-256 BC- Qín had taken the Eastern Zhōu capital of Wangcheng (or Chéngzhōu, see previous post!) and dethroned its king. The Zhōu dynasty had finally come to its official end!
-By doing this, King Zhāoxiāng of Qín was essentially declaring that he now possessed the Mandate of Heaven, which meant that he was the new king of the lands "belonging" to the Zhōu dynasty.
-Of course, Qín's ultimate goal was to conquer all of the Warring States, but how to do this?
-Qín's plan was to maintain strong relations with Qí and Yān, continue actively suppressing Wèi and Chǔ, and conquer Zhào and Hán.
-247 BC- King Zhèng is enthroned as the new ruler of Qín following the death of his father, King Zhuāngxiāng. He was only 13 at this time!
-Interestingly, Sīmǎ Qiān's Records of the Grand Historian claim that King Zhèng was an illegitimate ruler because he was actually the son of the merchant/politican Lǚ Bùwéi and his concubine Lady Zhào (who allegedly went on to marry King Zhuāngxiāng and become queen while she was already pregnant from Lǚ Bùwéi), but modern-day scholars have attempted to refute this possibility, arguing that it was a slander created for political reasons by Sīmǎ Qiān and the Hàn dynasty (who would end up toppling the Qín dynasty and replacing it in 206 BC) and maintain that he was indeed the legitimate son of King Zhuāngxiāng and Lady Zhào.
-It's also worth noting that during this time in Chinese history, merchants were considered the lowest of the low in terms of the social hierarchy, so being the son of a merchant was considered a really shitty background.
-238 BC- King Zhèng's queen mother and her new lover, the Marquis of Chángxìn (AKA Lào Ǎi, who I guess was disguised as a eunuch in order to live with her? Also, he apparently had a huge dick (according to the Records of the Grand Historian haha)!), came up with a conspiracy to have the king replaced by one of their children instead (!), and so they tried to start a rebellion and raise an army to do so!
-However, this conspiracy was soon uncovered by the authorities, and the conspirators were executed (although Lào Ǎi briefly escaped).
-Because Lào Ǎi was the ringleader, his sentence was especially harsh, as it not only guaranteed his execution but also followed the Chinese traditional punishment of zhū lián jiǔ zú ("nine familial exterminations") for treason, which meant that nine of Lào Ǎi's family members were also executed!
-As for Lady Zhào (who was now known as Queen Dowager Zhào after the death of King Zhuāngxiāng), she was simply placed under house arrest until she died in 228 BC.
-After this, King Zhèng's rule of Qín went unchallenged (haha).
-236 BC- King Zhèng invades Zhào!
-King Zhèng was only 13 when he was enthroned, so the court had set up a regency that ruled in his place until he turned 22 (238 BC); that's why it took so long for Qín to continue their plans for the domination of the other Warring States.
-Even though it had been 14 years since their defeat at the Battle of Chángpíng, Zhào still hadn't had enough time to get its shit back together. That being said, they weren't totally helpless, as they still had an army with a badass general- Lǐ Mù (one of the "Four Great Generals" of the Warring States period)!
-Lǐ Mù had spent much of his career in northern Zhào, defending the border from the dreaded Xiōngnú hordes (centered around modern-day Mongolia).
-Because of his experiences with the Xiōngnú, Lǐ Mù was a fan of defeating his opponents through defense, as offensive tactics against the Xiōngnú usually ended up being a catastrophic failure.
-Of course, this also resulted in mockery from his peers and rivals (same shit that happened to Lían Pō. Still, Lǐ Mù was successful in defending the northern border for more than 30 years, so his critics sound like they're just being assholes.
-Unfortunately, even the famous Lǐ Mù was unable to thwart the Qín army, as Zhào just simply did not have the numbers to match the huge Qín force.
-Still, Lǐ Mù refused to give up, and continued to agitate the Qín army as they advanced towards the capital (Hándān, which is still a city and is in modern-day Héběi Province). So, Qín did the same thing that they did to Lían Pō and manipulated the Zhào court into thinking that Lǐ Mù was actually planning to take the Zhào throne for himself, so they had him executed. So dumb.
