Li Xin led 200,000 Qin troops to destroy Chu, but returned in defeat. How did Qin Shi Huang deal with Li Xin?

I still remember the story of "Jing Ke assassinating the King of Qin". The instigator of this incident was the messenger Yan Prince Dan, who was also a good friend of Ying Zheng when he was young. However, he was hunted down by Li Xin and was eventually forced to kill him. Yu had no choice but to force King Yan to chop off his head and present it to King Qin. Later, the Qin State defeated the Six Kingdoms into isolation, first taking over Han, Zhao, and Wei, and in the battle with the Chu State, the Qin State successfully defeated the Chu State several times with its own strength, and Qin Shihuang at that time The next plan is to eliminate the Chu State and quickly complete the unified hegemony. This task naturally falls on one of Li Xin and Wang Jian.

Later, the King of Qin summoned Li Xin and Wang Jian, expressed his thoughts, and asked Li Xin how many troops Li Xin would need if he wanted to destroy Chu. At that time, Li Xin also said confidently: " 200,000 is enough." Wang Jian's answer was that 600,000 troops were needed. At that time, Qin Shihuang looked at Wang Jian and said, Lao Wang is not good enough. It would take 600,000 troops to destroy a Chu country. He is not courageous enough, but Xiao Li is more capable.

So this task was handed over to Li Xin, and Li Xin and Meng Tian set off with an army of 200,000. The main reason was that Qin Shihuang did not support Wang Jian leading 600,000 troops to attack the Chu State at that time. The main reason was that he was afraid of consuming a lot of national power. On the other hand, he was also afraid that Wang Jian would lead so many troops to rebel. Wang Jian was naturally dissatisfied. He thought that King Qin just looked down on him. Didn't he say that I was too old to survive? Then I simply resigned and returned to my hometown, so I started to find excuses to claim that I was sick, so I went back to my hometown to cultivate myself. At that time, Li Xin was facing Xiang Yan. Xiang Yan was the grandfather of Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu. The Xiang family had been generals for generations and had their own opinions on various military methods. At that time, Li Xin was blindly confident, but in the end he proved his ability. An army of 200,000 was indeed unable to defeat Chu's army of 400,000.

At the beginning of the war, Li Xin attacked Pingyu and won victory in the attack on Yanying. On the other hand, Meng Tian also won a complete victory. Li Xin's policy at that time was to fight quickly. With a quick decision, he led the army to join Meng Tian. At that time, Xiang Yan pretended to be defeated by Li Xin and retreated steadily, retaining the most elite troops in order to wait for an opportunity to attack Li Xin. Xiang Yan's approach made Li Xin think that the Chu State was really not that good, so he did not do much defense. Then one day later, the Chu State's army entered the Qin State's military camp without any effort. He killed seven captains of the Qin State. Li Xin was attacked from both sides. Within two days, the Qin army was defeated. Li Xin was dumbfounded. He did not expect that he would be defeated so quickly, so he had to flee back with the remaining troops. Qin State, this is one of the rare defeats of Qin State.

Mainly because Li Xin was too confident and underestimated the strength of the Chu State. The Chu State had a vast territory. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Chu Overlord once dominated the Central Plains, and he was also the country that destroyed the most countries on the way to hegemony. , annexed more than forty vassal states, and once became a powerful country in the north and south of the Yangtze River, and this time it was a major country fighting against the Qin Dynasty. Even generals like Wang Jian did not dare to look down on the Chu State. But this time Li Xin was convinced of his defeat, which suppressed Li Xin's spirit.

Li Xin’s self-confidence is a bit similar to that of Yan’s general Ju Xin. When King Zhao forced Lian Po away and replaced Pang Nuan, King Yan also asked Ju Xin if he could win Zhao. Xin also answered confidently that Pang Nuan was not a person to be afraid of, but he was still defeated. He was defeated miserably and was eventually killed by Pang Nuan. Although Li Xin did not die in the battle, he was too embarrassed and made Qin Shihuang lose face. For this defeat, Li Xin must bear the corresponding responsibility for his self-confidence. But fortunately, Qin Shihuang did not execute Li Xin, but only dismissed him. Mainly because the world was in turmoil at that time, and it was the time when he was recruiting people. It was absolutely impossible for the King of Qin to execute him. The best way was to make him meritorious.

Finally, let’s talk about how Qin Shihuang dealt with Li Xin. Li Xin was removed from the post of commander-in-chief at that time, but Qin Shihuang did not execute him, but gave him the opportunity to continue to perform meritorious service on the battlefield, mainly Li Xin is too young and his temperament still needs to be tempered.

Qin Shihuang also sent him to South Vietnam, and Wang Jian followed him. It is not difficult to figure out that Li Xin should be trained under Wang Jian, and then Li Xin continued to fight on the battlefield with Wang Jian's son. In the third year after Li Xin's defeat , Li Xin followed Wang Jian's son to attack Liaodong, captured the King of Yan, and destroyed the Yan Kingdom.

The following year, Li Xin and Wang Jian's son attacked Qi State. They continued to advance from the southern part of Yan State to the south, avoiding the 400,000-strong army set up by the King of Qi in the west, and conquered the country without spending a single soldier. In this way, Linzi was captured easily. In this way, the state of Qi perished. Li Xin also made great contributions in this, but later there was no record in the history books, not even when Li Xin died. But no matter what, Li Xin should still be grateful to King Qin for not killing him. After all, he had to bear a lot of responsibility for the failure of the crusade against Chu with 200,000 troops. So he should be loyal to King Qin.