Battle of Xiangyang
The battle consisted of skirmishes, ground assault, and the siege of the twin fortified cities of Fancheng and Xiangyang in modern-day Hubei, China.
Lü Wenhuan, commander-in-chief of the Southern Song dynasty, surrendered to Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan in 1273.
The conventional use of Mongol cavalry was restricted by the woody terrain and numerous military outposts of the Southern Song.
Before the rule of Kublai Khan, the Mongols had launched military campaigns as far as Eastern Europe, and had conquered Russia, Siberia, Tibet, Korea, North China, Yunnan, Iraq, Anatolia and Iran.
However, the Song dynasty was difficult to conquer because of the strategic location of Xiangyang, which became a vital position for Kublai to capture and hold.
In 1133, the famous Song general Yue Fei led many successful campaigns against the Jin dynasty, in the Xiangyang area.
[5] The Mongolian cavalry were lured in Xiangyang where they were slaughtered by the Song defenders due to the fortress's double-layered wall design.
The sudden death of Möngke Khan forced the imperial army of the Mongol Empire to withdraw from the Song territory in 1259–60.
Kublai Khan won the war eventually, though his claim as the successor to Möngke was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west.
In 1267, Kublai Khan ordered Aju and the Song defector Liu Zheng to attack Xiangyang and Fencheng.
The Yuan also sent forces to go around the fortress, and set up camps at the key roads, to stop Song supplies from land.
The catalog of useless thrusts continued, the Chinese losing 1,000 in October 1270, 2,000 in August 1271, and most of a 3,000 strong force was destroyed the following month.
Finally, in 1272, a small Song force of 3,000 men was able to break through the Yuan naval blockade, and supplied Xiangyang from the Han river.
"[11] With the rise of dawn, the Song vessels made it to the city walls and the citizens "leapt up a hundred times in joy.
[1] Aju realized that the twin cities were hard to take with Mongol cavalry and wrote to Kublai that he needed Chinese infantry.
Because the Han Chinese commander Guo Kan fought with the Mongols under Hulagu in the Middle East, Kublai had heard of siege engines of great effectiveness.
Experts Ismail and Al al-Din were sent by Abaqa, Ilkhan of Persia, to China by the decree of Kublai Khan in 1272.
Song soldiers in Xiangyang witnessed a giant rock which flew right over the gigantic walls of Fancheng, and hit the houses inside.
Under the cover of bombardment, the Yuan army was able to fill the moat and take the walls, after which followed an assault by a cavalry and the storming of the city resulted in high casualties on both sides.
For the next few days, Song soldiers looked to the south for reinforcements, but all they saw were Yuan siege weapons and the Mongols waiting to end their lives.
In February, Yuan siege weapons began bombarding the city and a shot happened to hit a stone bridge inside.
Lu Wenhuan surrendered the city on 14 March 1273; he was made governor of Xiangyang and Fancheng under Yuan rule as part of the terms.
[16] Siege crossbows and firebombs were also deployed on Song ships against Mongol forces, in addition to fire lances.
They were made from cast iron and filled with gunpowder, the Chinese Song forces delivered them to the enemy via trebuchets.
[19] After Aju asked Kublai, the Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the powerful siege machines of the Ilkhanate, Ismail and Al-aud-Din[20] from Iraq arrived in South China to construct a new type of trebuchet which used explosive shells.
[26] Another version is given by Marco Polo in his book Il Milione where he claims having been responsible for teaching the Mongols how to build and use catapults during the siege of Xiangyang.
