The next evolution of the Bashu land did not go beyond the predictions of the two conspirators, Zhang Qigong and Bei Gongyu.

On July 16, in compliance with the agreement with the commander of the Qin army, Changxinhou Wangjian, the leader of the Xiang clan, Xiang Bin, brazenly sent troops to attack Langzhong of the Fan clan.

In the end, of course, they failed to capture Langzhong. After all, Xiangbin was not a fool, and he was still wary of Qin's new ally - just in case Qin stopped caring about the life and death of his Xiang family after acquiring Langzhong.

So what should we do?

Not to mention, Bei Gongyu has returned to Langzhong and reminded Fan Lie that Fan Bu and his son should be wary of the Xiang clan.

In fact, even if Bei Gongyu didn't remind him, Fan Lie, Fan Bu and his son would not relax their vigilance against the Xiang clan. After all, they had received the news that "Xiang Bin secretly communicated with the Qin army" a while ago, and successfully succeeded in

He killed the Qin envoy. Although the battle situation at that time was too chaotic, Fan Bu never figured out who killed the Qin envoy.

But it doesn't matter. The subsequent actions of the Xiang clan have fully proved that this clan has indeed colluded with the Qin people.

So in the melee that day, the old patriarch Fan Lie cursed Xiang Bin on the battlefield and said he was not worthy of being one of the five surnames of the Ba clan. In fact, Fan Lie was also aware of Xiang Bin's ambition to replace the Ba clan, but he was just too lazy to do so.

It's just a matter of joining forces. After all, Ba Qian and Xiang Bin are both cowards in his eyes.

Therefore, if the Xiang clan really annexed the Ba clan, Fan Lie would not say anything because of it.

But what the old patriarch couldn't accept was that Xiang Bin actually let in the hungry tiger of Qin for his ambition.

You must know that in these days, Bei Gongyu has been instilling thoughts similar to the "Qin State Threat Theory" to Fan Lie, Fan Bu and his son, and has been talking about the Qin State as if it were a scourge. This made Fan Lie deeply understand that the Qin State was a scourge.

What will be the consequences if a tiger is released into Bashu?

But it is a pity that Xiang Bin, a member of the Xiang clan who was blinded by the powerful order, chose to collude with the Qin army after all.

A few days later, the news of "the failure of the attack on Langzhong" came back to Wang Jian, the commander-in-chief of the Qin army.

Since the army assisting the Xiang clan in attacking Langzhong also included Qin soldiers, the lieutenant general had already reported the conflict to Wang Jian.

Wang Jian didn't care about this.

With Wang Jian's strategy, how could he not see what Xiang Lin was thinking? He just wanted to rely on "Langzhong" and try to use the strength of his Qin army to help him defeat the other tribes of Ba and become the king of Ba.

And what does this matter?

In Wang Jian's view, since Xiang Bin wants to replace Ba as the king of Ba, he must annex and defeat the other four major tribes of Ba. And his ultimate goal of Qin is to devour the three kingdoms of Bashu, Shu and Ju.

In other words, the other tribes of Ba are actually enemies of Qin's army. If they attack early or later, what difference does it make?

As for Xiang Bin who was playing tricks in front of Wang Jian, Wang Jian did not intend to expose him for the time being. However, after getting rid of the Fan clan, Ba clan and other four tribes, will the Ba Kingdom belong to the Xiang clan or the Xiang Bin clan?

If he is the Qin State, then it is his King Jian who has the final say.

Because of this, when Xiang Bin, the leader of the Xiang clan, sent someone to tell him apologetically that the Fan clan had been on guard for a long time and hoped that Wang Jian could help the Xiang clan to attack the three clans of Luo, Zheng and Ba first, Wang Jian

I readily agreed.

In early August, after confirming that they could get assistance from the Qin army, the Xiang clan attacked the Zheng clan.

The Zheng clan lives in the hinterland of the Bajun Basin, right in the middle of the three tribes of the Ba clan, the Fan clan, and the Xiang clan. It is the most powerful clan among the five surnames of the Ba clan.

Due to the lack of vigilance against the Xiang clan, in the first three days of the war between the Xiang and Zheng clans, the Zheng clan lost nearly half of their territory and retreated steadily in front of the "Qin Xiang Alliance".

