Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora
Chapter 890 – Battle of Fei River
(PS: This Chapter is about the background story of the Battle of Fei River. If you do not like it or you understand this part of history, you can just skip it.)
6th month, 16th day, China region’s various media all reported in detail the Stone City vassal state matter at eye-catching positions or at the front page.
At this very moment, a System Notification suddenly spread across the China region.
“System Notification: China Region has successfully upgraded 30 Grade 2 Prefectures, activating the Battle Map system, 7th Battle Map, the Battle of Fei River, will start in three days. Friendly Reminder: the Battle of Fei River is not a compulsory Battle Map quest, and only Grade 2 Prefectures Lords have the rights to register and join.”
…
Currently, only around 50 territories in China were left, and even the lowest one was Grade 1 Prefecture. Grade 2 Prefecture was the average. As for Di Chen and the others, who had upgraded to 1st class Marquis, their territories had upgraded to Grade 3 Prefecture.
However, it was important to note that a huge gap existed between 1st class Marquis and the Duke rank. Not to mention Di Chen, but even Feng Qiuhuang’s merit points were only at 400 thousand, which was less than half the requirement.
It seemed like China giving birth to its second Capital City was really far away.
Ouyang Shuo felt complicated about the Battle of Fei River. In the last life, the China region did not develop so quickly. As such, before Ouyang Shuo revived, the Battle of Fei River was the last one.
This meant that in the following battles, Ouyang Shuo would not have an advantage anymore.
…
The Battle of Fei River occurred during the 383 year AD, and the former Qin army sent out troops to Jin and engaged in the Battle of Fei River. In the end, the East Jin used 80 thousand troops to beat 1.12 million former Qin troops.
The former Qin army had the absolute advantage but lost to East Jin, so their country fell into chaos and the various tribes broke away from their rule, forming the Later Qin and Later Yan regimes. East Jin used the chance to go north and push the border into the Yellow River. In the following years, East Jin did not face any outside interference.
…
To talk about the Battle of Fei River, one needed to talk about the special historical background of the Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasty.
The Wei and Jin Southern and Northern dynasties were also termed the Three Kingdoms Two Jin 16 States Northern and Southern Dynasty. From Cao Pi to the Sui Dynasty destroying Chen and unifying China, a total of 369 years elapsed.
That time was the period where regimes changed the most often, and wars happened frequently. In just 300 years, there were 30 odd big and small regimes replacing one another.
The Wei and Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties replaced the Han Jin and was replaced with Sui Tang. During this period, it was really chaotic. During such a period, the Wei and Jin philosophy school arose, Taoism and Buddhism rose, and Greek and Persian culture entered China.
During this period, the king system changed. The Sui and Tang System was developed and formed during this point of time, and its influence continued all the way to North Song.
265 AD, Sima Yan replaced Cao Wei and built a new regime, country title Jin, based in Luoyang, ending the Three Kingdoms and unifying the nation.
Unfortunately, this unified regime only lasted for a short while.
After destroying Wu, West Jin’s nobles were really corrupt and politics got really dark. At this time, the aristocratic families took control.
During this time, there were also many nomadic tribes that moved in and were kept as slaves by aristocratic families. At that point, Guanzhong and Liangzhou’s tribes took up half of the local population.
As too many people had migrated in, West Jin perished and chaos began.
299 AD, West Jin started the war of the eight princes, lasting for seven years. The people who were brought in took the chance to become soldiers and take arm, resulting in the turmoil of the five northern minorities.
This turmoil started since the destruction of West Jin and lasted until Northern Wei unified the north.
This period was a huge catastrophe for the Han Chinese. During this period, the north and south was split and in a standoff.
The five non-Han races referred to the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Qiang and Di races. The former Qin king Fujian in the Battle of Fei River came from the Di race.
357 AD, East Sea Prince Fu Jian started a coup, removing former Qin emperor Fu Sheng and ascending to the throne. He changed the rule title to Yong Xing.
