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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 Songping (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 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 and the retreat of Tang forces out of the region in 2 years.

Background

Main article: Tang-Nanzhao conflicts in Annan

Nanzhao was a powerful kingdom to the southwest of the Tang dynasty. With their mighty military, Nanzhao rapidly expanded their empire in every direction, defeating a Tang invasion in 751,[1] joining with Tang and defeating the Tibetans in 801,[2] decimating Pyu city-states in 832, subduing the Michen kingdom (near Ayeyarwady River) in the 830s. 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]

The Annan Protectorate (now northern Vietnam), with its capital city of Songping, was a center of commerce on the Maritime Silk Road and a rice basket of the Tang empire at the time. When Li Zhuo became jiedushi of Annan in 854, he reduced the amount of salt traded to the Chong Mo Man in Fengzhou (modern-day Phú Thọ and Hòa Bình Province) in the west in exchange for horses. The mountains chiefs responded by launching raids on Tang garrisons. When Li Zhuo began suffering defeats, Đỗ Tồn Thành, a military commander, allied himself with the tribal chiefs against Li.[4] In the next year, Li Zhuo killed Đỗ Tồn Thành as well as the chieftain of the Qidong Man in Aizhou (Nghệ An, central Vietnam).[5] The Đỗ tribe was a powerful Viet family in Thanh Hoá and Nghệ An since 5-6th century.[4] Li also dismissed Lý Do Độc (Li Youdu), the great chieftain of the Taohua (Peach-Flower) tribe in Phú Thọ.[6]

In 857, Song Ya was sent to Annan to deal with the situation, but was recalled to deal with another rebellion after only two months. His replacement, Li Hongfu, only had nominal control over the protectorate, which was actually controlled by La Hanh Cung, who commanded 2,000 well trained soldiers. In 858, the Tang court sent a new jiedushi, Wang Shi, to protect Annan. He banished La Hanh Cung, saw off a Nanzhao reconnaissance force, and defeated an invasion by the mountain tribes. The Tang garrisons were upgraded with heavy-armored cavalry and infantry and Songping was fortified with a reed palisade. In the same year, a serious rebellion broke out in Yongzhou. The situation in Yongzhou threatened land communication between Annan and the empire, so a special army was established there to deal with rebels and to insure communications. This army was called the Yellow Head Army, for the soldiers wore yellow bands around their heads. In early autumn, local people were agitated by a rumor that the Yellow Head Army had embarked to attack them by surprise. One evening they surrounded Songping and demanded that Wang Shi return north and allow them to fortify the city against the Yellow Head Army. Shi was eating his evening meal when this commotion broke out. It is reported that, paying no heed to the mutineers, he leisurely finished his meal. Then, dressed in his battle gear, he appeared on the wall with his generals and admonished the crowd of rebels, who dispersed. The next morning, Shi’s troops captured and beheaded some ringleaders of the affair.[7]

Seeking an opportunity to enter Annan, Meng Shilong the Nanzhao king sent an envoy to Lý Do Độc in 857 and 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.[8] By 858, the Nanzhao army joined with Lý Do Độc's force and raided Annan's capital Songping.[9] In 860, Wang Shi was recalled to deal with a rebellion elsewhere. The new jiedushi, Li Hu, arrived at Songping and executed Đỗ Tồn Thành's son, Đỗ Thủ Trừng, who according to Chinese sources was involved in the mutiny years earlier, probably due to the death of his father at the hands of Li Zhuo four years earlier. This alienated many of the powerful local clans of Annan.[10] Anti-Tang Viets allied with highland people, who appealed to Nanzhao for help, and as a result invaded the area in 860, briefly taking Songping before being driven out by a Tang Army led by Li Hu the next year.[11][5][12][13] Prior to Li Hu's arrival, Nanzhao had already seized Bozhou. When Li Hu led an army to retake Bozhou, the Đỗ family gathered 30,000 men, including contingents from Nanzhao to attack the Tang. When Li Hu returned, he learned the Viet rebels and Nanzhao had taken control of Annan. On 17 January 861, Songping fell to the rebels and Li Hu fled to Yongzhou.[10] In summer 861, Li Hu retook Songping on 21 July but Nanzhao forces moved around and seized Yongzhou. Hu was banished to Hainan island and was replaced by Wang Kuan.[14][10] Wang Kuan and the Tang court sought local cooperation by recognizing the power of the Đỗ family, granting a posthumous title to Đỗ Tồn Thành along with an apology for the deaths of him and his son and an admission that Li Hu had exceeded his authority.[10]

A relief army of 30,000 men was sent to Songping 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.[11] Cai Xi then was left responsible for holding Songping against an imminent Nanzhao offensive.[15] 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.[16] Much of the information about the battle was written by Fan Chuo, a Tang official who wrote an eyewitness account about the southern barbarians (people of Annan and Yunnan) during the siege.[17]

