A Battle that Set the Path to the First Political Unification of the Chinese Empire

  In 1046 BC, King Wu of Zhou founded the Zhou Dynasty in northern China, which is now termed the Western Zhou. To secure his rule over the vast territory and explore remote areas, he adopted a system similar to the European fief system: he distributed the lands to his relatives and generals. These lands are now what we call the principalities. At that time, the highest ruler of Zhou, the High King, was powerful and had enough prestige that all new lords obeyed him, paid him tributes, and answered his calls during wartime by leading their armies to help in the battles.

  However, in 770 BC, the Western Zhou fell under a barbarian invasion. With the original High King murdered by barbarians, the lords crowned a new High King and restored the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC, which is now termed the Eastern Zhou. Now that the High King himself was crowned by the lords, he no longer had power to control the lords, who had their own lands and armies. Therefore, the lords began attacking and conquering each other, to enlarge the territories of their own principalities. China entered the Spring and Autumn Period (771 BC--476 BC) and the Warring State Era (475 BC--221 BC).

  In 356 BC, a politician named Yang started a reformation in the principality of Qin. He acknowledged private land ownership and replaced the feudalistic system with a new centralized system, in which one had to have battle achievement to have lands, and return the lands to the principality at his death. He also encouraged farming and weaving in order to support future wars. After this reformation, Qin rose to be the most powerful principality among its hundreds of competitors.

  The other lords were fearful of Qin. In 262 BC, when Qin invaded Han, one of the most powerful principalities at that time, Han was no match for Qin and asked for help from another powerful principality, Zhao at the price of giving up its Shangdang Commandery. Tempted, and confident of his armies, the lord of Zhao accepted the offer and sent a troop of 50,000 soldiers to Shangdang and took over it.

  The target of Qin's invasion however, was to seize Shangdang so that it could open an invasion route to Zhao. Obviously, Zhao's move irritated Qin. In 261 BC, the Qin army led by Wang He met Zhao's troops and had several minor victories. Scared, Zhao lord sent his general Lian Po with 200,000 soldiers to reinforce Shangdang. Lian Po decided the only way to defeat Qin was to wait until they were out of supplies. He built several fortresses at important spots in 260 BC, and firmly kept Qin from advancing farther.

  Qin army didn't just leave. They sent messengers to Zhao's capital Handan to negotiate for a treaty, while their spies in Handan spread rumors that "Qin soldiers were not afraid of general Lian Po, but Zhao Kuo, who was the son of the famous general Zhao She."

  The lord of Zhao believed the rumors easily because Lian Po hardly attacked the Qin army and yet lost many soldiers in defending the fortresses. Infuriated, he replaced Lian Po with Zhao Kuo, In the summer of 260 BC, Zhao Kuo took over from Lian Po the 450,000 Zhao soldiers in Shangdang. He gathered the forces and prepared for a decisive attack to end the war quickly. He led his forces of out their camp.

  After getting the news that Zhao's general was changed, Qin changed its general, too. Bai Qi gained command of the 550,000 Qin soldiers with absolute authority from the lord of Qin. "Anyone who dares to disobey Bai Qi shall be beheaded," said his appointment order.

  Bai Qi sent 30,000 cavalry to cut the retreating paths of Zhao armies and their contact with their camp, while he led the rest soldiers to face Zhao Kuo directly. 

  Zhao Kuo attacked Qin's main forces and did great damage to them. Yet, not knowing the Qin armies were pretending to be defeated, he pursued them to a valley 20 kilometers from his camp. When he reached the valley, the 30,000 cavalry reacted and cut the supply and retreating route of Zhao Kuo's forces, separating Zhao Kuo's forces into two parts, with approximately 400,000 soldiers surrounded in the valley by Bai Qi's main forces, the rest and most of the supplies left in the camp.

  Zhao Kuo's forces soon ran out of supplies. Anguished, he made several attempts to break through the siege. He had several bloody battles with Bai Qi at Changping town. Yet Bai Qi held his siege at the price of losing about half of his soldiers. On the 46th day since the siege began, Zhao Kuo was killed in another desperate attempt to break through. Up till now, about 200,000 of the besieged 400,000 Zhao soldiers were dead. The remaining soldiers surrendered after Zhao Kuo's death.

  Fearing the surrendered Zhao soldiers might have rebelled, Bai Qi ordered all of them but the 240 youngest ones buried alive. The 240 spared soldiers were sent back to Zhao to spread terror.

  After this battle, Zhao was no longer able gather enough forces to face Qin's invasion, while Qin had Shangdang and the route to invade Zhao in its grip. From now on, Qin had military dominance over all the other principalities in China. It was with dominance that Qin conquered all principalities in China and founded the first unified Chinese empire in 221 BC.