Chapter 300: Battle of Yamen

At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Song and Yuan naval armies fought a sea battle on the southernmost part of the mainland, the Lingding Ocean, which can be called the most historical, and the Song army was defeated and the Southern Song Dynasty perished. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

The Yuan Dynasty launched an attack on the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Yuan soldiers captured Xiangfan, a strategic town in the Southern Song Dynasty, and controlled the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Kublai Khan, the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, sent 200,000 troops and went south in two ways, one to attack Yangzhou to contain the Song army, and the other to attack Ezhou as the main force. The Yuan army captured Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Southern Song court surrendered to the Yuan army under the leadership of the Empress Dowager. After several major battles, the Yuan army captured a large number of warships and organized a powerful naval army.

The little emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Yu, with the support of some ministers and generals of the main battle faction, retreated southward, and although the Southern Song Dynasty soldiers and civilians resisted all the way, the Yuan army still pressed south step by step. Zhao Yu died of illness, and Prime Minister Lu Xiufu assisted Zhao Yu to ascend the throne. The Southern Song Dynasty court retreated to the area of Xinhui and Yashan in Guangdong under the pursuit of the Yuan Dynasty army, where the Song army marshal Zhang Shijie and the prime minister Lu Xiufu assisted the young emperor Zhao Yu and more than 200,000 horses and horses stationed here, and there were more than 1,000 warships.

In order to finally eliminate the Southern Song Dynasty, the emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty appointed Zhang Hongfan as the commander and Li Heng as the deputy commander, and led 25,000 soldiers and horses by water and land.

The reason why Zhang Shijie, the commander of the Song Army, chose Yashan to be stationed was that he believed that the Yashan area was close to the sea, and there was a Yamen waterway that was easy to defend and difficult to attack in the south, and the sea area in this area was calm and calm, which was convenient for garrisoning. However, in the case that the mainland almost all fell into the hands of the Yuan army, it was undoubtedly a big mistake to garrison the sea behind the sea, and Zhang Shijie also made a fatal mistake, he ordered more than 1,000 warships to be connected with iron cables, and lined up along the cliff mountain in several rows, completely losing mobility.

Li Heng led the Yuan army to attack and land on the east side of Yashan, burned down all the Song army's camp and fortress on the mountain, and cut off the Song army's fresh water source and grain and grass supply, forcing the Song army to retreat to the sea. In order to recapture the water source and grain route, the Song army repeated counterattacks, but it was difficult to succeed, and the Song army fell into a desperate situation of being cut off from food, water and firewood, and under the invasion of hunger and injury, the combat effectiveness of the Song army was greatly reduced.

The Yuan army attacked from the sea, but the Song army had already taken precautions, smearing sea mud on some warships, and resisting the soldiers to the death, the Yuan army did not take much advantage. However, after several attacks, the Yuan army forced the Song army to shrink its formation, and the Yuan army's naval division occupied the sea off Yamen, forming a sea and land encirclement of the Song army together with the Yuan army on Yashan.

In the early morning of February 6, Li Heng, the deputy marshal of the Yuan army, led the warships down the river from the north along the low tide to attack the Song army's ship formation, but the results were not great, and at noon the high tide retreated northward, and the Yuan army, which had been arranged in the south, west and southwest directions, under the leadership of Zhang Hongfan, marched north along the tide, and attacked the Song army's ship formation from the Yamen waterway between Yashan and Tangbian Mountain, and soon captured the Song army's front and burned dozens of Song army's warships. At this time, Zhang Shijie, the commander of the Song army, issued another wrong order in a panic, transferring the warships on both sides to the Chinese army, which made the Song army's formation even more chaotic.

In the afternoon, the sea suddenly rained heavily, the Song army hurriedly cut the iron cable, taking advantage of the rain and fog to begin to break through, but only Zhang Shijie with a dozen big ships rushed out of the Yuan army's encirclement, including the Song Emperor's imperial ship, most of the Song army was surrounded by the Yuan army more and more tightly, Lu Xiufu in desperation first forced his wife and children to commit suicide in the sea, and then he jumped into the sea with Song Youdi and died. Zhang Shijie, who escaped from the siege, later encountered a storm near Hailing Island south of the Yangjiang River, and the ship capsized and died.

