In 284 BC, Le Yi broke through in one fell swoop in the Battle of Jixi, and then led the Yan army like an autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, and within half a year, more than seventy cities of the State of Qi, including the capital of the State of Qi, Linzi, were left in the State of Qi, leaving only the two cities of Ju and Jimo, once approaching the brink of subjugation.
Five years later, Tian Dan first divided the plot and provoked the relationship between the newly succeeded King Hui of Yan and Le Yi, causing Le Yi to leave his post, and then broke the Yan army with a fire bull array, and took advantage of the victory to pursue, and soon expelled the Yan army out of the country, recovering more than seventy cities.
As the first hero of the restoration of the State of Qi, Tian Dan immediately became a prominent prince, and even the State of Zhao used three large cities plus some small villages and towns for a total of fifty-seven, and gave it to the State of Qi in exchange for Tian Dan, so that Tian Dan could serve the State of Zhao. However, when Tian Dan and Zhao Hao, a famous general of the Zhao State, discussed the army, Zhao Hao thought that Tian Shan did not know how to use soldiers.
After Le Yi conquered more than seventy cities in the State of Qi, he adopted a strategy of encircling the two cities of Juhe and Jimo, because Le Yi believed that the State of Qi could not be truly destroyed by force alone, so Le Yi, while encircling Juhe and Jimo, implemented various policies to recover the hearts of the qi people in the occupied areas, hoping to fundamentally disintegrate the State of Qi.
When the Yan army attacked the State of Qi, Tian Dan fled to Jimo (present-day Pingdu, Shandong), and because Jimo Dafu had been killed earlier, Tian Dan was elected as the defender of Jimo City. After Tian Dan became a general, he formed wives and concubines and clansmen into the army, increased the fortifications to strengthen defenses, scattered food and drink for the soldiers, and "sat on the weaving (weaving grass tools), and stood up to fight shovels (shovel labor)", sharing weal and woe with the army and the people, and soon enhanced the defense capability of Jimo. Later, after Le Yi saw that the strong attack was not conquered, he switched to the siege strategy for Ju and Jimo.
For five years, King Yan Zhao, who had always trusted Le Yi very much, let Le Yi lead the army alone to deal with the affairs of the State of Qi. However, five years later, King Yan Zhao died and was succeeded by King Hui of Yan, who had earlier been at odds with Le Yi. Tian Shan keenly discovered the opportunity, in order to get rid of the most difficult enemy Le Yi, sent people into the Yan kingdom to implement a divisive plan, falsely claiming that Le Yi was called Attack Qi, and really wanted to call Wang Qi, so he slowly attacked Ju and Jimo, and if the Yan state sent another general, Jimo would be able to go down. King Hui of Yan was originally dissatisfied with Le Yi's long-term attack on Ji Mo, so he sent a horse robber to replace Le Yi. Le Yi feared that he would be executed after returning to the Yan kingdom, so he defected to the Zhao kingdom.
As soon as Le Yi left, Tian Dan (pictured below, painted by Qing Ren) was divine, and his clever plans were repeated, and he played the Yan army around.
1, Tian Dan ordered the people to eat, they should put the meal in the courtyard to sacrifice the ancestors, so the birds hovered in the air, from time to time down to peck, this scene made yanjun very surprised, Tian Shan took the opportunity to declare that "this is a god who came down to teach." After that, whenever Tian Dan issued an order to restrain the military and the people, he must declare that it was God's will.
2, Tian Shan declared in the name of the gods that he was worried that the Yan army would cut off the noses of the captured Qi army and put them in the front to fight the Qi army, so that Jimo would be easily breached. As a result, Yan Jun firmly believed that qi jun was afraid of being captured alive after seeing it, so they all insisted on not surrendering.
3, Tian Dan also declared that he was worried that the Yan army would dig up graves outside our city and insult our ancestors, and he would be sad about it. As a result, the Yan army excavated all the graves of the Qi people and burned the dead bodies, which made the Qi people angry and vowed to fight with the Yan army to the death.
After that, in order to paralyze the Yan army, Tian Dan used old and weak women to defend the city wall, and then sent emissaries to surrender fraudulently, so that the rich man of Jimo bribed the Yan general with heavy gold, pretending that Jimo would fall, hoping to save his wife and children. The Yan army was deceived, thinking that Jimo could be broken in the future, but did not expect that Tian Dan used the fire bull array to instantly break the main force of the Yan army's siege, after which Tian Shan took advantage of the victory to pursue, and soon expelled the Yan army out of the country, recovering more than seventy cities.
It can be seen that Tian Shan is a brave and resourceful general, perhaps slightly inferior to Le Yi, but at least he can be regarded as a generation of martial arts. Zhao Guo exchanged the huge cost of three large cities plus some small villages and towns for the effectiveness of Tian Dan, and the main recognition was definitely Tian Dan's ability to govern the army. However, Zhao Guo's famous general Zhao Hao (Zhao Kuo's father) thought that Tian Shan did not know how to use soldiers, and Tian Shan sighed "Single is not to be also", what is the matter?
