《资治通鉴·周纪》79丨史上用耕牛 打胜仗第一人

Summary

This 芮淇讲透资治通鉴 episode completes the 田单 counterattack opened in Zhouji 78. After 燕惠王 replaces 乐毅 with 骑劫, Tian Dan uses a layered sequence of divine-sign theater, rumor bait, enemy atrocity, false surrender, bribery, and the fire-ox night raid to break the Yan siege at 即墨. The later section returns 齐襄王 to 临淄, rewards Tian Dan, and revisits 君王后 and 太史敫 / 太史角 through marriage ritual orthodoxy drawn from 《孟子》.

Key Claims

• 乐毅 flees to 赵国 after the successful rumor operation, while 田单 judges that the replacement commander 骑劫 is far easier to exploit.
• Tian Dan first stages ritual and rumor effects: food offerings attract birds, enemy observers hear that a divine teacher has appeared, and Tian Dan publicly frames his orders as coming from that figure.
• His next rumor bait tells Yan that Qi fears mutilated prisoners and dug ancestral graves; Qi Jie acts on both, turning Yan’s occupation from pacification into atrocity backfire mobilization.
• The visible fate of nose-cut prisoners and desecrated graves makes Jimo’s defenders angrier and more willing to fight, while already occupied Qi cities also become less stable under Yan control.
• Tian Dan then creates a surrender signal: old, weak, and female defenders appear on the walls, hidden soldiers prepare below, and wealthy Jimo households send gold to Yan officers to make the surrender look credible.
• The fire-ox night raid combines physical shock with psychological preparation: decorated cattle with blades and burning tails charge from prepared wall openings at night, followed by five thousand warriors and citywide noise.
• The attack kills 骑劫, routs Yan forces, and triggers the return of seventy-plus Qi cities to 齐国.
• Tian Dan escorts 齐襄王 from 莒城 back to 临淄 and is made Anping Jun.
• The episode then reframes 君王后’s earlier crisis relationship with 田法章: her father 太史敫 / 太史角 refuses to see her because the marriage did not follow parental command and matchmaker ritual.
• Jun Wang Hou is still praised in the source for maintaining respect toward her father after becoming queen, so the episode does not treat the father-daughter conflict as a simple villain/hero split.
• 燕惠王 later regrets replacing Le Yi and fears 赵惠文王赵何 might use Le Yi against Yan, setting up the next episode’s letter exchange.

Key Quotes

“史上用耕牛 打胜仗第一人” - title frame for Tian Dan’s fire-ox tactic.

“分手见人品” - the episode’s teaser for the coming Le Yi and Yan Huiwang correspondence.

Connections

• 田单, 即墨, 火牛阵夜袭, 诈降麻痹, and 暴行反噬式动员 - layered preparation and battlefield execution.
• 骑劫, 燕惠王, 燕国, 阵前换将风险, and 占领区怀柔治理 - replacement commander, abandoned pacification, and Yan collapse.
• 齐国, 齐襄王, 莒城, 临淄, and 民心型政治安全 - restoration path from two holdout cities to recovered territory and capital return.
• 君王后, 太史敫 / 太史角, 患难自主婚姻, 婚姻礼法正当性, and 《孟子》 - earlier private crisis bond reinterpreted through ritual-family norms.
• 乐毅, 赵惠文王赵何, 赵国, and 燕惠王 - post-defeat political anxiety that prepares the next letter-focused episode.

Contradictions

• No direct contradiction found. The title’s “first person” claim is kept as episode rhetoric rather than independently promoted into a general historical fact.
• The source uses 太史敫 for Jun Wang Hou’s father, while the existing wiki page is 太史角 / Taishi Jiao from Zhouji 73. This ingest treats them as the same source branch and preserves the variant on the entity page.