260 BC

Battle of Changping

Qin annihilates Zhao's army at Changping

Zhao Kuo did not know that Qin had quietly replaced its commander with Bai Qi. After a source-reported 46-day encirclement and the exhaustion of its food, his army attempted a breakout; he was shot dead.

Two swapped commanders

In the final phase of the 260 BCE campaign near Changping, northwest of modern Gaoping in Shanxi, Zhao replaced Lian Po after repeated defeats. Qin replaced Wang He with Bai Qi without letting Zhao Kuo learn of the change.

Zhao Kuo attacked. The Qin force feigned defeat, drew Zhao's main body forward, and sent detachments — reported by the Shiji tradition as 25,000 troops and 5,000 cavalry — behind it to cut the retreat and split it from the troops still behind the old defensive line.

Forty-six days

After a source-reported 46-day encirclement and the exhaustion of food, Zhao's troops attempted a breakout in the ninth month of 260 BCE. Zhao Kuo was shot dead and the surviving force surrendered.

The Shiji tradition says Bai Qi then massacred nearly all of them, releasing only 240 of the youngest captives. The opposing defensive works reportedly stretched more than 20 kilometres north to south along the Danshui River.

Numbers written 150 years later

The Shiji was compiled roughly a century and a half after the battle. Its figures — about 400,000 surrendered, 450,000 total Zhao losses across the campaign, 240 of the youngest captives reportedly released — have been accepted by some scholars and rejected as exaggerated or notional by others, and the two large numbers are not interchangeable.

The term keng used for Bai Qi's action denotes mass killing or disposal; it does not prove that hundreds of thousands were literally buried alive. The category translated “soldiers” could also include logistical workers and mobilised civilians.

Qin occupied Shangdang and pressed toward Wuan and other Zhao territory within months rather than pausing, and Zhao continued to function and wage major wars afterwards.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 2 audit passes Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The Shiji places the battle itself in 260 BCE. Yang Kuan and some other scholars interpret it as a 262–260 campaign, while the recent reassessment consulted here argues that the military battle began and ended in 260 and that the three-year span concerns the wider struggle for Shangdang.
The Shiji was compiled roughly a century and a half after the battle. Its reported 400,000 prisoners, 450,000 total losses and 240 survivors have been accepted by some scholars and rejected as exaggerated or notional by others.
The term keng used for Bai Qi's action denotes mass killing or disposal but does not prove that hundreds of thousands were literally buried alive.
The category translated “soldiers” could include logistical workers and mobilized civilians, complicating comparison with modern army headcounts.