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Chapter 542: Qin and Zhao Alliance
The army's attack speed was much faster than expected. The army did not even encounter any decent resistance and went straight to Hangu Pass.

In fact, the Qin army's resistance was already very tenacious, and there were basically no living Qin soldiers captured.

The main reason was that all the Qin soldiers stationed in the city were old Qin people, and their families were all in Guanzhong. According to Qin law, if anyone dared to surrender, his entire family would be killed. So the Qin soldiers could only charge forward with the idea of certain death even though they knew they could not win.

But those originally insignificant civilians have now erupted with unimaginable power.

After all, the number of Qin soldiers stationed in each city is limited. Compared with the large number of civilians, the proportion of soldiers is only about one percent.

Originally, there was naturally no problem with such a ratio. These soldiers were enough to manage a city obediently. If the enemy attacked the city, these soldiers would rely on the city walls to guard and force some residents to take charge of various chores, so they could at least hold out for a while.

The Qin army has been doing this for many years. Although the residents who were forcibly captured could not go directly into the city to kill the enemy, they could still carry city defense equipment, clean the battlefield, make fires and cook, and provide logistical supplies.

It seemed that these inconspicuous jobs could be done by anyone, so neither the generals nor the Qin soldiers took these temporarily recruited odd jobs seriously.

But!
What Mencius said back then still makes some sense in certain circumstances.

A small city will be captured in one day, and a big city can only last until the next day at most.

Those logistical support tasks may seem insignificant, but once they come to a standstill, Qin Bing’s supply chain can be cut off in minutes.

There is no need for the residents to attack the Qin soldiers directly like those cities on the front lines did. They just need to hide and not be recruited to work!
After all, manpower is a very precious resource. Without the help of these logistical workers, just the work of making fire, cooking and delivering food to the city walls would be enough to cause a lot of non-combat casualties, not to mention all those miscellaneous chores.

It was obvious that the Qin army was playing at home, but they were beaten out of the away field. It was really speechless.

So when Wang Jian's army was still confronting Li Mu's army because the snow had not yet completely melted, the Tang army had already marched to Hangu Pass in a mighty force!

Fan Yuqi originally led only 100,000 men, but by the time he reached Hangu Pass, his army had grown to 350,000!
There was no other choice. After killing the Qin soldiers, receiving food from the Tang army and learning about the treatment of the Tang army, a group of people cried and shouted to join the army.

Firstly, in these days, the only way for ordinary people to cross the class barrier is to join the army. Secondly, if the Qin State continues to attack back, it will not distribute food and money to them like the Tang army did. Not only will it snatch all these things back, it may even massacre the city!
Regardless of whether it is for promotion or to prevent Qin from settling scores later, destroying Qin is the best option!

An army of more than 300,000 besieged Hangu Pass, and Xianyang was immediately in a state of emergency. This time not only the Qin State, but all the countries in the world were stunned!
When the Tang Kingdom was first established last year, everyone thought that this newly built country would not survive for long. Even though it had resisted several coalition attacks, everyone still did not take it seriously.

How could a guy who appeared out of nowhere be compared with them, the nobles who have been passed down for hundreds of years?
But suddenly, everyone was stunned by the speed of Tang's development!

The Wei State was now being bullied by the Tang State and had come to the outskirts of Daliang. If not for the fact that many residents in Daliang still remembered Wei Wuji's achievements, Daliang would probably have changed hands!

As for Chu, it is even more needless to say that if other countries are semi-feudal and semi-slave, then Chu is a complete slave system. Except for the nobles, no one else is considered a human being. Therefore, the slogan of killing the dog officials to welcome the Tang army is everywhere in Chu. The huge Chu can be said to be full of fire. In just one short winter, almost all of the northern Chu has fallen. The speed is so fast that even Li Si has no time to react.

If the states of Wei and Chu were brought down by someone simply spending money, then the failure of Qin made everyone terrified.

After all, spending money seems to be a piece of cake, and everyone thinks they can do it themselves!

Of course, it is impossible to ask them to distribute money directly to the untouchables for free like the Tang Dynasty did. Although the treasures in the treasuries of various countries are piled up like mountains, do you want them to give away money?
How can this be?

During the Battle of Changping, Zhao State's logistics could not keep up. It was said that even people in the capital Handan began to starve to death. But no matter whether it was the King of Zhao or the Lord of Pingyuan, there was never a shortage of food in their private granaries!
Never try to empathize with people of a different class because it will accomplish nothing except making you look ridiculous.

They just think that the King of Tang spends money like water. So much money can certainly buy those untouchables to fight for him, but once the money is spent, will those untouchables still fight for him?
It can only be said that people in later generations have understood one thing because of a century of humiliation, that is, if money is not spent to improve public morale or military armaments, it will have to stay at home as compensation!
But not to mention that no one would understand this concept more than two thousand years ago, even if they understood it, no one would have the heart to do it.

There are not many people in this world who are willing to spend real money!

"Qin and Zhao have actually begun to stop fighting now?"

Li Qingyuan was somewhat surprised to hear the latest news sent by Jingwei.

As we all know, Qin and Zhao were absolutely mortal enemies. In the Battle of Changping, Qin killed 400,000 young and strong men from Zhao, which can be said to have directly killed an entire generation of Zhao people. Every household in Zhao had a blood feud with Qin.

This is why even Li Mu could not control the revengeful behavior of his soldiers after Zhao occupied Shangdang. It would be strange if the Zhao people could remain calm in the face of the Qin people.

If Zhao continued to use its army to hold back Wang Jian in the Shangdang area, then Qin would most likely be destroyed in this battle.

So the Qin State immediately sent envoys to Handan to request a ceasefire, and by the way, wanted to invite the Zhao State to attack the Tang State together!
If we consider it from a moral point of view, especially from the perspective of the feelings of the civilians on both sides, it would be impossible to agree to such a request.

But it was obvious that the Qin envoy was quite capable. After some persuasion, King Zhao actually gave up the blood feud with Qin and instead prepared to send his soldiers to attack Tang.

"The people of Zhao are extremely angry about this meeting. The people of Handan are already boiling with resentment, but many of Zhao's nobles support the king's decision!"

It is true that the hatred between the people of Zhao and Qin was as deep as the sea, but for the nobles of the two countries, there was not much hatred between them.

After all, war is nothing more than a fight among the lower classes. For the King of Qin and the King of Zhao, what made them most angry was losing the war and losing face. So as long as the conditions were right, they could sit down and negotiate at any time.

(End of this chapter)