Chapter 301: Secretly Plotting Against Li Mu

The tenth year of King Zheng of Qin passed slowly like this.

In the blink of an eye, it arrived at the eleventh year of King Zheng of Qin.

The past year, for the people in the old land of the State of Han, was a novel year. They lived as people of the Qin Guo for a whole year. During this year, they strove to forget the State of Han and adapt to everything in the Qin Guo.

Laws, rules, and even characters all needed them to relearn. Some were miserable and harbored thoughts of their old country. But for the lower-class populace, this year was an unprecedentedly happy year. When the State of Han was still there, whether it was a bumper year or a bad year, they needed to pay extremely heavy taxes. The official masters above were too lazy to care about their life or death.

The Qin Guo was not so. Not only did they take the initiative to take action to save them when they suffered disasters, especially last year, the Qin Guo even promoted new-style farm tools. The officials of the Qin Guo took the initiative to guide them to sow, making them harvest a bumper harvest.

More importantly, the Qin Guo exempted them from taxes for a few years.

This meant that the grain harvested belonged to themselves.

The people in the old land of the State of Han slowly accepted the Qin Guo.

And for the remaining five states in the east of the mountains, this year was also a year of feeling tormented.

Because the Qin Guo annihilated the State of Han in one battle, the five states in the east of the mountains—well, it should be said the three states of Zhao, Wei, and Chu—these three states were extremely wary of the Qin Guo, fearing that the Qin Guo would raise troops against them.

As for the State of Yan and the State of Qi, firstly, they did not border the Qin Guo. Secondly, one sent the Crown Prince to the Qin Guo as a hostage, and the other had always been on good terms with the Qin Guo, following the Qin Guo's lead. The King of Qi even personally came to the Qin Guo to pay a visit.

Even if the Qin Guo wanted to take action against them, without annihilating the other few states and opening up the road, it was difficult to attack their borders directly.

But in the end, the three states of Zhao, Wei, and Chu were nervous for nothing.

The Qin Guo did not raise troops against them.

But all of this was broken after the beginning of spring in the eleventh year of King Zheng of Qin.

Ying Zheng used Wang Jian as a general and Li Xin as a deputy general to lead troops to aggressively attack the State of Zhao!

Eventually, Ying Zheng still adopted Su Xuan's suggestion and did not let Li Xin be the main general to attack the State of Zhao.

Although he very much wanted to cultivate some young generals, realizing that the Qin Guo was deep and coupled with the State of Zhao having Li Mu as a general, it was difficult for Li Xin to take advantage of Li Mu. For the sake of steadiness, it was better to let Wang Jian serve as the general.

Wang Jian could be considered an old general of the Qin Guo. In terms of qualifications, although he was a bit younger than Wang Yi and others who passed away last year, after Wang Yi died, he was already the general with the oldest qualifications in the army. He had always been steady in fighting battles. Letting him lead troops to attack the State of Zhao, Ying Zheng was very at ease.

Of course, although Li Xin could not be the main general, it was also possible to use him as a deputy general to follow Wang Jian to temper himself.

Like Wang Yi back then, he was the deputy general of Lord Wuan, Bai Qi. Li Xin following an old general like Wang Jian to temper himself, not to mention that he could become Lord Wuan, Bai Qi, in the future, being able to accumulate experience and become the next Wang Yi was also possible.

Wang Jian was indeed an experienced general. He commanded the Qin army to attack the State of Zhao. Although the speed of marching could not be considered fast, it was steady and solid, because he knew very clearly that this battle was not a battle to annihilate the State of Zhao, but just that the Qin Guo had a bumper harvest last year, and there was too much surplus grain in the warehouse, needing to find a place to consume some. At the same time, by crusading against the State of Zhao, he could temper the soldiers of the Qin Guo, which could be considered a disguised form of training troops.

Although the marching speed was not fast, Wang Jian did indeed win consecutive battles. He first captured Pingyang, then took Wucheng, and also beheaded the Zhao general Hu Zhe, beheading 50,000 Zhao troops. Until he went east out of Shangdang and attacked near Taihang, the Qin army finally encountered obstacles.

Because the State of Zhao used Li Mu.

Li Mu used the Taihang Mountains as a natural barrier, holding the mountains as a fortress; although he knew the Zhao Guo army could not match the Qin army in direct combat, by utilizing the terrain of the mountain fortress, he managed to forcefully hold the Qin army back.

Perhaps, by exhausting the power of the Qin Guo, under Wang Jian's command, it was still possible to break through the Taihang mountain city and annihilate the Li Mu army, but in that case, the Qin Guo would also suffer heavy losses.

This kind of risky thing, if it were a young person like Li Xin, perhaps he would do it.

But Wang Jian would not do it.

Thus, seeing that he could not break through Li Mu's defense, he decisively chose to retreat.

Even so, in this battle, the Qin Guo still achieved a great advantage.