Before the Song and Liao dynasties concluded the alliance of Liaoyuan, the two countries had a fierce urban offensive and defensive war in Yingzhou, and the size of the Liao army participating in the battle, the high specifications of the commander, and the huge number of casualties were rare in the history of the Song and Liao wars for more than twenty years. It can even be said that the Battle of Yingzhou between song and Liao can be described as one of the most brilliant victories achieved by the Song Dynasty over the Liao State.
On October 6, 1004, in order to obtain more chips on the negotiating table and to demonstrate to the Song Dynasty, Xiao Yanyan, the empress dowager of the Liao Dynasty, led nearly 200,000 Liao troops to besiege Yingzhou, and the small Yingzhou was instantly submerged in the sea of people by the Liao people.
Compared with Zhao Guangyi's Battle of Taiyuan to destroy the Northern Han Dynasty and Zhao Guangyi's siege of Youzhou, Xiao Yanyan attacked a Yingzhou that was inferior to Taiyuan and Youzhou in all aspects with such a strong force, which was undoubtedly a hand in hand, which was a cattle knife in the true sense of killing chickens. Yingzhou was definitely dead, which almost no one would have objected to at the time, even the military and civilians in Yingzhou City.
In Yingzhou (present-day Hejian, Hebei), at the Battle of Junziguan that year, Liu Tingrang's tens of thousands of troops were completely destroyed, and their garrison at that time was Yingzhou. At this time, the defender of Yingzhou City was named Li Yanwo, who had been unknown until now, and he was also a person who entered the imperial official field with his father's grace, and his father was Li Jinqing, who had followed Liu Tingrang, the commander of the Eastern Route Army of the Song Army, to cut down Shu during the Taizu Dynasty and later commanded the infantry of the Forbidden Army and the Emissary of the Jingjiang Army. Throughout the ages, there have been many wastes in the Yauchi, but there are also many strongmen and even Yu Qing who are better than blue, and Li Yanwo is exactly like this, and history will prove that he did not insult his father's reputation.
As early as when the Liao army entered the Kannan region to threaten Yingzhou, Li Yanwo began to prepare for the defense of the city, and on the one hand, he organized the state soldiers in the city to defend the city, and on the other hand, he recruited a large number of young and middle-aged people in the city to go to the head of the city to participate in the defense. At the critical moment, he received another reinforcement army, and the inspection of Bei and Ji prefectures made Shi Pu lead his troops into Yingzhou in time to help him defend the city.
Xiao Yanyan gave an order, and the siege began!
The Liao army climbed around Yingzhou like countless huge ants, shouting and screaming, and constantly firing arrows at the city wall as they rushed to the city wall, and the Song army responded to them with rolling stones and bows and arrows. At the beginning of the war, no matter how many people of the Liao army climbed the city wall, they all died under the root of the wall without exception.
In the face of the stubborn resistance of the Song army, the entire Liao army was furious, so a more fierce and fierce siege operation began, and the Liao army began to attack the city day and night. At the same time, the Liao people also began to make some siege equipment temporarily, although these things are not as good as the professional equipment of the Song Dynasty, but it is better than climbing with bare hands.
The real test of Yingzhou City is coming!
After the shotgun was exchanged for artillery, the Liao army approached the city wall of Yingzhou again and again in the sound of drumming and shouting killing, still attacking the city on all sides, or making a terrible posture to kill Yingzhou without leaving a chicken or dog.
In order to defend against the Bow and Arrow of the Song Army, the soldiers of the Liao Army approached the city wall with or on their backs, made of wooden planks made by logging, and at night they even attacked with torches. The Song army also had to defend against the bows and arrows of the Liao army, and the hundreds of thousands of enemies each shot an arrow that was enough to make the defenders on the city tower shout for help, and the Song army's response strategy was to take the wooden planks and even the doors of the residents' homes to the city tower as a shield.
The density of the Liao army's arrow rain can be seen from two details: after the war, the soldiers of the Song army took down more than 200 arrows in a few inches of a protective plate, and after the Liao army withdrew, the Song army that came out to clean the battlefield collected as many as 400,000 arrows from the moat trench!
In the face of the liao army's almost crazy attack, the Song army generals who were determined to die were already fearless. Although the Yingzhou judge Lu Yuankai was a man of letters, he also resisted the enemy together with the defenders on the castle tower, and the Liao army's arrows hit his cheek and made him bleed instantly, but this seemingly weak scholar still did not get out of the line of fire and continued to smash stones at the Liao army under the city.
Lu Yuankai's behavior deeply shook every soldier and civilian guarding the city. Even a coward was enough to transform into a warrior at this point in the war, and everyone in Yingzhou City knew that they had no way out, and even if they surrendered now, they would definitely be liquidated by the Liao people after the war. What's more, in the Junziguan not far away, tens of thousands of Heroic Souls of the Song Army, who had collectively died in heroic battles, were also watching them!
After the Liao army's siege lasted for nearly ten days, Xiao Yanyan, who was the empress dowager, lost her mind in the face of the desperate resistance of the Song army and the death and wounds of the Liao army. This woman went crazy, she brought his son, yelü Longxu, who was now 32 years old, to the front line, and the mother and son did something that made the Liao army feel incredible--the empress dowager and the emperor of the Liao state personally picked up the drumsticks and beat the drums to make the Liao army attack the city again!
The whole Liao army went crazy with it, and they launched a strong attack on Yingzhou regardless of life and death, but the result was that they did nothing except throw more corpses under the city and soak the land under the city into a bloody infrared. They did shoot millions of arrows at the city walls, but at the same time the Song army in turn borrowed these arrows to shoot at them, and the rolling wood and stones that were more frightening than the arrows were more like they could never be exhausted or smashed.
After the siege lasted for more than ten days, no one in the Liao army climbed the tower of Yingzhou, and Yingzhou seemed to have become an impenetrable optimus pillar for the Liao army. What's more, in the past ten days, the Liao army has left more than 30,000 corpses under the city wall, and their wounded have reached more than 60,000 people!
The Liao army invaded the south totaling more than 200,000, and at this time they had already killed and wounded nearly 100,000 people under a small Yingzhou city.
In desperation, Xiao Yanyan had no choice but to order the attack to stop. She wanted to make peace with war, and she wanted to make the Song Dynasty submit by occupying Yingzhou or win more chips for the Liao state at the negotiating table, but the hedgehog in Yingzhou made her bite full of blood and even hurt her bones.
