Background
By 294 BC, the kingdom of Qin had become a major military power in China. Its first step of conquest began with the nearby kingdoms of Wei and Han.
Wei and Han had been enemies for many years, and did not pay much attention to Qin. In 294 BC Qin, under General Bai Qi, attacked Han and took an important fortress. Wei and Han realized the might of Qin, and joined forces to stop Qin from further conquests.
In 294 BC, Wei and Han gathered 240,000 troops to face Qin. The battleground was a vast area including five fortresses, cities and defensive positions along rivers and mountain ranges. Bai Qi only had 120,000 men under his command. But the alliance feared Qin's better trained and equipped troops and decided on passive defense. The battle was a stalemate until 293 BC.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Yique
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)