The focus of the Mongol attack on the Southern Song Dynasty lies in the Sichuan region, let's first introduce the terrain of Sichuan and Shaanxi, the northern part of the Sichuan Basin is the Micang Mountain and the Daba Mountain, the west is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Hengduan Mountain Range, the south is the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau Dalou Mountain, the east is the Wushan Mountain, and there are mountains on all sides.
Sichuan basin
The Sichuan Basin is not like everyone thinks of a horse Pingchuan, there are many small hills in Sichuan, as long as Chengdu is a plain, so there is Chengdu, a giant city that has become the center of Sichuan, Although Chongqing is located in the parallel ridge valley of eastern Sichuan, but in addition to the confluence of the three rivers, it is prosperous, and Hezhou Fishing City is in Hezhou above Chongqing.
Fishing City location
Fishing City
However, after the failure of the Great Khan's Nest and Kuotai to destroy the Song Dynasty, Möngke Khan learned the lessons of the previous setbacks in the southern expedition and implemented a new strategy and tactics, that is, through the tun tian shubian, the construction of castles, and the establishment of a series of corresponding garrisons along the Song border.
In order to make the preparation for the battle against the Song Dynasty more adequate, Möngke still used his usual technique of fighting with peace and war, and in the spring of 1254 repatriated The Song envoys such as Wang Yuanshan, who had been detained for a long time, and sent envoys such as Suomen and others. The Southern Song Dynasty border ministers left the Envoys in Yangzhou and reported them to the imperial court, but the Song court still refused to see the Envoys because of the arbitrary language of the letter of state sent by the Envoys and the harsh terms of the proposals and peace. In June, Shusumen and others left yangzhou north and reported to Möngke Khan that the Southern Song Dynasty had insulted the Mongols and wounded the emissaries in order to provoke the Great Khan. Since the Southern Song Dynasty refused to be envoyed, unwilling to submit to the Mongols, anxious to establish a cause beyond his father's ancestors, and had the motive of competing with Kublai Khan for control of the Central Plains, when the "peace" hand could not force the Song people to obey, he decided to resort to force, lead the army to conquest, and prepare to destroy the Southern Song Dynasty in one fell swoop.
In June 1256, Möngke Khan held a meeting of Khuriletai at the Kuriletai Assembly in central Mongolia to discuss the cutting of the Song Dynasty. The kings and grandsons, the horses and horses also put forward: "The Southern Song Dynasty is so close to us, and it is an enemy of us, why do we ignore it and delay in destroying the other country?" "Our fathers and brothers, the kings of the past, each of them has established a deed, conquered an enemy, and raised his reputation among the people. I will also personally go out on a campaign to attack the Southern Song Dynasty. So Möngke used the Southern Song Dynasty to imprison the Mongol envoy YueLi Masi as a way to plan the war against the Song Dynasty. In the first month of the following year, Möngke officially issued an edict to conquer the Song Dynasty.
In September, Möngke Khan left his younger brother Ali Buge and his own son Yulong to lose the land of Zhenshou and Lin Gen, and personally conquered the Southern Song Dynasty. In April of the following year, Möngke garrisoned the group at Liupan Mountain to escape the summer heat and recruited "various Daoist soldiers" for large-scale operations.
Hala and Forest Ruins
Meng Ge's plan to attack the Song Dynasty was divided into two fronts, the left and right route army, and the two fronts of the south and north of the Yangtze River: the right road army, led by Meng Ge himself, attacked Bashu through Guanzhong; ordered the kings Tacha'er to lead the left route army to attack the Jinghu area and attract the main force of the Southern Song Dynasty. The Southern Route Army, which was left in Yunnan, coordinated the attack south of the Yangtze River, went north out of Guangxi and Hunan, joined the eastern and western road armies in Hubei Ezhou, and then went down the river to the east, directly attacking the Southern Song Dynasty capital Lin'an.
The actual number of soldiers and horses in the Left Road Army is now unknown, but in the Right Route Army, the main force accompanying the Shu army included the Mongols, Hui Hui, Western Xia, and Han troops, with 40,000 people, claiming to be 100,000 people, plus the troops of Shu Shou Li Prefecture, Chengdu, JieZhou, and Qiuzhou, with a total strength of about 70,000 people. Although the number of people is not large, they are all the elite of the Mongolian army, so the soldiers are strong and strong, and the combat effectiveness is extremely strong.
