Battle of Yamen
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| Battle of Yamen | |||||||||
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| Part of the | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Song dynasty | Yuan dynasty | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Zhang Shijie † Lu Xiufu † | Zhang Hongfan | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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200,000 people (mostly non-combatant court officials and servants) 1,000+ ships (mostly transport ships with warship escorts) True fighting capacity likely in the 10,000s of soldiers |
20,000 Chinese soldiers 50+ warships | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| At least 100,000 died either from fighting or drowning; the rest fled | Unknown | ||||||||
  Location within China | |||||||||
| Battle of Yamen | |
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Hanyu Pinyin | Yáshān Hǎizhàn |
The Battle of Yamen (
Today, the battle site is located in the town of
.Background
In 1276, the Southern Song court, in their rush to flee the capital city of
At this point of the war, it was obvious that the Song did not have sufficient strength to risk fighting the Yuan in a head-on conflict. Zhang Shijie decided to build a vast fleet with what remained, to allow the Song court and soldiers to move from place to place until the situation improved. The Song court sailed to Guangdong from Quanzhou. However, Zhao Shi's boat capsized in a storm on the way to Leizhou. Although he survived, he fell ill because of this ordeal. The imperial court later sought refuge in Lantau Island's Mui Wo, where Zhao Shi eventually died; he was succeeded by his younger sibling, Zhao Bing, who was seven.[citation needed] Zhang Shijie brought the new emperor to Yamen and prepared the defense against the Yuan there.
In 1278,
Battle
In 1279, Zhang Hongfan of the Yuan attacked the Song navy in Yamen. Li Heng, who previously had captured Guangzhou, reinforced Zhang Hongfan. Some within the Song forces suggested that the navy should first claim the mouth of the bay, to secure their line of retreat to the west. Zhang Shijie turned down this suggestion in order to prevent his soldiers from fleeing the battle. He then ordered the burning of all palaces, houses and forts on land for the same reason.
Zhang Shijie ordered about 1,000 ships to be chained together, forming a long string within the bay, and placed Zhao Bing's boat in the center of his fleet. This was done to prevent individual Song ships from fleeing the battle. The Yuan forces steered
In the afternoon of 18 March, Zhang Hongfan prepared for a massive assault. The employment of
First, the north flank engaged the Song forces but were repulsed. The Yuan then began playing festive music, leading the Song to think that the Yuan forces were having a banquet and lowering their guard. At noon Zhang Hongfan attacked from the front, hiding additional soldiers under large pieces of cloth. Once Zhang Hongfan's boats neared the Song fleet, the Yuan sounded the horn of battle, revealing the soldiers under the fabric.
The Song troops were prepared for a small skirmish, not a large assault. Waves of arrows hit the Song ships. Caught off guard, the Song fleet immediately lost seven ships, along with a great number of troops in the process. The ill and weakened Song soldiers were no match for the Yuan troops in close combat, and the chaotic environment made battle command impossible. The chained Song ships could neither support the middle nor retreat. After the Song troops were killed, the bloody slaughter of the Song court began. Seeing that the battle was lost, Zhang Shijie picked out his finest soldiers and cut about a dozen ships from the formation in an attempted breakout to save the emperor.
The Yuan forces quickly advanced to the center and to Zhao Bing, killing everyone in their way. There, Prime Minister Lu Xiufu saw no hope of breaking free and, taking the boy emperor with him, jumped into the sea, where both drowned. Many officials and concubines followed suit.
Aftermath
The
As Zhao Bing was the last Song emperor, his death effectively ended the Song dynasty, leaving the Yuan dynasty, under Kublai Khan, with all of China under its control. Kublai Khan and his successors and followers would rule China for 97 years until the rise of the Ming dynasty under the Hongwu Emperor, when the Chinese regained control of their lost territory from the Mongols.
Despite Pu Shougeng defecting from the Song to the Yuan, towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan Mongols turned against Pu Shougeng's family and the Muslims and slaughtered Pu Shougeng's descendants in the Ispah rebellion. Mosques and other buildings with foreign architecture were almost all destroyed and the Yuan imperial soldiers killed most of the descendants of Pu Shougeng and horrifically mutilated their corpses.[1]
A rock was carved in memory of Zhang Hongfan there.[2][3] Many temples were built in the surrounding area in memory of those who lost their lives in the dying years of the Song dynasty, including Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie. In the 1980s, another memorial was built near Shekou to commemorate Zhao Bing. The preparation of a leafy greens soup dish, patriotic soup, has also become a way to memorialize the boy emperor by the Teochew people. Today, a museum complex, the Song-Yuan Yamen Sea Warfare Culture Tourist Zone, lies just to the east of the battle site.
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Garnaut, Anthony (March 2006). "The Islamic Heritage in China: A General Survey". China Heritage Newsletter (5). Archived from the original on 2018-05-16. Retrieved 2022-07-09.
- ^ 一个美丽的传说 奇石变迁话沧桑 Archived July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "宋末皇帝與兩塊大石". Archived from the original on 2011-05-01. Retrieved 2010-10-03.