Soon after Duke Shi of Wei fled to Chen, he heard the news that his country had been destroyed by Zhao Xuan. After hearing the news, Duke Xie's eyes blackened and his mind buzzed. He never thought that serving as an emissary would bring about the destruction of his country.
"Your Excellency, the ministers of the State of Chen have advised their great king to hand over your Excellency to the State of Zhao. They say that the state of Chen cannot take in a scourge." Duke Shih's shepherd ran in through the door to report.
"Why did the Minister of Chen fall on his sword! Obviously, it was the Prince of Zhao who was ambitious and set up a trap to frame me, and he created an excuse to annex Wei out of nothing!" After a series of events, Duke Xie thought about it and finally realized the truth of the matter.
Half a month ago, on behalf of the King of Wei, Duke XI brought food, wine and beautiful women and men to reward Zhao's army, with the intention of pleasing Zhao Xuan. Before Duke Shi's departure, the King of Wei repeatedly instructed his youngest son not to offend Zhao Xuan in any way when he met him. When Duke Shi went to Zhao Xuan's camp, he was very careful and trembling.
Zhao Xuan's amiable and easygoing attitude, so that the spirit of the male son fit to relax, in the merry feast that night, the wine drink a little too much, the male son fit to the last consciousness is lying on the wine table to fall asleep, but when he woke up in the middle of the night, but found himself in the middle of an exquisite bedroom, and beside him lies a naked woman.
For his own last night may be with the side of the woman what happened, Gongzi fit at first did not think, nobles with the maid after drinking the night thing is quite common, a lot of hosts will be specially arranged for the home of the beautiful maid to stay with the guests overnight.
When Gongzi Xie couldn't call out to the servants who served him, he finally realized that something was wrong, the place he was in wasn't the royal palace of the Kingdom of Wei, nor was it the residence of the nobles of the Kingdom of Wei, it was the military barracks of the Kingdom of Zhao. It was impossible to have a woman in a military camp, unless it was the beautiful servant girl that Wei Guo had given to Zhao Xuan yesterday.
After thinking that he might have slept with Zhao Xuan's maid, Gongzi Xie didn't panic much, but was just a bit embarrassed. He was ready to meet Zhao Xuan and ask him to forgive him for his drunken rudeness. As compensation, Gongzi Xie thought that he could just go back to the royal palace and select a few more beauties to send over.
Gongzi Xie thought of a way to deal with the situation and got dressed to go to Zhao Xuan to make amends. When he arrived at the army tent, Zhao Xuan had already gone out for inspection, and Gongzi Xie only saw Zhao Wuzhai. After listening to Gongzi Xie's stammering apology, Zhao Wuzhai laughed and patted Gongzi Xie's shoulder, saying that it was just a servant girl, so Gongzi Xie should not take it to heart. Zhao Wuzhai's relief made the slight embarrassment in Gongzi Xie's heart dissipate, and he followed his old courtier back to the King of Wei's palace to resume orders to the King of Wei in peace.
Let Gongzi fit did not expect is that he and the old courtiers just after the delivery of the departure, Zhao Xuan sent a messenger, aggressive rushed to the King of Wei before the charge, the charge is the Prince of Wei insulted Zhao Xuan's favorite concubine, insulted the favorite concubine killed to cover up the crime, Zhao Xuan inspection back to find the body of the favorite concubine was furious, and sent a messenger to the King of Wei to ask for a lawsuit.
Although Gongzi Xie was the King of Wei's beloved youngest son, the King of Wei, in the face of Zhao Emissary's wrath, promised repeatedly to give his youngest son to Zhao Xuan to dispose of as he pleased.
The king of Wei is weak and afraid of things, the Prince of Wei but a cavity of anger, not to say Zhao Xuan so-called favorite concubine is Wei sent to the maid, is really Zhao Xuan's favorite concubine, but also because of a lowly woman to a country's son to ask for things, Zhao Xuan so much action to deceive people too much. If for a lowly woman, Wei will be their own country's son handed over to be disposed of, Wei in the future in front of the vassal states have any face? What dignity is there in Qin?