In the following 30 years, Fu Jian used Wang Meng and other people to build a strong nation with a strong army. They wiped out former Yan, former Liang and Dai, finally unifying the north and formed a north and south divide with the East Jin.
Fu Jian was a really remarkable ruler and no emperor in the Jin Dynasty could compare with him.
Whilst destroying former Yan, former Liang and Dai, Fu Jian did not kill the captured emperors and prime ministers. Instead, he treated them really well.
This was probably because of his magnanimous character but more due to strategic considerations.
As the Di race was just a small race tribe in the north, how to control the other races was a big problem. Facing such a scenario, he was not willing to cause problems by killing them. As such, he opted to control them and even gave them power to lead troops.
The involved people included Murong Chui, Yao Chang, and the like.
Ironically, after the former Qin lost in the Battle of Fei River, Murong Chui escaped back to the former Yan to reestablish his rule. Murong tribes’s children armed themselves and caused carnage all around while Yao Chang also rose up and finally killed Fu Jian.
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375 AD, Wang Meng died. Before his death, he said to Fu Jian, “Although Jin is in the desolate and secluded Wuyue, it’s still a proper empire. It gets along with its neighbors and is a treasure ground. I do not wish for you to attack and capture the Qiang people when I’m gone. I have hatred for them, but it would cause problems for us, so let’s slow down to prepare for the future.”
Wang Meng’s words made sense.
After wiping out former Yan, former Liang and Dai, former Qin had amassed huge spoils of war. To digest all of this was not easy.
The difference in culture between races would require time to mesh.
The small Di race conquering the north was like a snake eating an elephant. Logically speaking, the snake should focus on producing acids to digest the elephant. To swallow a rhinoceros before it finished digesting the elephant was obviously a bad idea.
Wang Meng was worried about the digestive ability of the snake, so he said those words.
Helplessly, the rise of Fu Jian was a story of a continuous success; this made him really confident, and he believed that his good luck would not run out.
Fu Jian happily thought that there would be nothing wrong with swallowing a rhinoceros.
Unifying the world was a huge temptation, and it was one that Fu Jian could not resist. Hence, seven years after Wang Meng died, Fu Jian felt like the time was right, and he decided to attack East Jin.
378 AD, former Qin increased their attacks on East Jin.
That year, former Qin mobilized 170 thousand troops and split into four to attack East Jin. Xiangyang City defended for a year before falling, and East Jin Yong Provincial Governor Zhu Xu was captured.
Based on how Fu Jian treated captured prisoners, Zhu Xu became a former Qin official.
This Zhu Xu did not give up hope, turning into a high level spy and was hugely destructive in the Battle of Fei River.
383 AD, the former Qin emperor Fu Nian decided to go all out to conquer East Jin, ordering 1/10th of his men to join the army.
He also wanted all horses, be it public or private ones, to be provided to the army to use.
Hence, he gathered 870 thousand troops. Amongst which, there were 270 thousand cavalry. Apart from that, there were the 250 thousand vanguard forces led by General Fu Rong for a total of 1.12 million troops.
That time, East Jin only had three to four million people, so less than hundred thousand of them were soldiers. However, compared to the million soldiers of former Qin, the East Jin’s hundred thousand were many times stronger.
The main force of the army was the north house army, which mainly recruited refugees.
Why refugees?
After West Jin fell, the north refugees entered the south and a portion lived south of the Changjiang, becoming normal people. However, there were many who still lived north of the Changjiang, and they had their own organizations and equipment.
In ancient times, escape was not an easy matter and was really dangerous.
Whilst escaping, everyone would wear their best things and keep their most valuable items in their bags, making them the best targets to rob.
In the chaotic times, bandits were everywhere, and one would just rob you of all your things and throw you to a side. Armies also robbed refugees.
Apart from bandits and such armies, even the Jin officials had ideas about them.
For example, East Jin’s Xiyang Prince Sima Yang let his men disguise as bandits to rob refugees in Hubei. Not only one of two of these princes did that, but it basically became a pretty good business. Even the famous Zu Ti did this before.
