but now they were just doing a favor, and it was all considered as a favor to Lord Xinling. bona fide!
During the march, the Qin and Han armies advanced side by side. The Wei army led by Si Mang followed at the end of the team. When they camped, the Wei army also formed an independent camp. Si Mang desperately wanted to see the Qin army develop its combat effectiveness, but failed to do so. observed. When passing the former army's camp fence, he also tried to evaluate the differences between the Qin army and the Korean army from the perspective of a professional officer, such as whose camp arrangement was more reasonable, whose pits were dug more standardized, and whose camp was tidier. , but no special findings were found. However, after a few days, he felt a strange phenomenon: his troops seemed to be more willing to enter the original Qin camp than the Korean camp. Walking in front of the Wei army were the Qin and Han armies, each with 10,000 troops. For the Han and Qin armies, the following armies will choose to garrison at the barracks of their front army; but when it is the Wei army's turn, they do not have a queue for both armies to advance together, so they can choose to garrison at the barracks of the previous Han army or Qin army. . The Wei army always chose to garrison the Qin army's camp. At first he didn't pay attention to why, but later he discovered that the Han army's side usually smelled worse, while the Qin army's side smelled much better. After careful observation, he found that there was no feces around the Qin army's camp, while there was a large amount of filth accumulated around the Han army's camp. So Si Mang found the first advantage of the Qin army: digging holes to bury soldiers when they defecated. This is not included in the training syllabus for Wei Wuzu. After discovering this, he also ordered Wei Jun to dig a pit before defecating and bury it with soil after defecating. There was some resistance at first, but soon everyone discovered the benefits: the place they live in doesn’t stink so much! In less than a month, all Wei troops strictly implemented this discipline.
After entering Jin, Si Mang still set up an independent camp. The Qin army had "evacuated", while all Han troops marched into Lanyu, preparing to capture Lanyu city. For a whole month, Si Mang lived in the city where Hu Yang and Gongzi Jiu lived. Due to the need to comprehensively defend this settlement, the Wei army could not choose a suitable camp to live in as before, but had to arrange garrison troops according to the needs of the defense strategy. Si Mang found that even in the city, the Han army in the west still defecated everywhere, while the Qin army in the east basically went to the toilet. This puzzled Si Mang: Is there any relationship between defecation and combat effectiveness? No matter what, he still ordered that anyone who urinates or defecates after entering the city must go to the toilet. Orders were carried out.
After entering the lake, the temperature dropped significantly, and rain and snow came one after another. The people who fled to the mountains could not survive and came back one after another. Si Mang asked to be treated well. At first only the old people came back, then slowly the men came back, and finally the women and children. In about ten days, the entire Jidi regained its popularity and smoke began to curl up.
After the people of Ji came back, Si Mang discovered another advantage of the people of Qin: they did not destroy things, but used them more carefully. Specifically, in the Juyi where the Qin people were stationed, there were fewer disputes about property damage; in the Juyi where the Han army was stationed, there were more disputes about damage to property. Although these disputes are not major and will not cause much impact, they involve a lot of energy. This made Si Mang even more curious about the management and training of the Qin army! He issued another order not to damage the property of the city where he lived, and any damage would be compensated! After the order was issued, he obviously felt that the relationship between Wei Jun and Shi Ren had become much more harmonious. Although their dialects are different, they can communicate much better by making gestures and guessing.
Shortly after the Han army entered Lanyu, Prince Jiu brought a message to Si Mang. The Han army wanted to rest and recuperate in Lanyu for the winter, while the Wei army also rested in Jin. He said that the Qin army had left Shangdang. If it could securely occupy Shi and Yanyu, the King of Han would definitely praise him greatly. Therefore, if Si Mang was asked to help, all the needed supplies could be obtained from Shi. If civilians were needed, It can also be requisitioned in Ji, and South Korea will definitely acknowledge it. Si Mang looked at this favor and felt funny: I am stationed in Ji, and I want to levy food, supplies, and people. What can you do to me? However, he still expressed his gratitude to Gongzi Jiu for his kindness, but stated his own difficulties and his determination to overcome them and persevere until spring! Si Mang was a little worried at first, and all the people fled. As the people of Ji returned day by day, Ji's harvest could still support them through the winter, so he decided to stay in Ji for a long time to spend the winter! Apart from anything else, it is always good to save tens of thousands of stones of grain and hundreds of thousands of stones of fodder.
Just when Si Mang was preparing to spend the winter with peace of mind, he suddenly reported that Zhao Jun was coming for reinforcements! This made Si Mang nervous. If we go deep into a strong area and are attacked by a large army, our 10,000 poorly trained militiamen will not be enough to defeat them! He sent someone to ask Zhao Jun how many reinforcements there were and where they were. Before anyone could report back, the alert people reported that the valley was bustling with people, as if countless people were coming. Si Mang immediately beat the drums and ordered all the Wei troops to assemble, so that the Ji people could prepare their weapons and prepare to resist. The latter move turned out to be very necessary in hindsight: these militia armed forces were naturally unable to deal with large armies, but they were very effective against scattered broken troops. As a result, many places in Jidi escaped the fate of being robbed by broken troops.
After the defeated troops entered Shi, they were disarmed by Simang and concentrated in several towns. Si Mang did not make things difficult for the defeated troops who disobeyed orders and allowed them to pass through the city, but was not allowed to stop at Shi. As more and more Korean officers entered Shi, more Korean troops stayed in Shi. Si Mang gathered the officers in the city, preventing them from contacting the soldiers, and asked them about the battle situation in Yanyu. An officer who had experienced the war introduced the course of the war to Si Mang: The main reason for the failure was that it was too late to seize Beishan. The reason why the Zhao army was able to occupy Beishan in advance was entirely because the Zhao army in the north was cold-resistant and dared to go bare in the winter. As they walked up the mountain, Han Jun, wearing thick winter clothes, was still shivering from the cold, so he naturally took action a step late. As for the battle at Lianyu, the officers were very tight-lipped and no one was willing to go into details. However, the people below inquired some information from the Korean soldiers. Fortunately, the Korean army did not resist at all and prepared to retreat early. However, due to panic, the retreat turned into a rout! After Si Mang heard this, he couldn't help shaking his head.
In just one day, Shi took in more than 20,000 Korean troops. Si Mang asked Ji Ren to prepare a hot meal for them. Then it was announced that those who were willing to leave would receive a bucket of food and leave. Those who were unwilling to leave were assigned to work as handymen in each camp. In order to prevent the troops from breaking up and causing trouble, all the soldiers did not carry long weapons when they left. They only carried a short stick at the eyebrow level for self-defense. Officers were allowed to carry swords. After another day, all the soldiers who were able to walk left. There were only some injured soldiers who were unable to walk. There were about more than 5,000 soldiers. Si Mang asked them to take care of and feed the livestock.
