When it comes to assessing the causes of military disasters over the ages, one that appears time and again is the capacity of military leaders to underestimate their enemies. This was the case in October 205 BCE, when the combined forces of the Zhao army took on the much smaller force of the Han army in the rugged Taihang Mountains of northwest China.
The battle was catastrophic for the Zhao army, which was outwitted, outmanoeuvred and annihilated by a Han force less than one-sixth its size. The general commanding the Han army was Han Xin, a mercurial character who would go on to become the greatest military strategist in Chinese history. Han Xin’s strategy that day would become the stuff of legend. It’s a credit to him that over two millennia later, the Battle of Jingxing is remembered for the audacious brilliance of his battle plan.
The Warring States
The Battle of Jingxing took place towards the end of a period of ancient Chinese history known as the Warring States. This was an era defined by military conflict and rife with fractured alliances, scurrilous betrayals and fervent territorial ambition. Sixteen years prior to the battle, in 221 BCE, the Qin dynasty had been established as the first dynasty of a unified Imperial China. But by 208 BCE, the Qin had been overthrown by a rebellion.
In 207 BCE, one of the rebels, a noble called Xiang Yu, asserted his leadership of the rebel armies and joined forces with the anti-Qin leader Liu Bang. Xiang Yu and Liu Bang teamed up to overthrow the Qin, but their allegiance was to be short-lived. By 205 BCE they were at war with each other for control of China.
The Battle of Pengcheng
この記事は History of War の Issue 121 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は History of War の Issue 121 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