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 Tang 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 troops of the Jiangxi General took the corpses of the besiegers and broiled them.[15] He defected.[18]

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.[19] On 14 February, Wangjuzi cavalry attacked the citadel. Cn 14 February, Cai Xi shot down 200 enemies and over 30 horses using a mounted crossbow from the walls. By 28 February, most of Cai Xi's followers had perished, and he himself had been wounded several times by arrows and stones. The enemy commander, Yang Sijin, penetrated the inner city. Cai Xi tried to escape by boat, but it capsized midstream, drowning him.[18][19] Fan Chuo escaped east to the Red River.[20] The 400 remaining defenders wanted to flee as well, but could not find any boats, so they chose to make a last stand at the eastern gate. Ambushing a group of enemy cavalry, they killed over 2,000 enemy troops and 300 horses before Yang sent reinforcements from the inner city.[18][20]

Aftermath

After taking Songping, on 20 June Nanzhao laid siege to Junzhou (modern Haiphong). A Nanzhao and rebel fleet of 4,000 men led by a Thổ chief named Chu Đạo Cổ (Zhu Daogu, 朱道古) was attacked by a local commander, who rammed their vessels and sank 30 boats, drowning them. In total, the invasion destroyed Chinese armies in Annan numbering over 150,000.[21] Although initially welcomed by the local Vietnamese in ousting Tang control, Nanzhao turned on them, ravaging the local population and countryside. Both Chinese and Vietnamese sources note that the Vietnamese fled to the mountains to avoid destruction.[12][22] A government-in-exile for the protectorate was established in Haimen (near modern-day Hạ Long) with Song Rong in charge. Ten thousand soldiers from Shandong and all other armies of the empire were called and concentrated at Halong Bay for reconquering Annan. A supply fleet of 1,000 ships from Fujian was organized.[23] Nanzhao and its allies launched another siege on Yongzhou (Nanning, Guangxi) in 864, but was repelled.[24]

The Tang launched a counterattack in 864 under Gao Pian, a general who had made his reputation fighting the Türks and the Tanguts in the north, with 5,000 troops and experienced initial success against Nanzhao, however political machinations at court led to Gao Pian's recall. In September 865, Gao Pian's forces surprised a Nanzhao army of 50,000 when they were collecting rice from the villages. Gao captured large quantities of rice, which he used to feed his army.[23][25] In the meantime, Gao had been reinforced by 7,000 men who arrived overland under the command of Wei Zhongzai.[26] In early 866, Gao Pian's 12,000 men defeated a fresh Nanzhao army and chased them back to the mountains. After his recall, he was later reinstated and completed the retaking of Songping in fall 866, executing the enemy general, Duan Qiuqian, and beheading 30,000 of his men.[24] Gao Pian renamed Annan to Jinghai Jun (lit. Peaceful Sea Army).[27][12][28] More than half of local rebels fled into the mountains.[29]

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 traced the root pf tje Tang dynasty's collapse to the recruitment of dissatisfied peasant-soldiers to Annan, who later joined the Huang Chao rebellion which decimated the Tang empire in the 880s.[30]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Wang (2013), p. 107.
  2. ^ Wang (2013), p. 116.
  3. ^ Wang (2013), p. 120.
  4. ^ a b Taylor 1983, p. 240.
  5. ^ a b Kiernan 2019, p. 118.
  6. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 117–118.
  7. ^ Taylor 1983, p. 241-242.
  8. ^ Fan (1961), p. 46.
  9. ^ Wang (2013), p. 121.
  10. ^ a b c d Taylor 1983, p. 243.
  11. ^ a b Wang (2013), p. 123.
  12. ^ a b c Walker 2012, p. 183.
  13. ^ Taylor 2013, p. 42.
  14. ^ Herman 2007, p. 36.
  15. ^ a b Kiernan (2019), p. 120.
  16. ^ Purton (2009), p. 106.
  17. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 115.
  18. ^ a b c Taylor 1983, p. 245.
  19. ^ a b Kiernan (2019), p. 121.
  20. ^ a b Kiernan (2019), p. 122.
  21. ^ Kiernan (2019), p. 123.
  22. ^ Taylor 1983, p. 244.
  23. ^ a b Taylor 1983, p. 246.
  24. ^ a b Schafer 1967, p. 68.
  25. ^ Wang (2013), p. 124.
  26. ^ Taylor 1983, p. 247.
  27. ^ Kiernan 2019, p. 120-123.
  28. ^ Xiong 2009, p. cxiv.
  29. ^ Taylor 1983, p. 248.
  30. ^ 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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