When Zu Ti first reached Jiangnan, he did not have many riches. One day, he invited a lot of officials to his house and showed many treasures, “Do not be shocked, I got lucky in Nantang yesterday.”
Logically speaking, he was not a bad person, and he led the army up both and died in Henan. The locals built a temple for him and many people prayed to him.
The key was that doing that was simply too tempting. A bunch of fat sheep lying outside, why should one just let them go? Anyways, one had knives and spears in hand, so why not just rob them?
As for whether or not the lives of the sheep would be affected after they were robbed, it was not their concern.
Even refugees would rob one another, and refugees without weapons easily became the victims of other refugees.
Under such a situation, the refugees gathered together under the leadership of their leader. Regardless of who dared to rob them, they would go all out.
The leader was known as the refugee commander.
With that, the refugees became an independent military force.
All the refugees who went down south had been through chaos and learned really quickly, having really good fighting ability.
To not put them in battle was a huge waste.
377 AD, Xie Xuan amassed large amounts of refugees and built the north house army.
Under the leadership of Xie Xuan, the north house army trained hard for many years and quickly became the most elite force in East Jin, the strongest force in the entire China.
Six years after Xie Xuan built the north house army, the Battle of Fei River began.
Discussing about it in a neutral manor, Fu Jian sent 1/10th of his men. At the time, this ratio was not high. Ratios higher than that were not rare either.
However, Fu Jian used that ratio in the entire former Qin, from Hebei to Sichuan, Shandong to Gansu, which created a huge problem.
They did not have any iron roads or carts, and they did not have many carriages for these soldiers. As such, they could only rely on their legs. Under such a circumstance, if someone did not take anything and walked empty handed, they could walk 40 kilometers if they walked for eight hours a day.
But as soldiers, they would all bring items with them, and the paths would not be so straight.
Based on historical information, Alexander the Great’s army could walk 25 kilometers a day. The Roman army could also walk 25 kilometers a day, and if they were fast, they could even walk 30 kilometers a day.
But the former Qin army was not professionally trained, so it was rare for them to even be able to walk 20 kilometers a day. It was during a chaotic time, so the paths were not well kept.
If one bumped into a river, it was worse. Without bridges, they could only use ferries. Even if one did not consider all these, for one soldier to rush to the Zunhe region, it would take two months.
The problem was that Fu Jian rushed his war preparations. He ordered them in the 7th month, so logically speaking, an order would take a month to reach the various parts of the state, and then time would be needed for the local officials to execute it.
But Fu Jian felt that time waited for no one.
On the 2nd day of the 8th month, Fu Jian sent Yangping Duke Fu Rong to gather the infantry and cavalry of Zhang Hao, Murong Chui, and the others for a total of 250 thousand cavalry as the vanguard, and he ordered Yanzhou Provincial Governor Yao Chang to take up the role of dragon commander.
8th month, 8th day, Fu Jian left Chang An to go to the battlefield, and his main force left along with him.
9th month, he led the 250 thousand vanguard forces to Huai River region, and his middle troops reached Xiang City, Liangzhou Army reached Xianyang, Zitong Prefect Pei Yuanlue led 70 thousand navy East from Sichuan. The Youzhou and Jizhou armies all reached Peng City.
At this point, the war officially began.
At this time, did the various territory troops reach their battlefield? Considering the time, one would know that they could not make it. Based on historical records, when Fu Jian reached Xiang City, Gansu’s army had just reached Xianyang.
All the forces were still proceeding toward the assembly area, but the war had already started.
Ironically, before they even arrived, the Battle of Fei River had already ended. All they did was use up large amounts of grain and block up the various paths.
One could say that Fu Jian lost because he did not listen to Wang Meng and did not care about the objections of his officials. His confidence swelled. When he sent the country’s troops toward Jin, he had already lost.
The defeat of former Qin in the Battle of Fei River was not by luck.