-Zhào finally fell to Qín in 228 BC.
-230 BC- Qín invades Hán, who was too weak to defend itself and promptly surrendered.
-228 BC- With Zhào and Hán out of the way, Qín then eyes its "friend" Yān as its next target.
-Seeing the writing on the wall, Yān scrambled to get together a coalition of allied forces from different states (and even the Xiōngnú!) to help them repel Qín, but of course it was too late.
-However, Yān quickly realized that even IF they could somehow secure a bunch of alliances and other bullshit, they STILL wouldn't have enough men to properly defend themselves from Qín.
-Desperate, Yān decided to go for a different tactic- the assassination of King Zhèng! The mission was to be carried out by an assassin named Jīng Kē.
-Jīng Kē was chosen for this job for a few reasons.
-He was actually from the state of Wèi (which was eventually annexed by the larger state of the same name (Wèi)), which was currently occupied by Qín, so he wouldn't stand out as an outsider during his mission since this was his home region.
-He was also a scholar and used to rubbing shoulders with elites.
-He was a badass swordsman.
-OK, so how was Jīng Kē going to get close enough to King Zhèng to kill him?
-In order to do so, Jīng Kē knew that he would have to bring the king some expensive/valuable gifts.
-These gifts were to consist of a detailed map (of a region that Qín was interested in invading) rolled up in a scroll case (with a razor-sharp poisoned dagger hidden inside!) and the decapitated head of the ex-Qín general, Huán Yǐ (or Fan Wuji), who had defected to Yān.
-Surprisingly, Huán Yǐ agrees to help Yān by committing suicide so they can use his head for the assassination! Huán Yǐ must have REALLY hated King Zhèng!!
-So, Jīng Kē traveled to Xiányáng (capital city of Qín) with his companion, Qín Wǔyáng, another assassin.
-Because of their gifts, they were able to quickly secure an audience with the king, but upon entering the royal palace Qín Wǔyáng began to freak out. Attempting to cover for both of them, Jīng Kē tried to explain that his companion was a backwards country rube and not used to the grandeur of the palace and capital city.
-Apparently this worked, because King Zhèng then allowed for Jīng Kē to approach the throne in order to show him the map. When Jīng Kē got close enough, he decided the moment had come, and decided to strike with the hidden dagger!
-However, King Zhèng was too quick, and Jīng Kē was only able to tear off a piece of the king's robe. King Zhèng immediately began to flee!
-This was now an interesting situation because although Jīng Kē had missed, he was still the only one in the room with a weapon, as no weapons were allowed in the court of the king. I guess the argument could be made that the King Zhèng was armed, but this was a ceremonial blade and not actually meant for combat.
-This resulted in a struggle between Jīng Kē and King Zhèng and his courtiers, but ultimately Jīng Kē was overpowered. In a last-ditch effort to kill the king, Jīng Kē ended up throwing his dagger at him, but he missed.
-Immediately after this, Jīng Kē was subdued by the king's guards and Qín Wǔyáng was captured and executed.
-Once they found out who was behind the assassination, Qín immediately declared war on Yān!
-226 BC- Qín and Yān clash at the Yi River (in modern-day Hénán Province, (I think)), and Qín was victorious.
-Qín's army then marched on Yān's capital city, Jì (modern-day Běijīng).
-At this point, Qín's army was seemingly unstoppable, and Jì soon fell.
-Yān's royal family, including King Xǐ and his son (Crown Prince Dān) fled to the Liaodong Peninsula (which was still controlled by Yān). However, King Xǐ knew that all was lost for him, so in a desperate attempt to save himself he had Prince Dān decapitated and the head sent to King Zhèng as an apology for the assassination attempt and as a peace offering.
-King Zhèng accepted King Xǐ's offering, and decided to leave Yān as it was for the time being.
-After putting an end to the threat that Yān posed, King Zhèng decided the next step would be to conquer Wèi before finally conquering Chǔ.