In fact, the Zheng clan would not have suffered such a tragic defeat. After all, after the "Battle of Langzhong", the Fan clan sent people to the Zheng clan's territory and told the leader of the Zheng clan, Zheng Shang, to be more vigilant.

But it is a pity that Zheng Shang did not pay attention to it. After all, although the five surnames of the Ba clan had been in constant internal strife, they rarely attracted outsiders to participate in their internal strife. Zheng Shang thought that his clan could resist the Xiang clan alone.

It was precisely because they did not listen to the warning of the Fan clan that when the Qin Xiang coalition forces appeared in the Zheng clan's territory, the Zheng clan was defeated by the Qin Xiang coalition forces and lost half of their territory in just a few days.

.

What's even worse is that the warriors that the Zheng clan is proud of are no match for the Qin soldiers on the frontal battlefield.

In desperation, Zheng Shangwei ordered his clansmen to flee to "Pingdu" and handed over the hinterland of Bajun Basin to the Xiang clan.

However, even after gaining the hinterland of the Bajun Basin, the Xiang clan continued to march and attack the Zheng clan's capital "Pingdu". The Zheng clan had to send two envoys, one to Jiangzhou to attack.

The Ba family asked for help, and a group of people crossed the river to "Zhi City" to ask for help from the Zhao family living in the south of the river.

But unfortunately, the Zheng clan failed to wait for the reinforcements from the Ba clan and the Zhu clan. Wang Ling, Wang Ben and other generals under the command of the Qin army commander Wang Jian captured Pingdu in only three days.

The Zheng family became the first victims of this war.

In desperation, Zheng Shang, the leader of the Zheng clan who became a prisoner, had no choice but to accept Xiang Bin's surrender and merge the Zheng clan into the Xiang clan.

The news of Xiang's annexation of Zheng's family reached Jiangzhou, and Ba Wangkai was greatly shocked.

In fact, when he received the request for help from the Zheng family a few days ago, Ba Jin had ordered General Baman to gather soldiers and prepare to go to Pingdu to support the Zheng family. Unexpectedly, in just three days, Pingdu was destroyed by the Xiang family.

A clan - to be precise, it was captured by Qin's army.

Ba Jin, who was a little panicked by this, quickly summoned his ministers to discuss countermeasures, but after repeated discussions, he could not come up with a feasible strategy.

So at Ba Man's reminder, Ba Jin summoned Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu, hoping to gain the latter's support.

Of course Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu would not refuse Ba Jin. After hearing this, he immediately agreed with his chest and Xiong Hu also reminded Ba Jin that he could announce to the outside world in the name of King Ba that the Xiang clan would be labeled as rebellious and call on all Ba people.

Come to resist the Xiang clan.

Ba Jin was overjoyed when he heard this and immediately ordered his people to follow the advice of Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu.

Afterwards, Zhang Qigong learned about this and secretly laughed in his heart.

After all, the suggestion put forward by Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu to Ba Chen was the most commonly used strategy among the Central Plains countries. However, Zhang Qigong was not very optimistic about whether this strategy would be effective.

The reason is very simple. In the Central Plains, the royal power of all countries is supreme, especially a monarch with incomparable prestige like King Zhao Run of Wei. Once someone is labeled as a traitor, it will be useless no matter how innocent the person is.

But the national conditions of Ba are different. Ba is a country composed of the five surnames of the Ba ethnic group and some other small tribes. Although Ba Yi is nominally the king of Ba, his influence does not actually apply to other tribes——

Just like the Xiang clan, the warriors of the Xiang clan are loyal to the leader of their clan, Xiang Li, but they never think that assisting their leader Xian Li to attack other tribes is an act of rebellion.

If Ba Yi's personal charisma and prestige in the Ba Kingdom were great, it would be like Zhao Run, the king of Wei during his princely period. Even if he was not even the prince at the time, his words would still be enough to influence a large number of people in the Wei Kingdom.

But unfortunately, the reason why Zhao Run had such high prestige at that time was because he, the "Wei Gongzi Run", swept across the Central Plains and made great military achievements, and Ba Qi was obviously not enough to compare with the King of Wei in this aspect.

As expected, the public opinion offensive suggested by Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu did not achieve the desired results.

A few days later, the leader of the Xiang clan, Xiang Bin, officially broke up with the Ba clan, openly accusing Ba Jin of being weak and unworthy of becoming the king of the Ba kingdom.

ambition.

