Although Shangdang has 70,000 prisoners clearing wasteland, and there are also many family members who have entered one after another, there are many people. If there is no Hedong, it will be water without a source and a tree without roots! Hedong Shou was Wang Ji, the visitor of King Qin. The so-called Yezhao can be simply understood as the messenger of the King of Qin. The King of Qin's instructions are passed to the relevant officials through the Yezhao. Officials in various departments have requests for instructions and reports, which are generally handed over to the Yezhao, which is equivalent to the current position of secretary. , can also represent the King of Qin on missions to various countries, or receive envoys from various countries. Ye Zhe's position is not high, but his importance is not low. For Ye Zhe to serve as the governor of a county, Wang Ji seems to be the first person!
The counties of Qin are no better than other vassal states. Sometimes they are at the same level as counties, and sometimes they are even lower than counties, and are only equivalent to border garrison areas. In the Qin State, except for Guanzhong, the two-level system of counties and counties was strictly implemented in other places. A county was often a relatively independent strategic area, or a country. For example, Beidi County was the area where the Yiqu people originally lived. , Longxi County is the area where the Xirong people originally lived. The scope of the county governor's management is very wide, and the areas here are almost equivalent to a small king. In the Chu State, those who were sent out to serve as county officials were generally close relatives and important officials of the royal family. The State of Qin implemented a system of conferring military honors on military merit, and officials generally had to be officials above the fifth official to serve as county guards. Wang Ji was a visitor and could not have any military exploits. His only contribution was to rescue Zhang Lu from the predicament and recommend him to the King of Qin! The King of Qin took advantage of this achievement and directly appointed him as the governor of Hedong.
On the surface, the appointment of Wang Ji as Hedong Shou was to betray Zhang Lu's face, but the real inside story was to remove Bai Qi from the position of Hedong Shou!
Soon after the King of Qin arrived in Anyi, he appointed Bai Qi, the governor of Hedong, as the general, sent him to Changping to command the battle, and appointed Wang Ji, the envoy, to act as the county governor. At that time, in the eyes of ordinary people, Wang Ji's acting governor was actually the white glove of the King of Qin in managing Hedong. Wang Ji also dutifully stayed in the King of Qin's camp, rarely stationed in Anyi, and left all government affairs in Hedong to Pi Wan. Unexpectedly, after the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi returned to Xianyang with the King of Qin and fell ill. Wang Ji, who acted as the Hedong Shou, really became the Hedong Shou, and was given the privilege of not being counted for three years. Those who understand the inside story of Qin’s power know that behind this is the power struggle between Zhang Lu and Wu Anjun!
Wang Ji became the governor of Hedong, and Pi Wan was still in charge of the government affairs in Hedong; as Hedong was the logistics base for building the Shangdang, Pi Wan also had to coordinate and consider Shangdang affairs. This is not only the current strategic focus of Qin State, but also the work that Zhang Lu has repeatedly explained. At this time, the advantage of having a person who has been a visitor as a county guard becomes apparent. Wang Ji has a wide network of contacts in various departments in Xianyang and is familiar with the situation. Compared with Pi Wan, who has been engaged in local governance work for a long time, the business complementarity is very strong. The affairs in Xianyang can often be left to Wang Ji!
Wang Ji and Wang Ling received war preparation orders from Xianyang almost at the same time, which made Wang Ji and Wang Ling happy and worried. With a new combat mission, Wang Ji was gearing up to fight and win some military exploits; while Wang Ling was wary of fighting Zhao. When Yan fought with him, Wang Ling did not participate in the battle under Handan City; during the battle of Changping, Wang Ling only participated in the last two months of the battle. As the commander of Zhao Jun's Shicheng defense line, he had an intuitive observation of Zhao Jun's combat capabilities. The troops under his command have been unable to break through the Zhao army's camp in front of them, or they have been driven out again after breaking through. From the command post in Danzhuling, he witnessed the Zhao army's many strong attacks on the Qin army's fortresses. He was surprised by Zhao Jun's good fighting skills and wondered if he could hold on to the fortress if he was facing Zhao Jun. Fortunately, Zhao Kuo did not launch an attack on himself, but focused on attacking the strongest Wang Lu camp.
Throughout the Battle of Changping, the Guanzhong Army led by Wang Ling did not achieve much success. Relying on the collective military exploits of capturing Shicheng and annihilating the Zhao Army, he was promoted to a noble rank and became a Shangdang Shou. With a mentality of surviving a disaster, Wang Ling felt that life was uncertain; the tragic cries of 400,000 Zhao soldiers on their last night always rang in his heart, almost causing him to suffer an emotional breakdown. He did not take his wife and children to Shangdang, but only lived there with a few retainers, boys and servants. He rarely slept with the servants who came to him, and he gave all the beauties sent from the surrounding cities to his subordinates. After dark, Wang Ling would often drive all his concubines out of the house, lock himself in the room alone, and sit there blankly until dawn. After daybreak, he regained his dignity as a county guard and made decisive and unequivocal decisions in killing.
After Wang Ling received the preparatory order to prepare for the battle against Handan, his heart immediately sank. He called Li Bing and gave him the instructions, asking Li Bing to prepare the recruitment, equipment, baggage, food and other related matters. He only said that he would prepare a battle plan. Li Bing had dealt with Wang Ling in Changping. Wang Ling was the only fifth official in the Shicheng defense line. The Northland Army led by Li Bing was under the unified command of Wang Ling. After the battle, Li Bing was promoted to public transport based solely on his collective military exploits, and was transferred to Shangdang as a county lieutenant. Although Wang Ling was still the fifth official at this time, he was already a Shangdang Shou, and it was only a matter of time before he would be promoted to a noble title. There was no obstacle for the two to work together again.
