A scholar led 7,000 soldiers to defend the city for ten months, annihilated 120,000 enemies, and ate 30,000 people, is the battle of Suiyang just or not?
In ancient China, the words "loyalty" were often linked. It seems that since a person can be loyal to the king, he can be righteous to the country and the people.
Obviously, this is not a necessarily true equation. In the famous "Battle of Suiyang", the two lords will be called "Shuangzhong" by later generations, and they have enjoyed official sacrifices all year round since the Song Dynasty.
However, the price of these two loyal ministers of the Tang Dynasty for the Tang Dynasty to defend Suiyang City for ten months was that the 30,000 people in Suiyang City were made into rations for the army!
1. Soldiers are coming to the city: a huge disparity of 130,000 to 7,000
When the process of the Anshi Rebellion reached the third year, whether it was the situation of the Tang Dynasty or the rebels, they were very worthy of the word "chaos".
Tang Ting needless to say. Tang Xuanzong, who was once wise and martial, abandoned the capital and fled, and the invincible Yang family was almost wiped out. The crown prince Li Heng ascended the throne in a hurry, and the counterinsurgency process of the Tang court was not smooth;
On the rebel side, there was an even bigger mess: An Lushan's son An Qingxu killed his father, seized Dayan's "imperial throne", and became the nominal leader of the rebels.
As a latecomer to history, the "God's perspective" tells us that it is by no means logical for An Qingxu to kill his father, and there are many people who are dissatisfied with him within the rebels. Shi Siming, who rebelled with An Lushan, later proved this with his actions.
At that time, An Qingxu, who was in it, did not say anything about the emotions of the generals around him, and he was definitely not ignorant.
As an emperor who ascended to the "throne" in a rebellious way, what he needs most at the moment is practical military exploits to convince the public, and also to deter ill-intentioned Shi Siming and others.
An Qingxu picked the Jianghuai gateway - Suiyang City. This city has always had the title of "the shield of Jianghuai, the throat of Heluo", and is located in the main road of the north and south of the river.
In ancient times, river transportation was the key to the transportation of money and grain. The cost is much lower than that of land transportation, and the speed is faster than that of land transportation. It can be said that Suiyang was lost, and the grain transportation channel of the Tang Dynasty was cut off.
Knowing that the situation was urgent, Suiyang Taishou Xu Yuan did not dare to slack off, and immediately asked for help from other nearby cities.
At the end of the first month of the second year of Tang Zhide (757 AD), Zhang Xun, the commander of Yongqiu, took his only 3,000 soldiers into Suiyang, and gathered with 3,800 people from Xu Yuan.
Looking at the hundreds of thousands of troops led by Yin Ziqi, the general of the rebel army under the city, Xu Yuan and Zhang Xun, who only had 6,800 soldiers behind them, may have been apprehensive, but they never had the idea of retreating.
From the very beginning, they were determined to die, determined to defend this key Jianghuai gateway for the stormy Tang Dynasty.
It's just that they may not have imagined that this battle would be fought for so long and bloody, and finally become a tragic battle to defend the city that is extremely rare in the history of China and even the world.
2. Defending the city in October: Persisting in a desperate situation without food and no help
In general, the beginning of the battle is fierce for both sides. The principle of "one drum of energy" was mentioned in "Cao Di's Polemics", and these generals who have experienced a hundred battles will not understand.
Zhang Xun once encouraged the soldiers in the city that the traitors were a rabble and should not be feared. But even a group of stragglers will have the heart to win when their own forces are ten times that of the opponent, and they will rush up with enough strength.
In the first stage of the defense of Suiyang, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan received an endless offensive from the rebels in 16 days. On the day when the rebels attacked at their heaviest, Zeng attacked 20 times.
Relying on the strong city wall, relying on the single-mindedness of the soldiers and civilians in the city, and relying on the loyalty to the Tang court, everyone in the city persisted in this "one drum" for 16 days.
The number of soldiers lost in the city is unknown, but the number of rebels lost more than 20,000 people, including more than 60 generals. It is no exaggeration to say that every wounded or dead defender of Suiyang exchanged their own casualties for more enemy lives.
Yin Ziqi knew the importance of defeating Suiyang, but the difficulty of attacking was far more difficult than he imagined. After 16 days, the morale of the soldiers also dropped to a very low point. He had no choice but to lead his troops to retreat temporarily, leaving Suiyang a little breathing space.
In the city, Zhang Xun has won the recognition of everyone in the city with his excellent battlefield command ability. Xu Yuan voluntarily handed over the command to Zhang Xun, and he was mainly responsible for logistics.
However, Suiyang City did not enjoy peace for long. Just two months later, Yin Ziqi regrouped after completing the reinforcement of troops.
In the face of the menacing rebels, Zhang Xun knew that a tough encounter was by no means the best choice for the side with fewer people. Therefore, he chose a more labor-saving and smarter way.
One is persuasion. The Anshi Rebellion took place at the height of the Tang Dynasty, not at the end of the Tang Dynasty. This means that many of the rebels were actually only ordered by the leader, not that they did not have a sense of belonging to the Tang Dynasty.
Zhang Xun seized on this point to lobby the rebel soldiers besieging the city. According to the record of "Zizhi Tongjian", "thieves and siegers often abandon the city to surrender, and fight to the death for patrols, with more than 300 people before and after." ”
In other words, Zhang Xun said that more than 300 people were moved to "abandon the darkness and turn to the light" for his use. This back and forth is to make up for the gap of 600 troops.
Don't underestimate the number of 300 people. Although it is nothing for 120,000, it is already a new force for 6800.