The Prince of Wei and the King of Wei argued on the spot in the royal court, and the nobles in the royal court were also divided into two factions, each with their own opinion. When the news reached the harem, the Queen of Wei, fearing that her youngest son would be handed over to Zhao to be humiliated, hurriedly sent a letter to Duke Shih, asking him to leave Wei to hide in Chen first, and then return to the royal capital when the matter had settled down.
Upon learning that his son had escaped from the state of Wei, the King of Wei apologized to the envoy of Zhao in a low voice and promised many gold, silver, jewels and beautiful women to compensate for his sins, only to ask Zhao Xuan to forgive Duke Shih for the sake of his youth and ignorance. When Zhao's envoy heard that Gongzi Xi had fled, he laughed three times on the spot and flung his sleeve back to the military camp to report to Zhao Xuan.
Zhao's emissary walked straight away, but the King of Wei didn't dare to leave the matter at that, he still had his old courtier bring a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry, and eight newly selected beauties, ready to send them to Zhao camp to make amends to Zhao Xuan. Before the old courtier's party with the gold, silver, treasures and beauties could get out of the royal capital, news of Zhao Xuan's attack on Wei's cities at the head of his army arrived. Zhao Xuan claimed that the King of Wei had sided with his son and refused to hand him over, and in order to clear his name, Zhao Xuan was going to take the capital of Wei and search it himself.
The royal city of Wei was broken after half a month's defense. The King of Wei led all the officials of the royal court out of the palace to surrender to Zhao Xuan, and the Crown Prince of Wei cut his own throat in the Crown Prince's Palace. The Zhao army fully occupied the state of Wei.
When Gongzi Xie first fled to the state of Chen, the king of Chen treated him with courtesy, and most of the civil and military officials of the Chen royal court sympathized with Gongzi Xie's plight. However, when the news of Zhao Xuan's destruction of Wei came, the attitude of some officials of the Chen royal court changed.
A part of the ministers felt that Zhao Xuan could not be allowed to destroy Wei because Chen was neighboring Zhao and Zhao would threaten Chen if it became powerful. These ministers suggested that the King of Chen should send his troops to help Duke Xie to restore his country and stop Zhao from sitting on the throne after he had annexed Wei.
A part of the royal court ministers were against it, they thought that the state of Zhao was stronger than the state of Chen, Chen had to use all its strength to defeat Zhao, and Chen didn't need to pay such a big sacrifice for a wrongdoing prince of a small state. These ministers thought that there was no need to worry that Zhao would become stronger and threaten Chen in the future. Zhao would not become invincible just because it had annexed a small state, and at that time, Chen could have allied with Chu to deal with Zhao. Chen and Chu were both among the six strongest states of Qin. With the alliance of the two strongest states, would they still be afraid of a single state of Zhao?
While the court of the King of Chen was divided into two factions arguing, Zhao Xuan sent an envoy to the State of Chen, claiming that Zhao and Chen had always been friendly, and that Zhao's use of military force against the State of Wei was due to a personal grudge between the royal families of Wei. Zhao Xuan repeatedly emphasized in the document that Zhao wanted to continue to be good neighbors with Chen for generations, and in order not to affect the good neighborly relations between the two countries, Zhao Xuan requested the King of Chen to hand over Duke Xie to Zhao.
With the arrival of Zhao Xuan's emissary, the radical ministers who suggested to help Gongzi Xie to restore the country quickly lost their position in the court, while the conservative ministers' voices rose, and more and more voices agreed with the content of Zhao Xuan's document. The Chen ministers who were close friends with Gongzi Xie hurriedly revealed the news to Gongzi Xie's servants.
"Duke, we need to leave Chen, Chen is not a place for Duke to board." Duke Suit's sherpa suggested.
"Leave the Kingdom of Chen? Where else can I go when I leave the Kingdom of Chen?" Gongzi Xie's eyes were red, the Queen of Chen's mother was the Princess of Wei, the aunt of the King of Wei, and the royal family of Wei was related to the royal family of Chen by marriage.
"Let's go to Chu, Chu and Zhao have always been at odds, if your son goes to Chu for refuge, I think the king of Chu will welcome your son." Since he couldn't count on the protection of his in-laws, he could only turn to the enemy of his enemy.
