What needs to be understood is that Qin's elimination of the Six Kingdoms is not 1V6, but 6 times 1V 1. This distinction is very important.
Destroying six countries in nine years, and destroying one country in one and a half years on average, basically has no cooperation between countries, so the wars in recent years have been fought quite smoothly, which can be regarded as the natural result of the past few encroachment wars.
An obvious fact is that Qin destroyed the six countries with its super mobilization ability, and the factors that decided the outcome of the war were not in the battlefield, nor in these nine years.
Before 23 1, it was the eve of the war to destroy the six countries.
The general order of the war to destroy the country is Korea first, then Zhao, and several key points will be discussed separately.
The first is the war to destroy Korea.
South Korea has been weakened to a few cities near Gyeonggi. Nestor, the general of Qin State, captured Xinzheng, the capital of South Korea, and captured Wang Han 'an. Korea has perished. The time is 230 BC.
Qin destroyed six countries without killing the kings of other countries, which is the remnant of aristocratic ethics in Zhou Dynasty. They are placed in a specific area and supported by the food city. The king of Qin will imitate the palaces of other countries and build them in Xianyang to show off his great cause of dominating the world.
Then came the battle to destroy Zhao.
When Qin attacked Korea, there was an earthquake and drought in Zhao, so in the second year after the death of Korea, Zhao was attacked. The duel that Wang Jian and Li Mu expected didn't come, and Li Mu died of Qin's double agent.
In 228 BC, Zhao was destroyed.
Destroying the country means that the society offering sacrifices to ancestors and Xiaomi offering sacrifices to Saturnalia stop serving, which is the case in Zhao State. Zhao Gongzi Jia fled to the border between the north and Xiongnu with a group of people to rebuild the political power. Dai is a remnant of Zhao, but it is no longer Zhao.
It is also a coincidence that Evonne, the biological mother of the King of Qin, died in the year when Zhao perished. Qin returned to his birthplace, Handan, found all the people who had bullied him, and took a hard revenge.
A mature politician does not necessarily have a mature personality, nor does he have the chivalrous spirit of revenge by virtue of power. So I instinctively feel that this kind of revenge is always awkward compared with Wu Zixu whipping the corpse of King Chu Ping and Sun Bin killing his brother Pang Juan.
Another great regret is that the expected peak confrontation did not happen.
If the battle is decided solely by the battlefield, I'm afraid Wang Jian will have to rely on far more than Zhao's strength to defeat Li Mu. Wang Jian himself knows this, but he knows better that winning the battle depends not only on the strategy and fighting on the battlefield, but also on the factors that determine the success or failure of the battlefield.
Wang Jian used double agents to let his opponent Zhao Weizhao directly solve the only Li Mu who can last his life, and let Wang Jian easily win Zhao. Wang Jian can defeat Li Mu with superior forces if he confronts head-on on the battlefield, but the pragmatism of war trumps grace, so we have no chance to witness the confrontation between these two famous soldiers at the end of the Warring States Period.
Speaking of Wang Jian and Li Mu, there is a saying about the history of China in Qian Zi Wen, an ancient children's enlightenment book in China, that "the headland is quite grazing, and the army is the best", and Tian Lei, Wang Jian, Lian Po and Li Mu are tied as the four famous soldiers in the Warring States Period. Tian Lei and Lian Po duel, but the prince of Zhao doesn't trust Lian Po, and Zhao is defeated.
Wang Jian and Li Mu were going to have a showdown, but Zhao Wang executed Li Mu, and Zhao perished. Li Mu is a headache not only for Qin, but also for Huns in the north. He used infantry against tarquin, and achieved a brilliant record of defeating Xiongnu with more than 100,000 troops. Later, the Huns dared not go near the border of Zhao for more than ten years.
Why can only Qin use double agents?
Here, I have a question that has always been very confusing, and I want to bring it up for discussion. Li died because the prince of Zhao was tricked by Qin. This is not the first time. Lian Po was removed before, and Chu was cheated repeatedly in the war with Qin. It seems that Qin has never been cheated by others, but has always been imposed by the other side, and the effect is very good. This is a very strange place.
Why do the six countries always behave like a group of retarded people, anxious when Qin's countermeasures are effective, and always interfered by hostile forces abroad? This is very strange.
I try to analyze this problem. Where is the counter-measure suitable for use? Is where there is a gap in strength. There is suspicion between the upper and lower levels, which is appropriate; There is no doubt between superiors and subordinates, but there is the possibility of doubt, which is appropriate. This is how Lian Po was deposed and later exiled. The same is true of Li Mu. Whether they win or lose, they pose a threat to the supreme power.
Leaving home is a military criterion and a guarantee for the generals to win the battle, because they have discretion and command and dispatch all by one person, but this military criterion violates the political criterion. Every monarch has an autocratic bully in his heart. He is strong enough to be a dictator like Qin Shihuang and Ming Taizu. If he is not strong enough, he can become an enlightened autocratic monarch like Emperor Guangwu and Emperor Wendi. If he is not strong enough, he can only be a prisoner like Emperor Xiandi and Liang Wudi.
Every monarch hopes to have a high-energy emperor like Yongzheng in the future. The power structure of the six countries in Shandong determines that there cannot be any super powerful bureaucrats and generals, which not only causes the monarch to be afraid, but also other oligarchs. The Prince of Zhao, judging from the effect of Li Mu's victory and the threat he may pose to the kingship and oligarchs, would rather destroy the Great Wall. We think this is short-sighted, and they may think it is a far-sighted antidote. In the power structure of Zhao State, the hereditary aristocrats and the new military groups in Handan rise and fall with each other, and it is difficult to coexist. The existence of Li Mu itself poses a threat to those nobles who think they are the real people of Zhao. It doesn't matter whether he wins or loses.
Among the six countries in Shandong, so are other countries. In the past, Zou Ji's lobbying was effective, because nobles were not infringed, and Qu Yuan's reform was made by relatives of Chu State, which was a game between nobles and oligarchs. Only Qin basically got rid of this power structure and became a pyramid-like authoritarian structure. The kingship is high above, and even nobles of similar blood are just servants.
The price of this structure is that this pyramid can easily become an inverted pyramid and is very fragile. As long as a monarch is unable to control many forces, the whole system will collapse and there is no room for repair. Although the six countries in Shandong have been destroyed, the remnants are still very strong because of their bloodline and aristocratic status. After Chen Sheng and Guangwu rose up, all six countries recovered the motherland in an instant, and the remnants of Chu, Xiang Yu and Liu Bangjun, burst into flames, and the soldiers were stronger than Ma Zhuang. From this point of view, Qin only eliminated the state of the six countries, but did not really eliminate the forces of the six countries.
Then it should be the battle to destroy Wei. But there was a small accident that changed the track of history a little bit, that is, Jing Ke stabbed the king of Qin.