Battle of Changping
The Battle of Changping, fought in 260 BCE, was one of the largest and most decisive campaigns of the Warring States period in China. The state of Qin crushed the army of Zhao in what is now southeastern Shanxi province, and the victory removed the most serious military rival to Qin's growing power. Although the conflict was not the final step, it shifted the balance among the major states and made the eventual Qin unification, achieved decades later, far more likely.
By the third century BCE, China was divided among several competing kingdoms, with Qin in the west the strongest. Reforms attributed to the statesman Shang Yang in the fourth century had turned Qin into a highly organized state that rewarded military service and drew heavily on its farming population. Zhao, to the east, maintained one of the strongest armies among Qin's rivals. Qin had been expanding into the neighboring state of Han, and when the Han territory of Shangdang was offered to Zhao, Qin saw a challenge to its ambitions and moved against Zhao.
The campaign lasted for roughly two to three years, according to most accounts. Zhao first relied on the veteran general Lian Po, who adopted a defensive strategy and dug in against Qin's attacks. Our main source, the Han-dynasty historian Sima Qian, relates that Qin spread rumors and intrigue that led the Zhao court to replace Lian Po with Zhao Kuo, a younger commander thought to be more aggressive. Qin, reportedly placing its celebrated general Bai Qi in secret command, then lured the Zhao army forward, encircled it, and cut off its supplies. The trapped Zhao forces were starved for weeks before surrendering or being destroyed.
The most notorious part of the story is the fate of the prisoners. Ancient sources claim that Bai Qi had hundreds of thousands of Zhao soldiers executed, sparing only a small number of young men. The figures, often given as around 400,000 dead, are probably exaggerated, as ancient Chinese texts often inflated casualty counts, but most historians accept that a very large massacre of prisoners did occur. Archaeological finds of mass burials in the area have been linked to the battle, though interpretations vary.
The consequences were profound. Zhao lost a huge portion of its fighting-age men and never fully recovered, even though Qin's advance on its capital, Handan, was eventually halted. The other states, weakened or divided, were unable to form a lasting coalition against Qin. Within about forty years, Qin conquered its remaining rivals, and in 221 BCE its king became Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. Changping remains a byword in Chinese history for both strategic cunning and the brutality of total war.