After Genghis Khan unified the steppe tribes and established the Great Mongol State, he led his Mongol Iron Horse to march all the way to the east and west, establishing a huge empire that had never been seen before or since. Wherever the Mongol Iron Horse went, it was invincible and invincible, from Khwarazm in Central Asia to Rus', Hungary and other countries in Europe, and almost all countries were on the verge of collapse and had no power to fight back.
In the course of the three western expeditions, the Mongol Iron Horse destroyed countless countries and fought all the way to the Danube River Valley, but in the face of the always weak Southern Song Dynasty, they were repeatedly frustrated.
The Song Dynasty resisted the attack of the entire Eurasian continent with the strength of half of China for more than fifty years, and finally lost in the Battle of Jiaoshan. So what is the significance of the Battle of Jiaoshan, and what is the course of the war?
The great name of Wen Tianxiang, the famous prime minister and national hero of the Southern Song Dynasty, must have been known to everyone in the land of China, and no one knew it, but the anti-Mongolian hero of his contemporaries, Zhang Shijie, who was named after Wen Tianxiang, was little known, and the commander of the Battle of Jiaoshan was precisely this Zhang Shijie.
Zhang Shijie, together with Wen Tianxiang and Lu Xiufu, was known as the Three Masters of the Late Song Dynasty.
But such a hero who fought hard for the Song Dynasty to the last moment was not a Song Dynasty. Zhang Shijie was born in Fanyang, which is today's Beijing, which at that time belonged to the sphere of influence of the Jin Dynasty.
The Zhang family was the number one family in the Jin Dynasty, and when the Mongols attacked the Jin Kingdom, Zhang Shijie's cousin Zhang Hongfan surrendered to the Mongols and became a major force in the Mongol army to destroy the Song.
According to the reason, Zhang Shijie should have surrendered to Mongolia with his brother and uncle, but he was ashamed of bending down and surrendering, and resolutely crossed the river south and defected to the Southern Song Dynasty.
It is worth mentioning that in the process of the Mongols destroying the Southern Song Dynasty, it was not the Mongols themselves who really exerted their great strength, but the Jin Dynasty Han and Southern Song generals who surrendered to the Mongols played a huge role, and it was the Southern Song generals who surrendered to Mongolia who planned the song campaign.
After the surrender, these generals brought a large amount of military and political intelligence from the Song Dynasty, and made great contributions to the Mongols' elimination of the Han Dynasty. The strategy of destroying the Dali state first and making the Southern Song Dynasty suffer from the enemy was also the strategy formulated for him by kublai Khan's Han strategists.
The reason for this is precisely because of the long-standing atmosphere of emphasizing literature and light martial arts since the two Song Dynasties, which led to the fact that military generals could not be reused in the Song Dynasty, and the treacherous ministers in the late Years of the Southern Song Dynasty were repeated, and the miasma of the government was also an important factor that led to the surrender of a large number of Song generals to the Mongols.
By the time of the Mongols who had massively destroyed the Song Dynasty, Emperor Duzong did not think of cheering up in the face of the crisis, but indulged in wine, and even left a record of favoring more than thirty concubines overnight.
After the death of Emperor Duzong of Song, who was overly drunk, his four-year-old son succeeded him as Emperor Gong of Song. Kublai Khan seized the opportunity of the Southern Song Dynasty's lord Shaoguo to mobilize more than 200,000 people from the Three Roads Army to the south, preparing to attack the Song Dynasty in one fell swoop.
After Zhang Shijie came to the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhang Shijie, who had no resources and no connections, threw himself into the army, starting from the most basic small soldiers, accumulating battle achievements step by step, becoming a young officer of the Song Army, and finally becoming the Privy Councillor of the Song Dynasty. When the Mongols marched south, Zhang Shijie was instructed to serve the king and lead an army around Jiaoshan to block the way of the Mongols, and a major war broke out.
Jiaoshan has been a place of contention for soldiers since ancient times, curbing the Yangtze River, which has great strategic value, and the Song army has set up artillery and fortifications here, and strictly waited for the arrival of the Mongol army. The two armies soon began to fight on the Yangtze River, originally water warfare was the strength of the Song army, but the Mongols who had gone south many times were no longer the dry ducks of the past, and their experience in water warfare was no longer what it used to be. In order to show his determination to fight to the death, Zhang Shijie connected the warships with iron locks, imitating the scene of the Battle of Chibi that year.
The great general of the Mongol army, Ah Shu, when he accompanied his father to the army, when his father was seriously ill, Ah Shu took over his father's heavy responsibilities and was called a strong general. Seeing Zhang Shijie's array, Ah Shu laughed and said, "This generation is easy to break, but it can be burned and walked away." "Therefore, the Yuan army prepared a large number of rockets and fire boats, and took advantage of the wind to set fire on the Song army."
Because the Mongol army collected a large number of local craftsmen for their own use everywhere they went, and there were many skilled craftsmen in the army, the level of firearms of the Mongol army was the leading in the world at that time, and the warships were equipped with a large number of trebuchets to fire fireballs, and the flames soon rushed to the warships of the Song army.
Soon, most of the Song army's warships were burned down, and the fire burned several inches high, dyeing the entire sky red, and more than 10,000 soldiers saw this scene and threw themselves into the water to die. After this battle, the Song army's Yangtze River defense line completely collapsed, and the city of Lin'an, which had lost the protection of natural danger, was directly exposed to the Mongol army, and before long, the city of Lin'an was destroyed, the Song Emperor surrendered, and the three palaces of the emperor, the empress dowager, and the empress dowager were all captured by the Mongols and went north.
