When it comes to Gou Jian, the first thing that comes to our mind is naturally "lying on the salary and tasting the guts", but today we are going to talk about a "suicide squad" under his command.
In 496 BC, after the death of Marquis Yunchang of Yue, his son Gou Jian ascended the throne. However, before he could secure the throne, he had to deal with the invasion of Wu. As soon as he heard the news of Yun Chang's death, he wanted to take advantage of the unstable political situation when the new king of Yue ascended the throne and pacified Yue by force in one fell swoop. Soon after the battle began, the armies of both sides were at 檇李 (檇: pronounced zuì, the same as "槜"; Place name, in the territory of Jiaxing, Zhejiang; and set up a battle formation.
Gou Jian knew that his country's army was much inferior to the well-organized and battle-hardened Wu army, and that he was lacking in experience in leading the country and the army when he first ascended the throne. If the confrontation with Wu is carried out in a normal way, the army of the Yue State will definitely not be able to support it for long and will be wiped out. However, the scheming Gou Jian knew the importance of "fear" and "surprise" in battle, and he decided to find another way to seek victory this time.
He first tried to send a death squad to raid the Wu army, trying to break up the opponent's formation, but not only did it not affect the Wu army, but the death squad was all captured. Despite this, Gou Jian did not give up, and he organized a second death squad to attack the Wu army, but to no avail. Seeing that the two daredevils' actions were unsuccessful, Gou Jian had another plan - this time he still had to send the daredevils to take the lead, but the task of these daredevils was not to attack the Wu army, but to commit suicide. These daredevils were actually some death row prisoners, and Gou Jian ordered them to line up in three rows and line up in front of the battle. Just as they approached the Wu army's defensive line, something unexpected happened. These condemned prisoners put the swords in their hands around their necks and shouted: "Wu and Vietnam are at war, and we have violated military orders, and we have not dared to act decisively in front of the monarch's array, and we dare not evade punishment, so we apologize with death!" After speaking, these sinners killed themselves and fell in front of the Wu ** team.
When the soldiers of the Wu army saw this scene, they were all surprised and dumbfounded. Just when they were in shock, Gou Jian took the opportunity to lead the Vietnamese army to a surprise attack, and soon defeated the Wu army, which had not yet recovered from its senses. What's even more unfortunate is that when King Wu Lu retreated in a hurry, he was cut off by the Yue general Linggu Fu with Ge (an ancient curved weapon, horizontal blade, made of bronze or iron). Soon after, the seriously injured He Lu died in the land of Shendi, only seven miles away from Li Li, and before he died, he ordered the crown prince to be sent as king, and told him that he must not forget Gou Jian's revenge for killing his father.
This battle came to be known as the "Battle of Lili" and is also a famous classic example in Chinese history of winning more with less and defeating the strong with the weak.