The "Warring States Policy And Zhao Cesan" records that in the thirtieth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Tian Dan and Zhao Suo discussed the army, bluntly saying that "those who are not convinced, the use of the generals alone", believing that Zhao Hao likes to have a large number of troops under his command, which will affect domestic farming and cause difficulties in food supply, which is the "way of self-destruction", because the ancient emperor "used only 30,000 people, and the world obeyed", while Zhao Suo believed that it was necessary to have 100,000 or 200,000 troops to "serve the world", which was where Tian Shan did not obey Zhao Luxury. Note that here Tian Shan is not talking about "soldiers and noble elites", but discussing the "number of soldiers", and the soldiers discussed by the two soldiers must be based on the premise of elite soldiers, and Zhao Hao believes that the 100,000 or 200,000 troops are still the number of elite soldiers.
In short, Tian Shan believed that with 30,000 troops, he could sweep the world, and if there were too many soldiers, it would drag the country down, so Zhao Hao's theory of many soldiers was actually "the way to self-destruction."
Zhao Hao ruthlessly pointed out that For Tian Dan not only did not know how to use soldiers, but also had a pitiful understanding of the real world, that is, "Junfei did not reach the soldiers, and did not know the situation of the times." The reason for this is that there were few people in ancient times, the city was only three hundred zhang, and the emperor's 30,000 troops could naturally sweep the world and easily besiege the city, but now every country has hundreds of thousands of troops, how to compete with other countries, how to besiege the current "city of a thousand zhang"? Tian Shan listened and sighed that he didn't think so far.
To put it simply, Zhao Hao kept pace with the times, and Tian Shan became self-contained and read the Ancient Soldiers' Books to death. The author sighed that many ancients read books such as Sun Wu and Confucius, but did not know that time was easy to change, and did what the ancients said, which eventually brought great disasters to the country and the nation. In modern times, many people have scolded Confucius, but the Confucius era is very different from the future generations, and posterity does not know how to be flexible, why is Confucius wrong?
Since Tian Dan did not know how to use troops, why could he defeat the Yan army and recover the lost land and restore the State of Qi? The author believes that it is related to the ability of the commander of the Yan Army and the distribution of the Yan Army's troops.
When Le Yi was there, Tian Shan could only stick to it, and he had no ability to plan a counterattack. The reason why Le Yi did not capture Jimo City was not because he could not fight it, but because Le Yi had other considerations. Therefore, on the whole, Le Yi's ability is better than Tian Dan's, but the Yan general who succeeded Le Yi is in a worrying state of ability, and is played by Tian Dan. The so-called incompetence of a general exhausted the three armies, probably such a person as the robber, which buried the good situation laid by Le Yi.
During the Warring States period, the total strength of the Yan state was about 300,000, and the attacking force should be around 200,000. And the Yan army captured more than seventy cities in the State of Qi, each city must have garrisons, on average, a city of one thousand needs 70,000, a city of 2,000 needs 140,000, so the siege of Jimo and Jucheng will not be too high. Roughly estimated, it is estimated to be about 40,000, and the total number of troops besieging the two cities will not exceed 100,000. The TianDan Fire Bull Array recorded in the history books is preceded by more than a thousand cattle, followed by 5,000 Qi troops, if the number of Yan troops is large, it will be difficult for the Qi Army Fire Bull Array to overwhelm them all, and judging by the deployment and battle results of Tian Dan, the number of Yan troops besieging Jimo is about 40,000 or so.
After defeating the besieged Jimo Yan army, Tian Shan took advantage of the victory and attacked, coupled with the temporary recruitment of noble warriors, which was enough to form a manpower advantage over the Yan garrison of each city, thus recovering more than seventy lost cities. Of course, Le Yi was forced to leave, and the Yan army was out for a long time, so that the morale of the Yan army was greatly reduced, and it was not related to the war, under the command of the unbearable riding and robbery, the Yan army finally collapsed thousands of miles, and achieved the fame of Tian Dan.
In short, Tian Dan's ability to defeat the Yan army and restore the State of Qi, seize opportunities and use troops is certainly extraordinary, but Tian Dan's ability to win is related to the poor ability of Yan generals to ride and rob.
Compared with the robbers, Tian Shan was a genius; compared with Le Yi and Zhao Hao, Tian Shan could only be regarded as "not knowing how to use soldiers". Although Tian Dan in Zhao Hao's eyes was also familiar with the military books, he could only serve as a general, not as a commander, because he could not adapt the military method with the times and let him command a country's military, which was bound to be a disaster for a country.
In a word, Zhao Guo exchanged three large cities plus a number of towns for Tian Dan, but Tian Dan only captured the three small cities of Yan Guo for Zhao Guo, and the return was amazingly low. Perhaps, Tian Dan, like Li Guang of the Han Dynasty, could fight small battles, but he was not good at fighting big battles.
References: "Left Biography", "History"