Chapter 43 Try to attack Xixia

A long time ago, there was an ethnic group called Dangxiang who lived on the edge of present-day Qinghai Province. They were numerous and brave and good at fighting. As time went by, they gradually moved from Gansu and northern Shaanxi to Ordos.At the end of the tenth century, Li Jiqian, the leader of the ethnic group, took advantage of the great chaos during the Five Dynasties period and actively developed with the powerful Liao Kingdom in Northeast China as the backing.At the beginning of the eleventh century, the ambitious leader Li Yuanhao gained the upper hand in the war against the Northern Song Dynasty, so he proclaimed the Xixia Kingdom, and he became emperor as a matter of course.Xixia controls all of Ningxia, western Gansu and northern Shaanxi. It is an inconspicuous country in the eyes of Central Plains people.

"Xixia" is a conceited country title, which means the Huaxia of the West.This country is deeply influenced by Han culture, and Confucianism is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.Most of Xixia's land is concentrated in the mountainous area of ​​the upper reaches of the Yellow River, with a lot of sandy land.But because it controls the passage of the Silk Road, the economy is relatively rich.But after all, the country is small and the population is small, so Xixia's standing army is only 60,000 to 70,000 people.Xixia relied on "big things" to survive. When Liao was strong and prosperous, it recognized Liao as its suzerain state; after Jin replaced Liao, Xixia recognized Jin as its master.

Genghis Khan knew these situations well.This is because the Kret and Naiman tribes have been in contact with this country for a long time, and Genghis Khan can know the basic situation of Xixia only by hearsay.In fact, he took military action against Xixia a year before the founding of the country. The troops of this military operation consisted of 3,000 men, and the purpose was to pursue Sangkun.Sang Kun fled to Xixia a year ago, but no one knew whether he was still in Xixia. Genghis Khan's troops insisted that Sang Kun was in Xixia and asked them to hand over.The Xixia people had nothing to say with them, and the battle broke out.

The first battle between the two sides took place in a small village, which is also a small city defense.This was the first time the Mongols saw the city walls, and they stared blankly at these tall buildings.After several days of siege, the Mongolian army finally made crude siege equipment under the guidance of professionals.Xixia's defenders were vulnerable, and the village fell in an instant.After the Mongolian army leveled the city and killed all the enemies, they continued to move forward.When they came to the city of Qilin Gusa, they were dumbfounded again.This is a city in the strict sense, with an inner city, an outer city, an urn and a moat. The defenders shot arrows at it, and the Mongols ran away.

After running out of the range of the bow and arrow, they stopped the horseshoes. After forming an array, the Mongolian army sent envoys to the city to shout, of course, accompanied by interpreters.The envoy said: "Hurry up and hand over Sangkun, otherwise we will raze the city and leave no dog or dog in it!" The Xixia people were puzzled and asked, "Who is Sangkun?" The envoy said: "Let's not discuss Sangkun first, you should quickly contribute some food, some horses, and some beauties." The Xixia people became angry: "You ran to our territory for no reason and asked for this and that. If we are who we are, get out! Besides, who are you?"

The messenger replied: "We are the army of the great Genghis Khan." The Xixia people all shook their heads: "I haven't heard of it. I advise you, go back wherever you came from, or we will shoot you into hedgehogs!" The envoy took out a human head from behind and threw it under the city. The Xixia people hooked the head from the city wall with a hook. role model." The Xixia people seemed to recognize this colleague, yelled strangely, and shouted: "Shoot the arrows, shoot this beast!" The arrows rained down, and the Mongolian army saw their envoys and interpreters were covered by the rain of arrows. Falling to the ground, arrow flowers bloom.

The commander of the Mongolian Corps ordered an attack. A group of cavalry dismounted, carried the ladders and long poles used in the siege, shouted loudly, and rushed to the bottom of the city.There were two hundred people when they rushed, but only a few dozen people were left after reaching the city. These dozens of people were unlucky because they had nothing in their hands except a three-foot saber.They clung to the city wall and looked at their team pitifully. Before they could make a cry for help, boiling oil poured down from the city wall. They were so burned that they cried for their parents and died after a while. .

The Mongolian Corps was unfamiliar with siege tactics, but they were a dynamic and learning team, and soon they learned how to siege.First let the cavalry move quickly under the wall in an "S" shape, and press down the opponent's archer violently with arrows. Go to the wall.Heavy logs were also transported to the gate of the city. Amidst the violent impact, the gate turned from trembling to collapsed. The Mongolian soldiers threw away the logs, drew out their bows, arrows and scimitars, and pointed at the distraught Xixia soldiers at the gate. Shooting and slashing indiscriminately.