But again, the national conditions of Pakistan are different from those of other countries in the Central Plains. Although Xiang Bin’s actions would be considered an act of rebellion in the Central Plains, in Pakistan, the Pakistani people do not think there is anything wrong with Xiang Bin’s actions.

After all, the Ba Kingdom has always been a country where "the king is judged by force." The reason why the Ba clan became the orthodox of the Ba clan was only because the ancestors of the Ba clan defeated the leaders of the other four tribes with force.

Because of this tradition, neither the Zheng clan, which was annexed by the Xiang clan, nor the other scattered small tribes, joined the Ba clan to fight against the Xiang clan, as Ba Hao had hoped.

It was Qin's army that aroused great suspicion among the Ba people.

It has to be said that the difference between 'with internal support' and 'without internal response' is reflected here. If there is no internal response, once the Qin army attacks Ba, it will undoubtedly be regarded as an enemy by all the Ba people; but the current situation

Next, the Qin army appeared as an "ally of the Xiang clan" and repeatedly stated that they were in Ba Kingdom only to help their ally, the Xiang clan, become the king of Ba. This greatly resolved the resistance of the Ba people to the Qin army.

And this is also the "righteous honor" that Qin Army coach Wang Jian most hopes to obtain.

Although for now, the Qin army under Wang Jian seems to have completely become the thugs of the Xiang clan, Wang Jian does not care.

He saw far ahead: when his Qin army killed half or more of the people of Ba in the name of "righteousness", even if the leader of the Xiang clan, Xiang Bin, finally broke the agreement between the two parties, his Qin army

It is still capable of killing the other half of the Pakistani people and completely seizing the entire territory of Pakistan.

This is much more cost-effective than the Qin army rushing to attack Pakistan and being boycotted by all the Pakistanis.

As for why Wang Jian is sure that Xiang Bin, the leader of the Xiang clan, will eventually tear up the agreement, that is even simpler, because even if Xiang Bin does not tear up the agreement, Wang Jian will find a way to tear up the agreement when the time comes.

Xiang Bin thought he could drive the tiger away and devour the wolf, but he probably never thought that the tiger would also swallow him together.

In late August, the Qin army and the Xiang clan launched a two-sided attack on the Xiang clan. Fortunately, at this time, Fan Lie, the leader of the Fan clan, listened to Bei Gongyu's suggestion and sent troops to support Jiangzhou and interact with the Ba clan.

The support finally temporarily blocked the Qin army's attack.

But unfortunately, this situation cannot be maintained for a long time, because the Qin army that entered Ba to assist the Xiang clan only numbered tens of thousands. In Hanzhong to the north, there are still hundreds of thousands of Qin troops watching eagerly.

In early September, Qin general Wang Ben led the Qin army to attack the Zhao clan across the river. The Zhao clan could not resist the Qin army's offensive on the frontal battlefield, so they had to retreat to "Zhi City", hoping to use the city wall to block the Qin army's attack.

offensive.

It has to be said that whether it is the Zheng clan or the Zhu clan, they made serious mistakes in their strategy against the Qin army. You must know that the armies of the Central Plains countries are best at frontal combat and siege warfare, and the Qin army

The same is true.

However, the warriors of the Zheng clan and the Zhu clan gave up their best tactics of harassment and sneak attacks, and went in groups to try to defeat the Qin army on the frontal battlefield. How could they remain undefeated?

Except for Wei and the former South Korea, there is almost no third country in the world that can withstand the Qin army on a frontal battlefield.

Including city defense.

It was also a weak country, so why could Lu resist Chu's attack in the first place?

In addition to the excellent commander-in-chief Huan Hu at that time, the more important reason was that the Lu State had a large number of war weapons. This led to the defeat of Xinyang Jun Xiang Pei and General Xiang Mo, the old and new three pillars.

In the state of Lu.

But what does Pakistan have?

The long-term peace has caused the strength of Bashu and Shu to lag far behind that of the Central Plains.

When the bows and arrows of the Ba warriors were unable to penetrate the armor of the Qin soldiers, the outcome had actually been decided in advance between the two sides.

In just seven days, the capital of the Zhuo clan, "Zhi", was also captured by the Qin army and the warriors of the Xiang clan. In order to save the people of their tribe, the leader of the Zhuo clan had to surrender to Xianglin.
To be continued...