Second, it is a sneak attack.
Zhang Xun once ordered the army to beat drums at night, pretending that he was going to attack the camp at night. When the rebels hurriedly got up and prepared to meet the enemy, they found nothing.
If you think that Zhang Xun is just arrogant and tired of the enemy, then it is too simple.
When the rebels were tired of guarding until dawn and the soldiers took off their armor to rest, Zhang Xun took more than ten generals in the city, each with 50 cavalry, and rushed out of the city gates, killing the rebels by surprise.
This wave of sneak attacks took the lives of more than 5,000 rebels.
Third, it is called "capture the thief and capture the king first".
Yin Ziqi, who is besieging the city, is the main general of the enemy army, if Yin Ziqi is killed, it will take a long time for the rebels to send people to reorganize the army, and the danger of Suiyang City can be suspended.
But Yin Ziqi is not a general who likes to charge ahead, and he is very cautious. Not only is he not in front of him when he goes into battle, but he often asks several people to dress up like him to confuse the public.
How to catch Yin Ziqi? Zhang Xun thought of a way. He ordered a few arrows made from wild songs, and shot them out of the city during a confrontation with the enemy.
Some rebel soldiers picked up Ye Songya, thinking that this was a sign that the arrow cluster in the city had run out, and hurriedly took Ye Songya to report to Yin Ziqi. At this time, the "Yin Ziqi" who was found to report must be the real Yin Ziqi.
Zhang Xun used this method to distinguish the real Yin Ziqi, and quickly ordered someone to shoot him with a bow in the city. It's a pity that Yin Ziqi was shot with an arrow in his left eye, but he didn't die, he was just blinded by a shot.
People are not as good as heaven, and Yin Ziqi, who was not killed, hated the defenders in the city even more with the hatred of being blind in one eye. The two sides are bound to be plunged into a war that will never end to the death.
3. Eating people with all the food: 30,000 people were reduced to the rations of defending the city
Yin Ziqi has been besieged for so long, and he still has the opportunity to increase his troops, so where are the reinforcements from the Tang Ting? Unfortunately, the Tang Court was still in a state of chaos at this time.
It's not that Suiyang City hasn't tried to ask for help. Zhang Xun once sent his henchman Nan Jiyun out to borrow troops, but only 3,000 people were borrowed, and half of them were lost on the road.
Such a change did not hide from the rebels. Since he knew that the people inside had reached the point where they had to ask for help outside the city, and they couldn't bring in a large army to help, it was only a matter of time before Suiyang City was broken.
Therefore, in the later stages of the Battle of Suiyang, it was not so much that the soldiers in the city were fighting with the rebels outside, but rather fighting against the lack of food and clothing.
By July of the second year of Zhide, the military rations in the city had reached an extremely scarce level. The people of the city, both military and civilian, could only get one spoonful of rice every day, which was mixed with cowhide, tree bark, tea paper, etc.
This little food is not enough for an ordinary person for a day, let alone the soldiers who have to go into battle to kill the enemy every day? It didn't take long for all the soldiers to lose weight.
The situation continues to deteriorate. Suiyang City gradually lost the power to attack, and could only barely defend.
According to historians, first Zhang Xun had a concubine who voluntarily died and sacrificed her body for the soldiers to eat, and later Xu Yuan also killed his own servants and gave the soldiers food.
I believe that everyone, when they first ate human flesh, resisted. But hunger is a much harder feeling to bear. In the later period, when rice was not available, cannibalism became the only option.
At the end of the Battle of Suiyang, there were only 1,000 soldiers left in the city. Can these 1,000 people eat 30,000 civilians?
I am afraid that the real situation is that in addition to the soldiers who have to eat human flesh to maintain their life and physical strength, the civilians in the city have also reached the stage of changing their children and eating them.
The army eats people, and the people eat people. The weak are really on the table in a turbulent society.
But even if it was cannibalism, Suiyang City couldn't hold it in the end.
Zhang Xun, Xu Yuan, Nan Jiyun and other 36 generals were "cut off their hearts and muscles" and martyred.
The most regrettable thing is that only 3 days after Suiyang City was breached, Zhang Hao, the envoy of Henan Jiedu, arrived with his army and recaptured Suiyang City.
In the ten months that Suiyang struggled to defend the city, and even cannibalism persisted, the Tang court regrouped and was ready to recapture the two capitals. Seven days after the reconquest of Suiyang City, Luoyang was successfully recovered.
Suiyang's hard defense dragged down more than 100,000 rebel troops, giving Tang Ting time to breathe a sigh of relief, so that the entire Jianghuai region was safe and sound.
But behind all this, there is "one will succeed and ten thousand bones will wither", the bloody battle of Zhang Xun, Xu Yuan and other generals, the support of tens of thousands of people in the city, and even the tragedy of feeding on people in the end.
History has no ifs, but future generations have them. When looking back at the Suiyang Guard, it is inevitable that there will be some regrets:
If reinforcements had come earlier, wouldn't those soldiers who had been fighting for ten months have died so miserably?
If the reinforcements had come earlier, wouldn't the people in the city have died less, at least not as food?
The battle of Suiyang is certainly brilliant, certainly brilliant, and it is certainly the pinnacle of the battle to defend the city in the era of cold weapons. But who wants to see such a miserable war?
The saints are unkind, and the people are dogs. In the face of war, the value of individual lives has become negligible. After the Anshi Rebellion, the population of the Tang Dynasty was directly halved, and Suiyang was the epitome of human life in this troubled world.
At all times, as ordinary people, we should be grateful for all that peace has brought us.