Li Bing soon discovered Wang Ling's psychological obstacles, but he did not speak out. Instead, he carefully concealed them and tried his best to make up for Wang Ling's shortcomings with his own efforts. After receiving Xianyang's preliminary order, Li Bing felt great pressure. Changping currently has 70,000 men. If we want to attack Handan, sending all 70,000 men to the front line is probably not enough. But on the other hand, Xianyang requires him to send 20,000 to 30,000 men, which already accounts for the number of men in Shangdang. Nearly half of the people, almost one person from every two people will be selected to join the army. According to Li Bing's observation, Ding Zhuang, who had participated in the Battle of Changping and who had not participated in the Battle of Changping, had completely different mental states. Most of the Ding Zhuangs who had participated in the Battle of Changping were in a trance and depressed, and some were almost like walking zombies. The personnel that could be transferred could generally only come from the 50,000 prisoners later sent from Guanzhong. More importantly, Shangdang did not have enough knights to lead the army: those Guanzhong knights who accompanied the army had returned home after the war, and only a handful remained in Shangdang.
According to the mobilization mechanism of the Qin army, soldiers are generally prisoners, but officers at all levels, including corps commanders, should be soldiers and civilians with titles, even if they are white, but generally they cannot be prisoners. However, the Shangdang lacked officers, especially low-level officers, who could lead the prisoners. The only people who can hold these positions are the royal guards. But in this case, the core strength of the entire army is gone.
Although the pro-camps of officers at all levels also work in agriculture, they are generally professional soldiers and veterans with combat experience. For an army, nothing is more valuable than veterans who have fought in wars. When these veterans are gathered together, their combat effectiveness is far beyond that of a makeshift army, even if they are usually trained! During the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi sent all his own officers and soldiers to the army in order to be able to use the Chu people from Nanjun. This caused the Qin army to lose a formidable assault force. Otherwise, these 4,000 pro-camp alone would be enough to annihilate the 10,000 Zhao troops that Zhao Kuo finally invaded, and they would never even see Bai Qi. In the Qin army, not only the supreme commander has his own camp, but also commanders at all levels above the official level can have their own personal camp. Their strength is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of the troops under their command. There are ten senior officials and five official officials. Ten people, one hundred people for public officials, five hundred people for public vehicles, one thousand people for five officials, and the supreme commander of the entire army can have up to four thousand people. However, most commanders do not have enough ability to have so many loyal and effective soldiers, and only a few have the rated strength to support their own camps. For example, Li Bing, although he has been a public official for a long time and has now been promoted to public service, he only has a personal camp of about 20 people, and can barely be regarded as a bodyguard, and is basically unable to undertake combat tasks. If the commander has his own personal camp, then this unit will have the foundation to undertake arduous combat tasks.
Li Bing asked Wang Ling for instructions, and Wang Ling asked him to ask Hedong for help. Li Bing then wrote a private message to Pi Wan, asking him to recruit a group of knights from Hedong to follow him on the expedition. Pi Wan got Li Bing's letter asking for help and discussed it with Wang Ji. Wang Ji got what he asked for and immediately agreed, agreeing to send knights at all levels from Hedong. If he hadn't been the county guard, he would have wanted to go into battle himself!
In order to facilitate the army's advance, Pi Wan sent an engineering team to start building the road from Licheng to Pi Lao.
The road construction operation only lasted for about ten days, and Wu'an Order sent people over to negotiate with the Shangdang Shouwang Tomb: According to the agreement reached at the beginning of the year between Wang Hao and Wu'an Order Li Chong, the Qin army would not leave Licheng, and the Zhao army would not leave. The Qin people were building roads and had already left Licheng. Wu An was worried that the Shangdang did not understand the content of the agreement, so he came to remind them not to cause misunderstandings and cause disputes between the two countries. When Wang Ling received the Zhao envoy, he introduced to the Zhao envoy that in view of the close trade between Wu'an and Shangdang, the Qin people decided to repair the trade road to facilitate trade. Li Bing also proposed that Zhao could also build roads from Pi Lao to meet Qin's projects.
The Zhao envoy was not fooled and insisted on stopping road construction, otherwise he would report it to King Zhao and directly negotiate with King Qin!
Since he did not dare to betray his alliance with Zhao yet, Li Bing had no choice but to order a halt to road construction and adjust his personnel to transport supplies to Licheng. Once road construction resumes, it's full speed ahead. On the one hand, he reported to Xianyang and asked for instructions on the next step.
Midsummer has passed, and the autumn wind is beginning to pick up. The harvest season has begun in various places. For a month, neither Qin nor Zhao made any special moves. Seeing that after Lord Pingyuan returned to his country, Zhao had no intention of dedicating the city, so Zhang Lu decided to send an envoy to inquire and casually send Zichu autumn supplies.
Ten large boats, loaded with all kinds of food, supplies, and clothing, entered the Yellow River from the Wei River. After bypassing the dangerous shoals of the Yellow River by land, they were reloaded from Luoyang and sailed down the river to the outskirts of Handan.
Ten large ships can carry goods equivalent to one or two hundred carriages. The arrival of such a large amount of goods will naturally attract attention. The Qin envoy did not hide anything. Along the way, he claimed to be going to Handan to transport goods for Prince Chu, and accepted the six cities offered by Zhao.