In this battle, the Yuan army burned and sank more than 200 Song warships, captured more than 800 ships, captured more than 20,000 Song troops, and killed more than 100,000 Song troops. After the royal family of the Song Dynasty surrendered to the commander of the Yuan army, Boyan, in Lin'an, the remnants of the Song court fled south, and after three years of two emperors, they were completely destroyed.

The Battle of Yamen was the largest naval battle in ancient China, and the number of troops, ships and casualties involved in the battle was unprecedented in the history of ancient naval warfare. Wen Tianxiang, a general of the Southern Song Dynasty who witnessed the whole process of the naval battle at that time, wrote a poem: "Once the sky is dark, the wind and rain are evil, and the artillery fire, thunder, arrows and stars fall. Who is male and female is divided in an instant, and the corpses are drifting and the blood is muddy. Yesterday the south ship was full of cliffs, and today only the north ship is there. ”

At the turn of the Song and Yuan dynasties, when the emperors and auxiliary ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty and endured their lips to survive, in the land of the southeast coast, a large number of iron-clad and loyal people who turned the tide were erected, and wrote magnificent poems with their lives. Lu Xiufu, who was ordered to fight to the death, was a representative of this group of people who struggled to the death.

Lu Xiufu has been brilliant since he was a child, studied in the village school, and often praised the school teacher: "Among the more than 100 children, only Lu Xiufu is an extraordinary child." ”

Lu Xiufu likes to read books on patriotism for the people, and his talent is becoming more and more agile, he can write poetry at the age of seven, and at the age of nineteen, he was admitted to the Jinshi examination, and he is on the same list as Wen Tianxiang. At that time, Li Tingzhi, the envoy of the control of Huainan, was known for recruiting talents, and when he learned that Lu Xiufu was young and promising, he was hired to serve in his shogunate. And Huainan was the place where the world's talented people gathered at that time, and it was known as a small imperial court, so Lu Xiufu could be said to be like a fish in water here.

Lu Xiufu's talent is clear, and few people can compare to him, but he is not proud of it. His temperament is very quiet, he doesn't like to be public, whenever those bureaucrats come to visit and the guests and hosts make fun of each other, only Lu Xiufu is alone, silent. Sometimes there is a banquet in the house and wine is set up, and Lu Xiufu sits in the banquet, reserved and solemn, without saying a word, people think he is very strange and unapproachable, so few people get along with him.

However, Lu Xiufu's well-managed, steady and capable talent won Li Tingzhi's appreciation and respect. Even if the official position was promoted, he was not allowed to leave, so that Lu Xiufu's status in the mansion became higher and higher, until he was in charge of Jiyi writing.

The soldiers and horses of the Yuan Dynasty attacked the Southern Song Dynasty on a large scale, and the situation in the Lianghuai region became more urgent, the Li shogunate fell apart, and the staff resigned one after another. Li Tingzhi was deeply moved by his precious character of this kind of wind and grass, and felt that he was a rare loyal and righteous man, so he reluctantly cut his love and recommended him to the imperial court as a pillar of the mainstream, and the official to the Ministry of Rites.

At this time, the situation in the Southern Song Dynasty deteriorated even more, when the Yuan army was guided down the river by the Song Dynasty rebel general LΓΌ Wenhuan. The generals along the river, the Duolu clan, Wangfeng surrendered, Qian Zhensun, the governor of Jiangzhou, and Fan Wenhu, the prefect of Anqing, surrendered with the city. Jia Rudao, who had not dared to go out on the expedition, was forced by the situation and had to lead his troops to fight, although he came to Wuhu, but he did not want to fight, but fantasized about seeking peace, and the peace could not be achieved, so he had to get away with the battle.