Taking advantage of the fact that the court of the king of Chen had not yet argued about the result, Gongzi Xie and his followers sneaked out of the city and went all the way south straight to the state of Chu.
Whether it was Duke XI who was choosing the country to flee, or the lord of Chen and his ministers who were seeking an alliance to fight against Zhao in the future, none of them put Wu within the scope of their selection; in their eyes, after the war, Wu was no longer a strong country, but a sickly and weak country that was struggling to protect itself.
Wu, which was considered by the neighboring vassal states as having a great deal of vitality and struggling to defend itself, had an exceptionally brave border defense force stationed at Qucheng. When Zhao Xuan led his army to withdraw from the border of Wu to attack the capital of Wei, Wei Qing led 2,000 cavalrymen to take down the border defense city of Wei without a word, occupying the throat of Wei leading to the border of Wu.
After Zhao Xuan annexed Wei, he learned that the mouth of the throat had been lost and hurriedly mobilized a part of his army to return and try to recapture the lost land. At this time, the heavens once again helped Wu, and the cold front from the north once again struck strongly, and the temperature suddenly dropped to the point of dripping ice. Wei Qing commanded the soldiers and people in the city to pour warm water on the city wall to make ice, and the not-so-hard-to-attack wall became an ice wall. The slippery ice wall had no point of gravity, so the Zhao army's siege ladder couldn't be set up, and the siege was naturally a waste of effort.
Zhao Xuan commanded his army to attack twice and found it difficult to attack the city, plus the weather was so cold that many Zhao soldiers started to get sick, so he had to temporarily retreat back to a small city stationed west of the mouth of the throat and prepare to wait for the weather to warm up before launching an attack.
"Crown Prince! The army is running out of food supplies." The report from Zhao's quartermaster disrupted Zhao Xuan's battle plan.
"Is it possible to levy grain and grass locally?" Zhao Xuan's mood was irritable, fighting Wei was smooth, but engaging Wu was always different.
"Can't!" The Quartermaster shook his head, Wei has had consecutive disaster years in the past few years, the common people of Wei have long been struggling above and below the subsistence line, the King of Wei has already sent his ministers to scour the country once in order to supply the Zhao army with food and grass, and the oil that can be squeezed from the common people has long since been squeezed out of the country.
"What about domestic provisions? Can they be shipped in as soon as possible?" The people of Wei were already counted as the people of Zhao, and Zhao Xuan surely didn't want to drive the local people to their deaths, so he could only count on the domestic grain and grass to be supplied.
"The roads are muddy and difficult to walk on, and it's really difficult to transport rations." The quartermaster continued to shake his head.
"How long can the army's provisions sustain the army today?"
"Twenty days at the most."
Zhao Xuan nodded, "You stand down, Lone knows."
While Zhao Xuan was worried about the army's provisions, Wei Qing was also worried about the army's munitions. The Wu army relied on merchants to deliver their provisions, and although merchants emphasized profit, they could not overcome the bad weather. Wei Qing is not worried about food and grass, but the supply of weapons and arrows, the North Marquis in the fiefdom hoarded food and grass, the quality of the hoarded weapons and arrows is not good, Wei Qing led the soldiers in the battle by the advanced weapons to take advantage of, if the supply of weapons in the Minghui Valley is not, the soldiers go to use inferior weapons and arrows, Wei Qing and Zeng You led by the army soldiers compared to the enemy, will not have an advantage, the face of the Zhao army is twice as much than their own, will fall in every place, and the army will not have the advantage. The Zhao army, which was more than twice as large as their own, was at a disadvantage.
The mouth of the throat has a very important strategic significance to both Wu and Zhao, occupying this place, the pressure on Wu's northwestern border defense will be much smaller, if you lose this mouth of the throat city, the border defense line that Wu needs to defend will be expanded twice as much. Wei Qing refused to give up this city until it was absolutely necessary. Wei Qing now prayed that the temperature would not turn warm, and relied on the ice wall to hold the city and wait for backup.
Just as Zhao Xuan and Wei Qing were both in a dilemma, Xihou bingtianed in the cold winter months.