Why was there no support when the Qin Dynasty was destroyed?

Why was there no support when the Qin Dynasty was destroyed?

After Qin unified the six countries, it quickly launched a war to conquer South Vietnam. According to "Huainanzi·Huanjianxun", the army mobilized by Qin to conquer South Vietnam reached an astonishing half a million troops. In 214 BC, Qin officially conquered present-day Guangdong, Guangxi and northern Vietnam, and established Nanhai, Guilin and Xiangjun here. However, just eight years later, the Qin Empire declared its demise. During the three-year war from 209 BC to 206 BC, the 500,000 Qin troops guarding Lingnan sat back and watched the Qin Dynasty's demise without doing anything. Why is this?

We need to understand it. For this question, we first need to know why the Qin Dynasty conquered South Vietnam.

After the unification of the Central Plains, the Qin Dynasty made two large-scale military deployments. One was when Meng Tian sent 300,000 troops to attack the Huns in the north, and the other was to conquer South Vietnam. Long before Qin unified the six kingdoms, the Huns' cavalry often threatened the northern borders of Qin, Yan, and Zhao. Zhao even deployed more than 100,000 troops along the northern Great Wall all year round to defend against the Huns' southward invasion. Attacking the Xiongnu can completely eliminate the threat from the Xiongnu to the Guanzhong area.

However, compared with the Xiongnu, South Vietnam was still in the late Neolithic Age and the threat to the Central Plains was extremely limited. Not only did the force used by Qin to attack Baiyue far exceed that used to attack the Xiongnu from the north, the war even lasted longer. It should be earlier than the time to attack the Huns from the north. As early as 218 BC, Qin general Tu Ju led five Qin armies to attack South Vietnam. Two years later, Meng Tiancai led the army to regain the Hetao. Why did the Qin Dynasty pay more attention to South Vietnam than to the Xiongnu?

The whole world is the territory of the king. The First Emperor governed the country according to Legalism, with the concept of "Things must be done in the four directions and must be in the center. The saints insist on what is important and the four directions will follow suit." It is not difficult to understand why Qin Shihuang took it as his mission to expand the territory to the south and attack the north. At the same time, there were strategic advantages to conquering South Vietnam.

At that time, the 600,000-strong Qin army had just completed the conquest of the Chu State. Today's Hunan, Fujian and other places were all returned to Qin territory. A strategic pincer offensive had been formed against South Vietnam, and they went south to recover South Vietnam. It makes sense. However, compared with the success of the attack on the Xiongnu in the north, the first war in the south ended in a major defeat of the Qin army. Even the commander of the Qin army, Tu Ju, died in the battle. According to historical records, the natives of South Vietnam "lived like animals" and "were not willing to become Qin captives".

This had to force Qin Shihuang to re-adjust his strategy for conquering South Vietnam: attack steadily, focus on the heart, immigrate to the border, and station for a long time. In 214 BC, Ren Xiao and Zhao Tuo led the army for the second southern expedition. The Qin Dynasty sent many deceased people, sons-in-law, and merchants to accompany the army. This not only established a stable military stronghold for the Qin army, but also developed it to a great extent. After conquering the Lingnan area, the Qin army successfully captured the area and established three counties. Until Qin Shihuang died of illness in Shaqiu four years later, none of the 500,000 troops Qin conquered South Vietnam returned north. History books do not record why the Qin Dynasty did not recall this part of the Qin army.

However, it is obvious that this should be allowed by Qin Shihuang. We can even boldly speculate that in order to completely conquer the land of South Vietnam, the First Emperor may have special orders for Ren Xiao and Zhao Tuo to prevent Qin Once the Qin army withdrew, the Baiyue tribe reoccupied the three counties, resulting in the blood donation of hundreds of thousands of Qin soldiers who died in vain.

This can be seen from Ren Xiao’s instructions to Zhao Tuo before his death. In 209 BC, the Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprising broke out. As the supreme commander of South Vietnam, Ren Xiao, on his deathbed, told Longchuan to order Zhao Tuo to "rest his people and wait for the changes of the princes."