Jia Rudao sent Sun Huchen to lead more than 70,000 infantry to be stationed in Dingjiazhou, Xia Gui led 2,500 warships across the river, and Jia Rudao personally led the rear army to camp in Lugang in the southwest of Wuhu. As soon as the two sides fought, Sun Huchen was not enough to convince the public due to his shallow qualifications and prestige, so he had no power to fight back against the attack of the Yuan army, and soon the formation was in chaos and the army could not be formed.

Jia Rudao was even more panicked, the Song army was difficult to take care of, the Yuan army pursued by victory, the Song army was killed, the drowning was incalculable, the water was stained red with blood, and all the military equipment was obtained by the Yuan army. The fiasco in the battles of Dingjiazhou and Lugang caused the main force of the Song army to be completely lost.

Just after Jia Rudao left the school this time, the court was controlled by his henchmen Wang Entropy, Chen Yi and others. Although Lu Xiufu wrote many times, made generous statements, and asked to go to the front to organize the resistance to the Yuan, but they were all refused, but it is a pity that Lu Xiufu had no ambition to serve the country, but he was obstructed by traitors and could not carry it out. In March of this year, Boyan led the Yuan army directly into Jiankang, coercing Lin'an, when he heard about Lu Xiufu and other loyal people, he couldn't help but praise and said: "The Song Dynasty has such loyal ministers, but they don't know how to reuse, if they are reused, will I still be here?"

After the defeat of the Battle of Lugang, Jia Yidao was dismissed from his post and died in Mumian Nunnery in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province in September, but the fate of the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty was irretrievable at this time.

When the Yuan army approached Lin'an, the Southern Song Dynasty court immediately fell into extreme chaos, and the timid military generals of Wenchen were panicked all day long. Prime Minister Zuo Cheng, who was greedy for life and afraid of death, stayed in Mengyan and took the lead in abandoning his official position and fleeing, and the officials of the six ministries followed suit and left the country one after another. The Privy Council officials in charge of military aircraft and border affairs, Wen Ji Weng and Ni Pu, fearing the infamy of escaping from the battle, went so far as to collude with the supervisory organs and beg the imperial historian to use the excuse to arrest and rob the officials, but they were afraid that the imperial court would be merciful and retained, and often escaped from Beijing without waiting for the approval of the chapter.

In just a few days, there was a fierce wind of hanging crowns, which made the Zhao dynasty suddenly snub in front of the door. Even when the emperor summoned his ministers and ordered Wu Jian to take over as Prime Minister Zuo, there were only six civil officials present.

The regent's empress dowager, seventy-two-year-old Xie Daoqing, guarding a six-year-old child, Song Gongzong Zhao Xian, was worried in the face of the precarious political situation. The helpless widow and orphan finally came up with a countermeasure, and in the name of Xie, he posted an edict on the court half-begging, half-threatening, to the effect that "the Great Song Dynasty has won the world for more than 300 years, and has always been kind and kind to scholars and doctors who read and wise." Now that I and the young emperor are suffering, the civil and military officials have turned a blind eye, and no one has come out with a single wisdom to save the country. ”

"The auxiliary ministers of the court neglected their duties, the state city guards abandoned the seal and lost the city's imperial history to rectify the ineffective, and the prime minister had no way to govern, so the unscrupulous people should cooperate with the outside and tried to escape at night. You claim to have read the books of sages and sages on weekdays and are well-versed in affairs, but at this time of national calamity, you have done such a despicable and ugly thing, what kind of face do you have to live and be a human being? After death, what qualifications do you have to go to see the first emperor? The Great Song Dynasty has not changed, and the laws of the country are still in place, and from now on, all civil and military officials who are dedicated to their duties will be promoted to two ranks, and if there are those who abandon their official positions and flee in the face of difficulties, the imperial history will strictly investigate and punish them. ”

In the past, the empress dowager, who was arrogant and responded to every call, faced with the danger of the country, and when she lacked the skills to return to heaven, it was inevitable that she should not call the heavens and the earth. No matter whether she lured her with high-ranking officials or threatened her with severe punishment and harsh laws, it was useless for the detached subordinates. The edict that once made the ministers awe-inspiring is now a dead letter, attached to the walls of the court and eroded by wind and rain.