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Siege of Songping

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Coordinates: 21°01′42″N 105°51′15″E / 21.02833°N 105.85417°E / 21.02833; 105.85417
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Siege of Hanoi (863)
Part of Tang-Nanzhao war in Annan
DateSpring 863
(14 January – 1 March, 1 month 15 days)
Standort
Songping, Protectorate of Annan (present-day Hanoi, Vietnam)
21°01′42″N 105°51′15″E / 21.02833°N 105.85417°E / 21.02833; 105.85417
Result

Nanzhao victory

  • Temporary Nanzhao occupation of the Red River Delta
  • Weakening of the Tang Empire
Belligerents
Nanzhao Tang Empire
Commanders and leaders
Duan Qiuqian
Yang Sijin
Chu Đạo Cổ		 Cai Xi †
Strength
50,000 unknown
Casualties and losses
unknown unknown
Siege of Songping is located in Vietnam
Siege of Songping
class=notpageimage|
Location of the battle

The Siege of Songping of 863 or the Siege of Hanoi was part of Nanzhao’s great offensive of 863. Nanzhao was in alliance with local tribal rebels, against the Chinese Tang Empire who was controlling the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam. The siege took place in Songping (modern-day Hanoi), capital of Tang's frontier Protectorate General to Pacify the South in early 863 during the reign of Emperor Yizong.

The siege was one of the most important and tragic events in the history of Vietnam before the tenth century. With 50,000 men from its main army and other tribal mercenaries combined, the Yunnanese approached Songping, issued an ultimatum–surrender or die. They laid siege on the city from mid-January until its fall on 1 March, resulting in military disaster for the Chinese and retreating of the Tang forces out of the region in 2 years. The Nanzhao seizure of Hanoi was considered a devastating blow to the Chinese colonial rule over northern Vietnam and the Chinese Empire itself.

Background

The Nanzhao kingdom at the time was the regional superpower. With their mighty military, the Yunnanese rapidly expanded their empire to every direction. Nanzhao had defeated an Tang invasion in 751,[1] joined with Tang and defeated the Tibetans in 801,[2] decimated Pyu city-states in 832, subdued Michen kingdom (near Ayeyarwady River) in 830s.[3] Nanzhao first raided the Tang frontier province of Annan in 846. Nanzhao then offered peace to the Tang, but in 854 the Tang suspended relations with Nanzhao and refused to receive its tribute.[3]

Annan Protectorate (now northern Vietnam), with its capital city of Songping, was a commerce hub on the Maritime Silk Road and a rice basket of the Tang empire at the time. By the 7th century, the arrival of the Vietic peoples to the Red River Delta happened due to pressures from the migrating Tai and the expansion of the Khmers in the southwest. The intact tribes of Mwai, Lolo (who speak an Mantsi language that closed to Nanzhao), and Mang ethnicities in the upper delta often had hostilities toward the lower delta dwellers and the ruling Tang governance. Disturbances in Annan sparked in 854 due to Tang governor Li Zhou's abuse of power and disrupting the salt trade to Mang hill tribes in Fengzhou (modern-day Phú Thọ and Hòa Bình Province). Li Zhou also executed Đỗ Tồn Thành–chief of the hill tribes of Aizhou (Thanh Hoá Province), who affiliated with the tribal chiefs revolted against Li Zhou, worsening the attitude of the natives to Chinese authority. Li also dismissed Lý Do Độc (Li Yu-tu), the great chieftain of the T’aohua (Peach-Flower) tribe in Phú Thọ.[4] Seeking opportunity in intervening into Annan, Meng Shilong–the Nanzhao king, sent an envoy to Lý Do Độc in 857, offered an alliance with him. Lý Do Độc accepted and gave his junior son to the Nanzhao court, married him with a Nanzhao noble's daughter.[5] By 858, the Nanzhao army joined with Lý Do Độc's force raided Annan's capital Songping.[6] The Tang court responded by appointing Wang Shi as the military governor of Annan, aiming to restore order, strengthen the fortification of Songping. When Li Hu replaced Wang Shi as the governor in 860, he ordered the execution of Đỗ Thủ Trừng, son of Đỗ Tồn Thành, the prominent local chief. In December of that year, local tribesmen led by the Đỗ clan numbered 30,000 including several thousand from Nanzhao attacked Songping and ransacked the city.[7] In summer 861, Li Hu counterattacked, drove the Nanzhao and rebels out of the lowlands. Li Hu was banished to Hainan island afterward.[8]

A relief army of 30,000 men was sent to Hanoi but soon left the city when rivalry broke out between Cai Xi–the military governor, and Cai Jing, an administrative and military official of Lingnan.[8] Cai Xi then was left responsible for holding Songping against an imminent Nanzhao offensive.[9] The city was surrounded by 4 miles (6,344 meters) of moated rampart–some parts seven to eight meters high. East of the city was the Red River.[10] Much of the information about the battle was written by Fan Chuo, a Chinese official who wrote an eyewitness account about the southern barbarians (people of Annan and Yunnan) during the siege.[11]

