Another reason why some historians have attributed Kublai Khan's conquest of the various kingdoms to "pursuing the southern Song Dynasty immigrants and preventing them from reviving with the help of the military forces of the various countries." There is a basis for this attribution. After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan was very distrustful of the army left behind by the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Battles of Xiangyang and Yashan, the Southern Song Dynasty army collected by the Yuan Dynasty was a new auxiliary army, reaching more than 100,000 people.
For such a large and well-trained army, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty did not dare to kill and surrender easily, nor did they dare to dismiss them rashly. For such an army that does not trust, every time there is a war, it is often the first to be mobilized. During the second conquest of Japan, "when Fan Wenhu asked for war horses and returned the cannon, Kublai Khan said: This is a naval battle, what to do with those", refused Fan Wenhu's request, and finally the new annexed army was almost completely destroyed in the war against Japan. As the commander-in-chief, Fan Wenhu did not get the punishment he deserved after the truth of the failure of the conquest was revealed.
A year after his dismissal, in the twenty-first year of the Reign (1284), Kublai Khan still took Fan Wenhu as his left to discuss the privy council. These circumstances reflect Kublai Khan's contempt for the enemy and contempt for the new vassals, as well as Kublai Khan's distrust of the new vassals. Kublai Khan hoped that through foreign wars, the army left over from the Southern Song Dynasty would be consumed, achieving "the purpose of surrendering without killing and surrendering to self-destruction." Although Kublai Khan conquered the Southern Song Dynasty, Jiangnan still had many acts of rebellion against the Yuan court, and the Yuan Dynasty, in order to stabilize the situation in Jiangnan, brutally suppressed the local rebellion, and at the same time continuously recruited Jiangnan Zhuangding as soldiers. Huguangxing Province once sang: "There are more than seventy towns in this province, and they have been fighting for many years, and the elite soldiers and pawns are outside, and the survivors are old and weak, and each city is no more than two hundred people." Through continuous conscription, the resistance force in Jiangnan was gradually weakened, and it could indirectly attack the living forces of Jiangnan's "resistance to the Yuan and the Song Dynasty".
After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, "the warriors of zhuwen were exiled overseas, or they occupied the city, or their sons-in-law crossed their toes, or they did not go to distant countries." "In addition to Chen Yizhong, the chancellor of the Left Dynasty, who went to occupy the city, there were also officials Shangshu Chen Zhongwei, counselors and governors and envoys of Guangxi Zeng Yuanzi, and so on, these Southern Song emissaries did not forget their homeland, and they had quite a plot to unite with the Nanyang countries to seek rejuvenation." Therefore, in the face of internal rebellion and external conspiracy, in order to prevent the remnants of the Southern Song Dynasty from "restoring the Song Dynasty" with the help of the troops of the Nanyang countries, Kublai Khan used the internal conscription and external conquest strategies to deplete the resistance of the Southern Song remnants and strike at overseas support forces to achieve the stability of his rule. In the conquest of Annam in 1285, the Yuan army was "in An yanzhou, Qinghua, Chang'an, the son-in-law of The Fallen Song Chen Shangshu, the Jiaotong Liang Fengyu, zhao Mengxin, Ye Lang and other more than 400 people". Therefore, preventing the rise of the remnants of the Southern Song Dynasty was also one of the reasons for the war launched by Kublai Khan.
Japan was the most resolute country to reject the Yuan Dynasty, and many times sent envoys to be killed or expelled, so it was first used by Kublai Khan. By March of the eleventh year of the Yuan Dynasty (1274), before the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed, Kublai Khan "sent Mu Suta VIII and Samu He to recruit 5,600 Goryeo troops to assist in the conquest of Japan". In the same month, "Fengzhou was ordered to make Xin Du and the goryeo military and civilian governor Hong Chaqiu with a thousand material boats." Three hundred boats each, nine hundred boats, carrying fifteen thousand soldiers, are expected to conquer Japan in July."
In August, Xin Du and other generals led the Mongolian, Han, and Goryeo armies from Hepu, and in October, captured the Japanese islands of Tsushima and IchikiJiji. Subsequently, the Japanese army gathered the main force to fight with the Yuan army in Hakata Bay, and the yuan army that was alone and deep was fiercely blocked, and in the case of the enemy's outnumbered, the soldiers were exhausted, and the whole army had to withdraw to the ship in November of that year. However, at night, the Yuan army was attacked by a storm at sea, the Yuan army suffered heavy losses, the generals and soldiers had no intention of fighting again, and the Yuan army gradually withdrew to the border, and the expedition ended in failure. Japanese history books call it the Battle of Bunaga.
Immediately after the destruction of the Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan launched a second war against Japan. In the first month of the eighteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1281), Kublai Khan "ordered the Japanese governors to lead 100,000 people to conquer Japan with 100,000 people, such as the Right Emperor Ashihan, the Right Emperor Fan Wenhu, Xin Du, and Hong Chaqiu." During this crusade, the Yuan army set out from Qingyuan with a new army of 100,000 people led by Atahhai (in place of Ah Shihan) and Fan Wenhu, and the other route led by Xindu, Hongchaqiu, and 40,000 Mongols, Han troops, and Goryeo troops from Hepu, Jinzhou, and the two route armies prepared to converge on Yiqi Island. Fan Wenhu's troops were not able to meet with Xindu's troops as scheduled, and Xindu and Hongchaqiu defeated the Japanese army with artillery on Ichiki Island and advanced to Shiga Island and Munakata-yō. Since then, the epidemic in the army has been serious, morale has been low, and it has lost one after another. When Fan Wenhu's new army stopped at Eagle Island, it was again hit by a hurricane at sea, causing the Yuan army to "shock and crash, and the boat was broken." The sergeant's trumpet drowned in the sea like a hemp." Fan Wenhu abandoned the ship and "walked alone in Goryeo". The remaining Yuan army was killed by the Japanese army except for a few, and finally the Yuan army "returned three ears of 100,000 people", and the Japanese army finally lost more than 100,000 troops and returned with a crushing defeat. Japanese history books call it the Battle of Hong'an.
After these major wars, the strength of the Southern Song Dynasty troops was basically exhausted, and the Yuan Dynasty's rule in Jiangnan was stable.
Resources
[1] Yuanshi