Although the success or failure of the Battle of Jiaoshan has been determined, but the tenacity of the Song Dynasty's resistance is rare in the world, even the Great Khan of Mongolia Möngke was killed by the Song army under the Diaoyu City in Sichuan, which changed the course of world history, making the Mongol army that had already invaded Egypt retreat to compete for the Khan's position, otherwise I am afraid that Africa will inevitably be trampled by the Mongolian iron hoof.
In our impression, the Song Dynasty's emphasis on literature and light force is a foregone conclusion, and whenever it goes to war with the northern nationalities, the Song Dynasty has almost been defeated in many battles, and has successively become a defeated general under the Liao, Jin, and Western Xia, and its military strength is far from that of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
However, such a weak Song Dynasty was able to persist for half a century under the blows of the Mongols, who were called the Whip of God by Europeans, and it is conceivable that the courage and ability of the Song Dynasty's military and civilians to defend their homes and defend the country are not inferior. The integrity of the Song Dynasty is not only reflected in the combat effectiveness of the Song Army, but also in the large number of loyal soldiers who dared to stand up for the Song Dynasty when the Song Dynasty fell. Zhang Shijie is the best in this group.
Although the emperor surrendered, Zhang Shijie did not give up resistance, he rushed to Lin'an City to take the emperor's two brothers to the Wenzhou area, and together with Lu Xiufu, one of the princes succeeded to the throne, which was Song Duanzong. The Yuan army continued to attack southward, Wenzhou was soon lost, and Duanzong's small court continued to flee south, all the way to Fujian, and was forced to flee to the sea. Along the way, the boat and car were tired and frightened, and the little emperor, who was only eleven years old, died at sea. Zhang Shijie and Lu Xiufu both supported another prince to succeed to the throne, which was the last emperor of the Song Dynasty, Emperor Shao of Song.
The small imperial court was driven south by the Mongols and fled all the way to the vicinity of Yashan in the Xinhui area of Guangdong, at which point Zhang Shijie's cousin Zhang Hongfan led the Mongol army to the foot of Yashan Mountain. Out of brotherly friendship, Zhang Hongfan sent people to summon Zhang Shijie several times, and among those who came was Zhang Shijie's nephew.
But Zhang Shijie righteously said to his nephew:
"I know that after surrendering I will be able to gain a lifetime of glory and wealth, and if the battle continues, then we will undoubtedly die." But I would rather not have such a rich man, loyal to the king and patriotic heart to the death! ”
Seeing that his uncle's attitude was so resolute, his nephew had no choice but to go back to Zhang Hongfan. So the two armies once again lined up and decided to carry out a final decisive battle.
It is reasonable to say that with the lessons of the previous defeat, this battle should be careful, but I don't know what Zhang Hongfan planned in his heart, he actually ordered the warships to be connected again, so he repeated the technique and confronted the Mongols.
In this way, the result is needless to say, the Battle of Yashan almost became a copy of the Battle of Jiaoshan, Zhang Shijie's troops were killed by the Mongol army, the entire army was destroyed, the minister Lu Xiufu jumped into the sea on his back to commit suicide, the last large-scale organized resistance force of the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed, and it is said that the Song Dynasty soldiers and civilians who followed the emperor to the sea were as many as 100,000 people. Suddenly, above the South China Sea, floating everywhere were the remains of Song Dynasty martyrs.
Zhang Shijie led a warship to kill a bloody road and sailed out to sea. At that time, Yang Taifei was still on Zhang Shijie's ship, and he still wanted to support Yang Taifei's regency, and then find the descendants of the Zhao family to support him as emperor, continue to fight with the Mongols, even if it was to drift overseas to establish a government-in-exile, he must fight to the end. However, his proposal was resolutely rejected by Princess Yang, and the big Chinese mainland no longer had any land for the Great Song and no longer had the value of resistance.
Zhang Shijie also knew that the general trend had gone, no matter what kind of resistance was just a twilight end, Lu Yang waved, so he dispelled the obsession in his heart.
At this time, this lonely boat floating on the sea was attacked by typhoons again, and if he chose to dock, he could still have a glimmer of life, but Zhang Shijie was resolutely unwilling to set foot on the land occupied by the Yuan Dynasty. He said to his subordinates, "I have done my best for the Great Song Dynasty, and when a king dies, i will restore a king; and now that a king is dead, this day will not bless the Song, and the heavens will destroy me." After saying this, Zhang Shijie allowed the warship to be destroyed by the storm, and together with the soldiers on the ship, he sank with the ship and martyred the country.
And to balance the character of the true and false, do not talk about the hero with success or failure. From this point of view, Zhang Shijie was able to uphold his patriotic feelings in the face of the country situation in which the mountains and rivers were shattered and the wind was fluttering, resolutely and resolutely stood on the opposite side of serving the enemy, persisted until the last moment, watched the motherland he loved being occupied by the invaders, and watched the cause for which he had worked so hard disappear.
The "History of Song" compiled by the Mongols also gave Zhang Shijie a very high evaluation: "Shijie drowned, and the Song died." ”
It is a supreme honor to be able to relate the life and death of a regime, a country, or even a nation to the life and death of a person.