In order to clear the way for his own imperial conquest in order to achieve success in one fell swoop, Möngke ordered the army of the Left Route Army Wuliang Hetai and the Mongol army in Shu to launch an attack in advance.
On the Sichuan side, the Mongol army stationed in Lizhou attacked Kuzhu Pass in early 1257 (the fifth year of Song Baoyou). Bitter Bamboo Pass is in the north of the famous Jianmen Pass, four cliffs, shaped like a city, controlling the throat of the Lizhou Mongol army to the south of the two rivers.
Sword Gate Off Vista
In mid-1254, it was attacked by the Mongol army, and the Song army, after a bitter battle, was recaptured at the beginning of the following year, forcing the Mongol army to withdraw from Jianzhou.
The sword door is closed
At this point, the Mongolian army once again stormed the Bitter Bamboo Pass, intending to seize the Sword Gate Heavenly Danger through this pass, and peek south into the east of Chuandong.
The Song general Yang Li was unable to support him with few soldiers, so he abandoned the Bitter Bamboo Pass and retreated to Jiping Village.
Bitter Bamboo Pass
When the news came, Cheng Yuanfeng, the chancellor, sang: "It has always been extremely difficult to restore this pass, and Yang Li should not give it up lightly." In order to block the passage for the Mongol army to invade the south, Song Lizong urgently dispatched 5,000 soldiers from Jinghu to Shu to come to the aid of Shu in April, and ordered the Shu commander Pu Xuanzhi to "rush to the front line" in early April, with Zhu Lisun as the supervising army, and urgently dispatched all the armies in Shu to the Jianmen to help, and he also personally proposed the soldiers and horses of the System Division to the front. In May, under the repeated battles of reinforcements from various roads, the Song army finally recaptured the Kuzhu Pass and the Jianmen fortresses. In June, Pu Xuanzhi took advantage of the victory to go north and attack baofeng village in Lizhou, which was held by the Mongol army's Wang Dechen troops, but he was dropped out because of the lack of grain transportation, the rain of Lin, and the "damage" of the equipment. For this reason, Song Lizong sighed deeply and said that it was a pity that Guangguang had lost this opportunity. ”
In the autumn of that year, the Mongol Marshal took Niu Xuan, the son of Da'er, on the orders of Meng Ge, and sent 10,000 troops from Lizhou to the Bailong River, through the Mountains of Minzhou, out of Liangshan, and straight to the Three Gorges Gate; Liu Heima of Wanhu took advantage of the emptiness of the southern Song Dynasty's defense of the western part of Sichuan to lead the Han army into and occupy the city of Chengdu, which had been abandoned by the Song people. When Liu Heima and his subordinates lived in the Jin Dynasty, they all put forward the suggestion that "if you want to slightly determine the lower cities of Xichuan, you should first determine Chengdu as the fundamental" proposal.
So far, it took the Mongolian army only seven days to build a new city on the ruins of the old city of Chengdu that "has all the buildings and the buildings." Möngke then ordered the marshal of the capital, Adahu, to lead a Mongol army to defend Chengdu.
In the spring of 1258, Emperor Lizong of Song believed that Chengdu was in danger of Shu and could not fail to do so, and urgently ordered Pu Xuanzhi to take measures to recover Chengdu. While personally leading the main force in Shuzhong to besiege Chengdu, in order to block the rescue of Wang Dechen in Lizhou in the north and the two Mongolian armies in the area of Fuzhou in the east, Pu Xuanzhi sent the capital Yang Dayuan to lead an army to guard Jianmen Pass, and ordered Duan Yuanjian and Liu Zhen to lead an army to guard the Jianmen Pass, and at the Lingquan Mountain and Fujiang Ferry Crossing River Arrow Beach on the east and West Sichuan main roads of Suizhou (present-day Suining, Sichuan), he ordered Duan Yuanjian and Liu Zhen to lead an army to guard it.
