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Battle of Zhuolu

The battle of Zhuolu, the founding battle of Yan and Huang civilization, refers to the battle between the Yellow Emperor tribe and the Chiyou tribe in Dongyi group (now Zhuolu County, Hebei Province) about 4600 years ago. 

The purpose of the "war" was for both sides to fight for the Central Plains suitable for grazing and shallow farming. It is also the earliest recorded "war" in the history of our country, which has had a significant impact on the transformation of ancient Chinese from the barbaric era to the civilized era. 

① As for the attribution of Chiyou tribe, most scholars think that it is the leader of Southern Miao man group (also known as Jiuyi). 

Mr. Xu Xusheng thinks that it belongs to the Dongyi group in the legend age of ancient Chinese history. The argument is well founded, so we should follow it now. War is a kind of social and political phenomenon. 

With the development of social civilization, it has experienced the development stage from nothing to existence, from naivety to maturity.

As early as in the middle and late period of primitive society, armed conflicts took place among various clans and tribes for the purpose of protecting their own living space and carrying out blood revenge.

Because such conflicts are not aimed at plundering the means of production and engaging in class slavery, they are not wars in a scientific sense, but just the seeds of wars. But for the convenience of narration, we still call it "war". 

The legendary battles between Shennong and Fushui, the battle between the Yellow Emperor and Yandi in Hanquan, the battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou in Zhuolu, and the war between Gonggong and Zhuanxu are the historical traces of such "wars". 

Among them, the battle of Zhuolu is the most typical one. In the middle and late period of primitive society, three groups of Huaxia, Dongyi and Miaoman gradually formed in the vast area at that time. Among them, Huaxia group takes Huangdi and Yandi as the core. 

They rose in today's Guanzhong Plain, southwest Shanxi and Western Henan respectively. After integration, it developed along the north and south banks of the Yellow River to the west of the North China Plain. At the same time, the Jiuyi tribe (a branch of Dongyi group), which rose in the border area of Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and Anhui in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, began to enter the North China Plain from east to West under the leadership of its famous leader Chi you. In this way, an armed conflict between Huaxia group and Dongyi group was inevitable. 

The battle of Zhuolu broke out under this historical background. It is said that Chiyou people are good at making weapons. Their copper weapons are excellent and strong. They are brave and brave. They are good at fighting and are good at fighting. 

After entering North China, they first had a direct conflict with the Yandi tribe. Chiyou, together with the giant Kuafu tribe and Sanmiao tribe, defeated the Yandi tribe by force, and then occupied the "nine corners" of the Yandi tribe, namely "nine states". In order to survive, the Yandi people asked the Huangdi people of the same group for help. 

In order to protect the overall interests of Huaxia group, the Huangdi people agreed to the request of Yandi people and pushed their power to the East. 

In this way, it is the same as the Chiyou people who are taking advantage of the situation to advance to the northwest in Zhuolu area. 

At that time, the Chiyou people gathered 81 clans (72 clans in a word) and had a certain advantage in strength. Therefore, after the contact between the two sides, the Chiyou people relied on a large number of people and excellent weapons to attack the Huangdi people on their own initiative. 

The Yellow Emperor clan led the clan with bears, bottoms, wolves, leopards, eagles, dragons and owls as totems to meet the Chiyou clan, and let the "Yinglong gaoshui", that is, to build earth dams on the rivers to store water, so as to block the Chiyou clan's attack.

After the "war" broke out, it happened to be heavy fog and heavy storm rain, which is very suitable for Chiyou people from the eastern rainy environment to carry out military operations. 

Therefore, in the early stage of the war, the Huangdi people, who were suitable for fighting in sunny weather, were not in a favorable position. 

They had been defeated nine times in nine wars. However, before long, the rainy season passed and the weather cleared up, which provided an important opportunity for the Huangdi people to turn defeat into victory. 

The Yellow Emperor took advantage of the opportunity to fight back against Chiyou with the support of Xuannu. He took advantage of the special favorable weather, such as strong wind, dust and sand in the sky, blowing horns and beating drums. 

When the Chiyou people were confused and frightened, he drove them to attack the Chiyou people with a guide car. Finally, he defeated the enemy in one fell swoop and killed his leader Chiyou in the wild of Jizhou. 

The battle of Zhuolu ended with the victory of the Huangdi people. After the war, the Huangdi people took advantage of the victory and moved eastward until they arrived near Mount Tai, where they held a ceremony to "seal Mount Tai" before returning to the West. At the same time, he ordered Shao Fuqing, a clan leader named Shao Fuqing, to continue to command the Jiuyi tribe, and forced the Dongyi group to form an alliance with his own Huaxia group. The general course of the "war" is revealed by myths and legends, so more specific details are not available. But myth, after all, is the projection of history, which reflects the fact itself tortuously. 

In this sense, the battle of Zhuolu can be regarded as the origin of ancient wars in China. In the battle of Zhuolu, the reason why the Huangdi people won the final victory was that their war guidance was superior to that of Chiyou people. 

Specifically speaking, he has begun to pay attention to preparing for war from both political and military aspects, which is proved by the historical saying that "Xuanyuan's family is cultivating morality and invigorating soldiers". 

In the course of war, the Huangdi people were also good at fighting for allies, paying attention to choosing and preparing battlefields, skillfully making use of weather conditions favorable to themselves and unfavorable to the enemy, fighting back decisively and in time, so as to defeat powerful opponents at one stroke and establish their own control over the central Plains. 

On the contrary, although the Chiyou people have a strong military strength and superior weapons and equipment to their opponents, they have planted the seeds of failure in advance because they blindly believe in force and have been expanding to the outside world for many years. 

In terms of operational guidance, they lacked the ability to cope with the weather conditions and the preparation to resist the large-scale counterattack of the Huangdi nationality, so they were defeated and lost the historic opportunity to control the Central Plains. 

The result of the battle of Zhuolu laid a strong foundation for the Huaxia group to occupy the vast central plains, and played a catalytic role in the further integration of various clans and tribes. Huang Di, the tribal leader who won the war, became the common ancestor of the Chinese nation and was gradually deified. It can be seen that the battle of Zhuolu was indeed a historic "war" that determined the basic appearance of the Chinese nation in the early days.

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