-However, King Zhèng assumed that if his armies invaded Wèi then it would be possible that Chǔ would assume that they would be invaded after Wèi.
-Thus, King Zhèng decided to preemptively invade some cities in the north of Chǔ first in order to quickly set up a buffer territory between Chǔ and Qín.
-According to the Records of the Grand Historian, Qín amassed a huge force of over 600,000 soldiers!! To put this in perspective, it's estimated that Rome had an army of like 80,000 at the massive Battle of Cannae (against the Carthaginians) which took place around this time over in Europe. So, if these numbers are correct, Qín must have had an absolutely fucking massive army at this time.
-So, Qín sent out this massive army, quickly conquered their intended target settlements, and then immediately turned north to attack Wèi's capital at Dàliáng (modern-day Kāifēng, Henan Province), a city famous for its impenetrability.
-However, it didn't prove to be THAT tough to crack, as Qín's general Wáng Bēn (son of Wáng Jiǎn, one of the Four Great Generals of the Warring States Period) decided to do the ol' "divert a river into the city you're besieging" trick and ended up redirecting the YELLOW RIVER into the city!! This must have been a massive project to pull off.
-Of course, this worked really well, and not only was the city flooded but it's also recorded that over 100,000 citizens died!
-Soon after this, King Jiǎ of Wèi admitted defeat and surrendered his kingdom completely to Qín.
-Next, King Zhèng set his sites on finally conquering Chǔ once and for all.
-However, while General Wáng Bēn stated that he would once again need the same numbers as before in order to pull off this mission, another general, Lǐ Xìn, claimed that he could do the same mission with only a fraction of that number! This was an attractive proposition for King Zhèng, so he decided to accept General Lǐ Xìn's offer to see if he could really pull it off.
-While initially successful, Lǐ Xìn had trouble keeping the conquered territory in Chǔ pacified as they penetrated further and further into the kingdom. To complicate matters, the main Chǔ army continued to withdraw and retreat without fully engaging Qín directly. Obviously, something was up.
-Finally, when Qín least expected it, Chǔ's army surrounded the Qín army's encampment late at night and attacked! Lǐ Xìn's army was completely slaughtered, apparently losing over 200,000 soldiers (again, probably an exaggeration, but who knows!). This would prove to be Qín's worst defeat in history.
-Undeterred, King Zhèng decided that General Wáng Bēn had been right all along, and so he was brought back to lead the Qín army in a proper invasion of Chǔ.
-With a much smarter and more conservative, methodical strategy, Wáng Bēn slowly ventured into Chǔ and refused to be drawn into a battle on the enemy's turns. Soon, Chǔ's main army was shattered, and Chǔ became a broken, shell of a kingdom like Yān, and lost much of its territory (including its capital, Shòuchūn) to Qín.
-222 BC- after conquering most of Chǔ, Qín then marched its army north into the Liaodong Peninsula and conquered what remained of Yān.
-221 BC- although it was obvious that Qín was unstoppable, they still had a bit of mopping up to do, as only Qí still remained (but probably didn't pose much of a threat at this point).
-Using some lame excuse (apparently, Qí didn't meet with one of Qín's envoys around this time or something), Qín invaded Qí.
-Qín was able to easily invade Qí because Qí had set up all their fortifications to defend from the west, but because Yān was now conquered by Qín, Qín just came down from the north, bypassing most of Qí's defenses.
-Horrified at the speed in which Qín was able to arrive at the capital, King Jiàn of Qí immediately surrendered his kingdom in exchange for the lives of his family and people.
-With King Jiàn's surrender, the Warring States Period had finally come to an end! The kingdoms were now all unified under the brand-new Qín dynasty, with King Zhèng crowning himself Qín Shǐ Huáng (literally meaning "First Emperor of Qín" (or, China (in English)).
-Qín Shǐ Huáng then chose the city of Xiányáng (in modern-day Shǎnxī Province) as his new capital.
-This would also kick off China's "imperial" era, which would last all the way until the early 20th century!!