Taurus Road
At this time, the commander of the Mongolian army in Chengdu, Adahu, fell ill and died, and the generals elected Xuan Niu as the commander to command the armies. So Niu Xuan led his army back from eastern Sichuan to reinforcements, but was blocked at Jiangjiantan. After a full day of great fighting between the Song and Mongolian armies from morning to night, Niu Lu finally broke through the Song army's defensive line and beheaded more than 2,700 people. The Han army, which was only commanded by Shi Mo, also defeated the Song soldiers at Lingquan Mountain, and the Song capital Han Yong was killed. Niu Lu drove straight into chengdu and arranged for the army to climb the city and refuse to defend it. When there was a long drought, the Song soldiers under the fortified city of Dunbing slept and had a picnic, which was very difficult, and their morale gradually relaxed. Entering May, it suddenly rained for several days, and the flat land was flooded, which was extremely unfavorable to the Song army in the wild.
Taking advantage of the opportunity of Wang Dechen's army coming to the aid of Lizhou, Niu Xuan joined forces inside and outside to break through the heavy siege of the Song army and force Pu Xuanzhi to withdraw and retreat.
Lizhou and Chengdu
Niu Xuan took advantage of the situation to lead an army into the Yunding Mountain City northeast of Chengdu City to strangle the Song army's way back. Pu Xuanzhi was defeated in the engagement and retreated eastward. The isolated defenders of Yunding Mountain surrendered Yao De to Mongolia. Under the guidance of Yao De, the cities in western Sichuan were successively annexed, and the "Zhufan" in the northwest of Chengdu also returned. After this battle, the Song forces finally withdrew from Xichuan, and the Mongolian army further consolidated its rule in the western Sichuan Plain, creating conditions for The Mongol Emperor to enter Shu.
In the battlefields of Jinghu and Huaixi, Tacha'er led the Left Route Army south in the autumn of 1256, and in the following autumn, he entered the Xiang and Han fronts and sent troops to attack Xiangyang and other cities. Due to poor military discipline, the officers and men of all armies were keen on plundering property and enjoying themselves, so they sent troops for many days but failed to capture a single city. At this moment, when the rain in the Xiangyang area was continuous and the cavalry movement was blocked, Tacha'er retreated north and returned to their respective camps. Möngke was furious when he heard the news, and sent his emissaries to rebuke Tatzal.
Tachar
In the spring of 1258, in order to cooperate with the main force of the Mongolian army into Sichuan, Möngke ordered Tacha'er to lead troops to attack Jingshan (present-day southwest of Huaiyuan, Anhui), pretend to attack Lianghuai, in order to contain the Jinghu and Lianghuai Song armies, and recruited Li Zeng's soldiers and horses from Yidu province (present-day Shandong) to march from Sichuan.
Li Rub refused to send troops on the grounds that "yidu must rush from the north to the south, and the troops cannot be withdrawn." So Meng Ge sent Li Li from the southeast to attack Huaidong. In October, Li Qi's army attacked Tongzhou (present-day Nantong, Jiangsu) and Taizhou (present-day Jiangsu) on the north bank of the Changjiang River, and then returned his troops to capture Donghai City (東海城, southwest of present-day Lianyungang City, Jiangsu). Li Tan's army was originally perfunctory, and he evaded the conquest of Bashu, so after the goal was achieved, he withdrew north to Shandong and consolidated his territory.
In November, the Song army attacked Luzhou with the Tacha'er army without success, and took advantage of the situation to send troops from Luzhou and Lianshui to attack the rear of the Mongolian army. The Song Zhilu Prefecture DuShu dispatched troops to attack Yingzhou (颍州, in modern Fuyang, Anhui) and burn the Mongol army reserves. Mao Xing, the general of the Lianshui Army, attacked Yizhou in Shandong Province, and was also victorious. Tacha'er fought for a long time without success, and was summoned by Möngke to Sichuan to fight, and kublai Khan commanded the Left Route Army to fight.
On the southern front, Wuliang Hetai was heavily fortified by the Song army on the road north to Sichuan, so it turned the breakthrough point to the Area of Guangxi, where the Song army was weakly garrisoned. In November 1257, Wuliang Hetai first led an army to an expedition to Annam (present-day northern Vietnam) to complete the strategic encirclement of the Southern Song Dynasty. Wuliang Hatai attacked Annam, but on the way to Guangxi, due to the influence of miasma and other influences, he gave up going north, but mobilized the southern Song Dynasty's Jinghu Lianghuai region and stationed in the southwest Guangxi region.
Although the Mongolian army's actions on the battlefields of Jinghu, Lianghuai, and the Southern Front failed to achieve the predetermined results, they greatly restrained the Strength of the Song Army on these battlefields and reduced the resistance for Meng Ge to lead his army into Shu.