The city of Qilin Gusa fell in such a muddled way. The reason for saying this is that they did not pull up the suspension bridge over the moat.All the soldiers and common people in the city of Qilin Gusa were massacred. The Mongolian army drove a large number of camels and horses out of the city gate, and burned the city down. The Mongolian Corps suddenly found that the siege was very enjoyable, and originally wanted to continue to advance and fight to the Xixia lair, but Genghis Khan sent an order to let them go back to the grassland to participate in the Khuriltai Conference.The corps had no choice but to drive the camels and horses back home, but they didn't follow the route they had come. Instead, they made a small turn halfway and came to the city of Luosi.

Luosi City had just received the news that a barbaric devil-like army had taken down two cities in a row. Before he could figure out what the origin of this army was, the Mongolian army had already approached the city. As usual, the Mongols sent envoys to read the warning to the guard of Luosi City, "Surrender is lenient, and resistance is dead."The guard of Luosi City carefully inspected the group of barbarians, and found that they were in an orderly formation, their morale was high, their bows and arrows were dazzling, their knives were shining, and they had no intention of resisting at all, so they announced their surrender.

The Mongols were very satisfied with this current-aware city, took all the camels and horses in the city, and left Luosi happily. This is how Genghis Khan's regiment fought Xixia for the first time. Genghis Khan had an illusion in the commander's exaggerated description. The cities of those city countries are not rock-solid, nor are they invincible. Vulnerable.In particular, what made Genghis Khan very interested in Xixia was that Xixia was rich but fragile, and his Great Mongolia was powerful but poor, so Xixia was likely to become the source of his wealth. Under the influence of this kind of thinking, after the taiga forest tribe surrendered in the late summer of the second year after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Genghis Khan ordered someone to write to Xixia Emperor Li Anan, saying: "I am Genghis Khan of the Mongolian Kingdom, and you are the weak Xixia Kingdom." Emperor, I heard that you believe in Buddhism, and there are people in my country who also believe in Buddhism. We are a family. One family does not speak two languages. I think your country is small and weak, surrounded by powerful countries, it is easy to be Eat it up. I can protect you, but you must pay tribute to me." Li An'an came to the throne by deposing the first emperor. He has a strong psychological quality and will not be threatened by a barbarian. His reply was full of disdain for Genghis Khan. He said: "You don't even have your own writing, and you still use Uighur Words, you dare to shame people, if you want to come, come, my million army is waiting for you." Genghis Khan was furious at first, but he calmed down quickly. He began to make careful plans, mobilized 20 thousand households and Qixue troops, and spent a month training the army for siege. intelligence gathering and armed reconnaissance.After the end of the first month of autumn, his corps descended like divine soldiers from the sky, and arrived at the city of Wulahai in the Xixia Kingdom.Before that, his reconnaissance team put a Xixia shepherd into Wulahai City to spread the news: Genghis Khan's army will slaughter the people in the city after breaking the city. This is Genghis Khan's usual psychological warfare, spreading fear, in order to achieve the purpose of "surrendering the enemy without fighting".But the guard of Wulahai City had never seen the power of Genghis Khan's corps, so he ignored such big words.Although Wulahai City is not a tall and magnificent city, its defensive function is more than enough for the Mongolian corps who lacks siege experience. Genghis Khan's corps stormed for dozens of days, to no avail.Frustrated by his men, Genghis Khan thought of a clever plan. He sent someone to make the following request to the guard of Wulahai City: if he handed over a thousand cats and ten thousand little swallows, he would withdraw his troops. The guard of Wulahai City was greatly surprised by such ridiculous conditions. He didn't know what the other party was up to, but defending the city was very hard, and he would rather try it.As a result, the cats and swallows in Wulahai City were unlucky. A few days later, the guard offered all the cats and swallows that Genghis Khan wanted, and asked suspiciously, "What do you want these things for?" Genghis Khan smiled without saying a word.This is his ingenious plan. He asked people to tie flammable hemp catkins to the tails of cats and swallows, and ordered them to be released together after they were lit.The poor cat and the swallow frantically ran towards their home because of fear, the swallow chirped and flew in, the cat frantically fled into the city along the slope of the city wall, and the whole city of Wulahai burst into flames, and all the guards were on guard. Wrestling with cats and swallows, Genghis Khan launched a general attack at this time, and the Mongolian soldiers broke through the gate of Ulahai in carnival like crazy. After Genghis Khan occupied Wulahai City, he looked around in a daze.He didn't dare to go deep, because that densely populated world with rivers and canals was strange.He could only carry out armed robbery around the city of Ulahai, and with the onset of winter, he faced difficulties.The Xixia Emperor Li An'an has mobilized elites to fight against his plundered troops 30 kilometers around Wulahai City.When spring was approaching, Genghis Khan thought he was not ready to devour Xixia, so he withdrew from Wulahai City. , if it burns down and the Xixia people don’t rebuild it, wouldn’t we be very passive.” The second attack on Xixia gave Genghis Khan a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the city-state, and at the same time provided conditions for the third large-scale and deep attack.