Siege

Soldiers of Dali Kingdom, the successor state of Nanzhao

In mid-January 863, 50,000 Nanzhao troops under generals Duan Qiuqian and Yang Sijin began besieging Songping. Nanzhao vanguards were made up of the Wangjuzi Man tribe from the west of Mekong who were skilled on horseback with lances. The Nanzhao army also recruited mercenaries, five to six thousand men of local Taohua tribe in Phú Thọ and Hòa Bình Province, two to three thousand Tai-speaking auxiliaries from Mang Man in the west of the Mekong River, the Luoxing Man, Xunjuan Man and many other local groups from Northern Vietnam and Yunnan. On 20 January, they began attacking the citadel but were repelled by Chinese defenders under Cai Xi with high casualties. A city official named Liang Ke (V. Lương Cảo, who was also a native, belonged to the unknown Buzi tribe) recognised the dead bodies by their distinctive helmets and belts of each tribe, which included his rebelling tribesmen. The Chinese took the corpses of the besiegers and broiled them.[9]

On the morning of 28 January, a naked Indian Buddhist monk appeared outside the city's southern walls. Cai Xi then took a bow and fired at the breast of the monk. Lots of the Man helped in carrying him back to the camp.[12] On 14 February, Wangjuzi cavalry attacked the citadel. Cai used a ballista and shot down 200 attackers and 30 horses. The Nanzhao army continued to attack the citadel despite heavy losses. Finally, they made it into the citadel. On 28 February, wounded Cai Xi lost all of his 70 comrades in the defending of the citadel.[12] Nanzhao general Yang Sijin now has broken into the inner city. Fan Chuo's family and servants have been trapped. Fan had to abandon Cai Xi and escaped east the Red River, but Cai himself found a way to the river, however, was drowned when the boat capsized midstream.[13]

Chinese defenders and local auxiliaries were overrun. They ran to the river but found no boat to retreat. The commanders addressed their soldiers and officers "together return the citadel and confront the enemies." The boosted morale Tang remnant army entered the citadel in the eastern gate and made their last stand.[13] Ambushing a group of Nanzhao horsemen at the citadel's eastern gate, they killed over 2,000 Nanzhao troops and 300 horses before Yang Sijin sent reinforcements from the inner city and finished the Tang resistance.[13]

Aftermath

With the fall of Hanoi in 863, the Tang now lost control over Annan, the great rice basket of the kingdom to Nanzhao. In July, Nanzhao and its allies advanced to the coast of Gulf of Tonkin. The Protectorate of Annan was abolished.[14] The Red River Delta was freeing from Chinese rule for a short time. Pro-Tang faction of the Kinh hopelessly demanded help from their masters, while the anti-Tang faction immediately welcomed the huge Yunnanese army and their tribal forces, but soon the Nanzhao forces betrayed them when a shortage of supplies came. Nanzhao and its tribal allies then plundered Kinh villages across the Delta for food, causing a massive refugee crisis. Nanzhao hired people from southern provinces to control the scattered and chaotic delta while together waiting for a Tang counterattack.[15] Nanzhao and its allies launched another siege on Yongzhou (Nanning, Guangxi) in 864, but was repelled.[14]

Over 150,000 Chinese soldiers were killed or captured, along with their Annamese subjects during the entire North Vietnam campaign.[16] Tens of thousand perished Chinese soldiers were mourned in towns and villages across central China where they were recruited. A Confucian scholar at the Tang court wrote a song that blamed and criticised the disaster on the government.[15] The Tang court then recalled Gao Pian–a skillful general who had fought against the Türks and the Tanguts in the north, to lead a large army counterattacked Nanzhao in 864, and finally recaptured Annan in 866.[15][17] Nanzhao's 863 victory was so crucial to the Tang that some later Chinese scholars, for example, Song Qi, co-author of the New Book of Tang had traced the root of the collapse of the Tang dynasty to the recruitment of dissatisfied peasant-soldiers to Annan, who later joined the Huang Chao rebellion which decimated the Tang empire in the 880s.[18]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Wang (2013), p. 107.
  2. ^ Wang (2013), p. 116.
  3. ^ a b Wang (2013), p. 120.
  4. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 117–118.
  5. ^ Fan (1961), p. 46.
  6. ^ Wang (2013), p. 121.
  7. ^ Taylor (1983), p. 243.
  8. ^ a b Wang (2013), p. 123.
  9. ^ a b Kiernan (2019), p. 120.
  10. ^ Purton (2009), p. 106.
  11. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 115.
  12. ^ a b Kiernan (2019), p. 121.
  13. ^ a b c Kiernan (2019), p. 122.
  14. ^ a b Schafer (1967), p. 68.
  15. ^ a b c Taylor (2013), p. 43.
  16. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 123.
  17. ^ Wang (2013), p. 124.
  18. ^ Yang (2008), p. 65–66.

Works cited

  • Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: a history from earliest time to the present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-190-05379-6.
  • Purton, Peter Fraser (2009). A History of the Late Medieval Siege, 450-1220. Boydell & Brewer.
  • Schafer, Edward Hetzel (1967), The Vermilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South, Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-01145-8
  • Taylor, K.W. (1983), The Birth of the Vietnam, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-07417-0
  • Taylor, K.W. (2013), A History of the Vietnamese, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-520-07417-0
  • Wang, Zhenping (2013). Tang China in Multipolar Asia: A History of Diplomacy and War. University of Hawaii Press.
  • Yang, Yuqing (2008). The Role of Nanzhao history in the Formation of Bai identity. University of Oregon.

Primary account

  • Fan, Chuo (1961). The Man Shu: Book of the Southern Barbarians (863, translated 1961). Southeast Asia Program, Department of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell University.
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