Hei-robe frowned and said, "But Wu Geng's troops should be the most powerful among all rebels. In terms of combat effectiveness, the Shang army under Wu Geng's troops are also the most elite troops of the conservative nobles, and are the most elite troops of the Shang Dynasty. The combat effectiveness is not under King Zhou's king's army. During the Battle of Muye, most of the remaining troops in the Shang Dynasty's king's army were owned by Wu Geng. If the Sixth Division of the Zhou Dynasty and Jiang Ziya's Qi troops were not on the battlefield in person, then in the Central Plains, even the troops of Guan and Cai were not the opponents of Wu Geng's troops. Why didn't Wu Geng join forces with Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai to first concentrate their forces to defeat the main force of the Sixth Division of Zhou of Duke Zhou?"
Dou Peng smiled slightly: "Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai are just dissatisfied with Zhou Gongdan's power in power. No matter how they are, they are just in chaos in the Zhou Dynasty. Even if they help Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai defeated the Zhou Gong army and allowed them to go west to Guanzhong to gain the power of Zhou, they will in turn still regard Shang as the biggest opponent, just like Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai are nominally enemies who monitor Wu Geng, but now they have a common enemy, so they can join forces temporarily."
"So what Wu Geng wants is to temporarily stop being enemies with Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai. He takes this opportunity to expand his power, at least connect the territory of the Shang Dynasty, which was divided into three parts, and then like King Zhou, pacify the Dongyi to the east, gain the support of the princes of the East, and go back to fight with Zhou. He just doesn't want to fight with Duke Zhou's Sixth Division troops, and wants Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai to resist behind him and buy time for him. Therefore, Wu Geng did not go west or stay idle, but sent troops to advance east, aiming directly at his uncle, Wei Ziqi, the founding monarch of the Song State."
The ancestor nodded and said seriously: "Yes, a small number of Wei Ziqi's subordinates were tribesmen who followed him to defect to Zhou. Most of them were subordinates of the former King Zhou after King Zhou's death. These people were in love with King Zhou and hated Wei Ziqi, a traitor, and had a lot of troops. During the Battle of Muye, many of these people had relatives and friends at the hands of the Zhou army, and were also the group of people who hated Zhou the most. Wu Geng thought that when chaos arose in the Zhou Dynasty, he would send troops to attack Wei Ziqi, under the banner of revenge for King Zhou, these people would respond, stand on their own side, and quickly defeat Wei Ziqi. Then, with this force, defeat Jiang Qi's army eastward, and then they could open up connections with Hebei. At that time, they could attack and retreat and defend, and they would be invincible."
"But he underestimated Wei Ziqi's appeal, and even ignored that he betrayed his father during the Battle of Muye. Although he repeatedly explained to the Shang Dynasty's survivors that he had no choice but to turn against the battlefield and preserve a bloodline for the Shang Dynasty and wait for the opportunity. However, Wei Ziqi also sent people to send various letters and messengers from Wu Geng who had secretly interacted with him and agreed to fight against King Zhou together. Afterwards, he also showed them to the Shang Dynasty's survivors, telling them that the real traitor was Wu Geng himself, and Wei Ziqi himself almost fled to Zhou alone, just for life, so how could he have the strength to betray King Zhou?"
"Because these things are so proof that they know these inside stories, not only the old subordinates of the Shang Dynasty of Song, but also many of the Shang Dynasty survivors under Wu Geng were extremely disappointed and no longer served for Wu Geng. Some tribe members even defended their own cities and responded to the Zhou army or swore allegiance to Song State, and became enemies with Wu Geng."
"So Wu Geng failed to steal the chicken and lost the rice. He originally wanted to send troops to quickly destroy the Song State of Wei Ziqi, and then join forces with the princes of the Dongyi Ying State to defeat the Qi army, connect with the old merchants in Hebei, and obtain the capital to fight the Zhou army in a comprehensive manner. However, he did not expect that he would first have civil strife. After Wu Geng quelled the civil strife in the country, he would then go out to Song State. Wei Ziqi defended the capital and concentrated the whole country's troops to defend the city together. Although Wu Geng had many soldiers, he had no troops under Suiyang, and had no troops for three months.
After fighting, when he knew that the Guan Shu and Cai were defeated by Zhou Gongdan's main Zhou army, he was immediately panicked. He first wanted to withdraw from Shangqiu and fight the Zhou army to the decisive battle. Later, he learned that the Qi army had already assembled and got rid of the entanglement of the Dongyi Kingdom and pressed from the east to the Central Plains. He realized that he could not be attacked on these two sides and had to retreat to Hebei before the Zhou army surrounded him. He thought that the Zhou army and Qi army were coming far away, and the target was the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains. The Hebei area was far away, and the Zhou army and Qi army might not cross the river to pursue him."
"So Wu Geng gathered all the tribesmen who could act with him from the Central Plains and crossed the river and fled to Hebei. But what he didn't expect was that the Zhou army and Qi army were determined to completely eliminate the remnants of Shang's rebellion. Although they were plundered by Wu Geng in the Central Plains and cleared the fields for thousands of miles, Wei Ziqi from the Song State sent a large number of military rations and cattle and sheep for supplies to the Zhou and Qi army. So Zhou Gongdan and Jiang Ziya personally led the troops to pursue them. When they chased to the Hebei area, they surrounded the remnants of Wu Geng's troops who came to help."
"The last battle in the Yishui area was killed in the dark. Yishui was dyed with blood from countless dead people. The remaining 20,000 troops of the Shang Kingdom and more than 100,000 people who refused to surrender all died under the blades of the Zhou army, Qi army and Yan army. Tens of thousands of merchants jumped into the Yishui River, and the river water did not flow. The remaining merchants became slaves and were divided by the Three Kingdoms, which is extremely ironic. The prosperity of the Shang Dynasty back then was due to the battle of Yishui, which destroyed the Youyi tribe and became the number one major country in Hebei. Today, the final demise of the Shang Dynasty is still on the edge of Yishui. Perhaps, this is also a cycle of reincarnation. The will of heaven in the dark is, the more glorious it was, the more desolate it was today."
Chapter completed!