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🗓️ 8 February 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
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The Warring States period in China (c. 481-221 BC) was an era of mass-mobilization warfare unlike any other the world had seen to that point. Armies of hundreds of thousands of men fought on an increasing scale for centuries, wiping out state after state until only one - Qin - would remain to rule all of China.
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0:00.0 | Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad free right now. |
0:04.3 | Join Wundery Plus in the W slope one switch back at a time. It was narrow, so narrow, that only a half dozen men could walk abreast as they struggled upward. The view down into the gorge was dizzy. The bridge over the rushing waters of the river far below barely visible from this height. |
0:38.0 | And this was just one ridge, one difficult and dangerous track, on the long road that led back to the Wei River Valley and the |
0:45.2 | heartland of the state of Chin. |
0:47.8 | Despite the difficulty, the sound of thousands of tramping feet thudded onto the well-packed earth and stones. This wasn't the first army to make its way through the forested hills and mountains that lay to the south of the Wei River. |
1:00.0 | For centuries, the peaks of the Chinling Mountains had protected the Chin from invasion, |
1:04.0 | but so too did they cut off that protected land from the rich resources of grain, salt, and iron |
1:10.0 | that lay to the south in the Sichuan Basin. |
1:12.0 | Now, however, these roads connected the two regions, |
1:15.9 | offering a path through the sharp-edged valleys and tree-covered ridges. It had taken years |
1:21.0 | and an enormous expenditure of resources to build these roads. |
1:24.6 | All the resources the state of Chin could bend to the task. |
1:28.1 | But now that it was done, the weak states of Ba and Shoe would fall and Sishuan would become the bread basket to feed of a racially hungry war machine. |
1:37.0 | The soldiers climbed and climbed, knowing that their reward for reaching the top of this narrow track was a tricky descent down into the |
1:43.9 | next valley, followed by yet another brutal ascent. Most weren't particularly |
1:48.8 | happy about being there, taken away from their fields and families, forced into military service at the behest of Chins ruling, |
1:56.0 | knowing that there was no escape from the relentless directives of the state. |
2:00.0 | Their legs burned under the weight of their armor and weapons, their lances, pole arms, and crossbows hanging heavily over their shoulders. |
2:07.0 | Even the elite soldiers struggled, weighed down by their iron armor. |
2:11.0 | The horses whinnied and nade, even less happy about the climb than their human companions. |
2:15.0 | One mount fell with an all-too-human scream, plunging downward over the edge into the valley |
2:22.2 | far below, |
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