If the supreme commander If the commander-in-chief intends to stay out, then do the 500,000 ordinary Qin troops have the subjective desire to go north for rescue? After all, the Qin army guarding Lingnan mainly comes from the 600,000 people when Wang Jian attacked Chu. It can be said that most of them are Qin people, will they just watch the Qin Kingdom perish? Maybe their parents, wives and children are still waiting for their return in the Central Plains. Will they sit back and watch their homeland be destroyed? Unexpectedly, these 500,000 Qin troops faced the chaos in the Central Plains Showed unusual calmness.

Except for a few "chief officials" who were executed by Zhao Tuo for violating Qin laws, ordinary Qin soldiers did not flee or mutiny. Instead, they followed Zhao Tuo's instructions and built Qin City in Xing'an, Guangxi. , and deployed defenses along the line from Sanjiang, Guangxi to Nanxiong, Guangxi, and stayed in seclusion. This line of defense remained impregnable until the period of Empress Lu, blocking the Han army from moving south.

Special mission. In the face of the chaos in the Central Plains, the abnormal performance of the Qin army in Lingnan makes us have to guess the reason. One possibility is that he is performing some kind of mission; the second possibility is that Zhao Tuo wants to separate himself and become king. Let’s analyze the second possibility first. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo did go into seclusion and proclaimed himself king, and even proclaimed himself emperor for a time.

However, Zhao Tuo did not behave like a careerist. The area controlled by Zhao Tuo was limited to three counties, and the population and economy were far less than those in the Central Plains. If Zhao Tuo intended to sit back and watch the Qin Dynasty collapse and then separatize one side, then during the civil strife in the Central Plains, Zhao Tuo, who had 500,000 troops, should go north Fighting for territory, at least mobilizing the Qin army to go north can be logical under the banner of counterinsurgency. After all, Xiang Yu only had more than 400,000 soldiers at his peak.

Not only did Zhao Tuo not send troops, he even surrendered to the Han Dynasty after the unification of the Han Dynasty was completed. Is it because Zhao Tuo doesn't have the strength to go north? Obviously not. During the reign of Empress Lu, the relationship between the Han Dynasty and South Vietnam deteriorated. The Han army once went south to conquer, and Zhao Tuo also proclaimed himself emperor. Not only did the Han army not gain any advantage in this conflict, but the South Vietnamese army went north and invaded the territory of Changsha.

Even Yelang, Tongshi and other neighboring countries also took advantage of South Vietnam's prosperity and sent envoys to declare themselves ministers. After Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty succeeded to the throne, Zhao Tuo immediately went to the imperial title and declared himself a minister to the Han Dynasty again. Zhao Tuo's actions seem to tell us that he is only satisfied with the three counties of South Vietnam and does not want to fight against the Central Plains. Now let's analyze the first possibility. Zhao Tuo and the Lingnan Qin Army are carrying out some kind of special mission, that is: to completely integrate the South Vietnam region, which has long been separated from the civilization of the Central Plains, into China.

Although this is a guess, there is no lack of evidence. When the Central Plains was in chaos at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Baiyue tribe in Guilin and Xiangjun took the opportunity to rebel and establish an independent country. For example, the prince of Hou Shu established the "Xiou Luo Nu Kingdom" and broke away from the control of the Qin Dynasty. After completing the defense of the northern border, the South Vietnamese Qin Army quickly moved south to put down the rebellion. If the main force of the Qin army in Lingnan had gone north to return for reinforcements, the three Lingnan counties that had been fought so hard to conquer might have been separated from the Central Plains civilization again.

Return to the Central Plains. From the 500,000 Qin army stationed in Lingnan in 214 BC until the death of the commander Zhao Tuo in the fourth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (137 BC), this Qin army and its descendants experienced not only the chaos of the late Qin Dynasty, but also the Han Dynasty. There were many civil wars between princes in the early days. They had countless opportunities to go north, but they all stayed in South Vietnam with peace of mind. Although he sat back and watched the demise of the Qin Dynasty, it objectively accelerated the process of merging the three counties of South Vietnam into China. Perhaps, they and their commander Zhao Tuo were really performing some kind of mission. We have no way to prove it.

In 113 BC, the fourth generation monarch of South Vietnam, Zhao Xing, requested "internal affiliation" from the Han Dynasty. Since then, South Vietnam has been completely integrated into China.