Chapter 464
Zhao Yu's Determination
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After going to war with the Angkor Dynasty and other small countries in the Indochina Peninsula, Zhao Yu felt the pain of losing money for the first time.
Yes.
Meat hurts.
In the past, when Zhao Yu fought against Qinghai-Tibet, Western Xia, Liao, Jin, Goryeo, Japan, various tribes of the grasslands, the Western Regions, and Tibet, the Song Dynasty faced economic pressure, but in reality, it never truly managed to control Zhao Yu.
This was because the Song Dynasty's largest source of revenue, maritime trade, was not affected in any way.
But this time it's different.
After Srivijaya blockaded the Strait of Malacca, the Song Dynasty's maritime trade, mainly the most profitable trade with the West, was completely cut off.
This had a significant impact on the economy of the Song Dynasty.
What's more troublesome is that winter has already passed, and the Indochina Peninsula has become hot, making the weather very unfavorable for the Song Dynasty.
Even before launching the attack on the Joseon Dynasty, Emperor Zhao Yu and his ministers had studied the situation and concluded that the optimal window of opportunity for the Song Dynasty to launch an attack on the Indochina Peninsula was only two:
The preferred time to visit is from late October to November.
At this time, the autumn harvest had just ended in the Song Dynasty, and there was an abundance of food supplies that could be quickly requisitioned and transported. The autumn harvest in the countries of the Indochina Peninsula had also just ended, so the Song army could obtain food locally, reducing logistical pressure.
Furthermore, during this period, the Indochina Peninsula entered the dry season, rainfall decreased sharply, the water levels of the Mekong River/Red River dropped, and the muddy plains became firm, allowing the Song army's infantry and cavalry, as well as the transport of provisions (various vehicles + canal transport), to pass without hindrance; the humid heat and miasma dissipated, making it less likely for soldiers to contract diseases.
—Based on past experiences of the Central Plains dynasties in their campaigns against Annam, it is known that the armies of the Central Plains were most afraid of suffering casualties due to the miasma in the south.
The Song Dynasty chose this time to attack the Joseon Dynasty.
In less than two months, the Song army swept across the plains of the lower Red River and Mekong River.
By the first month of the lunar calendar, the Song army had essentially ended its main battles.
There's no rush to deal with the remaining minor skirmishes; we can clean them up slowly.
The second option is to choose February or March.
It was the end of the dry season, the climate was dry and the miasma had not yet risen, making it still suitable for large-scale troop advances.
It was during this period that the Song Dynasty captured Champa and successfully took it over.
Now, the final work in the Joseon Dynasty and Champa is almost complete.
The problem was that it was already late April.
If the Song Dynasty were to go to war with the small countries of the Indochina Peninsula at this time, the war would certainly drag on until the rainy season after May.
By then, the roads will be muddy and supplies will be difficult to transport. The Song army's advantage in firearms and crossbows will be lost, and it will be easily worn down by the allied forces' guerrilla tactics.
In fact, it wasn't just in May; from May to September, the entire Indochina Peninsula was hot, with continuous torrential rains, turning plains into swamps, and the jungles filled with miasma. The Song army lost its weapon advantage, faced difficulties in transporting supplies, and was highly susceptible to malaria outbreaks. Meanwhile, the troops in the Indochina Peninsula, such as the elephant cavalry of Angkor and Bagan, or the mountain infantry of the Queen's Kingdom, were adept at water and jungle warfare.
If the Song Dynasty were to engage in battle with a coalition of small states in the Indochina Peninsula at this time, it would almost certainly suffer more defeats than victories.
In fact, the reason why these small countries in the Indochina Peninsula dared to confront the Song Dynasty head-on was that they hoped the Song Dynasty would engage in battle with them, or even a decisive battle, between May and September.
Zhao Yu had gathered the most capable generals and strategists of the time around him, not to mention Zhang Chun and Li Lin, two strategists and military strategists with vision that surpassed the present by a thousand years. How could they possibly let Zhao Yu and the soldiers on the front line make such a mistake?
Therefore, after capturing Champa, the Song army switched from offense to defense according to the strategy and tactics pre-arranged by Emperor Zhao Yu and his ministers, and planned to continue the offensive in the autumn.
However, this would mean that the Song Dynasty's maritime trade would be interrupted for at least another six months.
This was definitely a significant loss for the Song Dynasty.
If, in that decisive battle, the Song Dynasty were to lose to the combined forces of the small states of the Indochina Peninsula, the Song Dynasty would suffer a great loss. Moreover, Zhao Yu's insistence on starting this war might lead to criticism from others and even threaten the stability of his throne.
Even with such losses and risks, Zhao Yu still ordered Li Gang, Zhao Li, and others to strictly follow their pre-established battle plan, to hold Annam and Champa at all costs, and to delay until the autumn of this year to fight a decisive battle against the coalition of small countries in the Indochina Peninsula.
To ensure everything went smoothly, Zhao Yu dispatched generals Wang Bing, Wu Jie, Wang Yan, and Li Yanxian, each leading an army of 50,000, to reinforce Annam and Champa.
At the same time, we should strengthen the construction of the land-based Silk Road and prepare for the long-term blockade of the maritime Silk Road.
This demonstrates the extent of Zhao Yu's determination to conquer the Indochina Peninsula.
Incidentally, due to the hot weather, Zhao Yu and his entourage had already returned from Guangzhou—they were gradually returning to Beijing along the same route they had taken to get there, the same route they had taken down to the south of the Yangtze River.
As early as when the Song army conquered the Ly Dynasty, the Song army organized the civilians and slaves of Annam to fortify the city of Thang Long, the capital of the Ly Dynasty. Later, the Song army captured the capital of Champa, Pijaya, and again organized the civilians and slaves of Champa to fortify the city. At the same time, they rushed to build earthen forts and dig deep trenches along the banks of the Red River and the Mekong River, connecting the two places into a defensive line that formed a mutually supporting defensive line.
From May to September, the Song army and the allied forces of the Angkor Dynasty, the Queen's Kingdom, the Bagan Dynasty, and Srivijaya, numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even close to a million, engaged in a series of fierce offensive and defensive tug-of-war battles in the vast area from the lower Red River to the Mekong Delta.
—Although Dali did not directly send troops, it secretly dispatched people to supply the allied forces with food, medicine, and siege equipment. It also sent troops disguised as the Queen's Kingdom to raid the Song army's land supply lines, becoming a hidden force behind the scenes.
During this period, or more precisely, after the start of summer, the Indochina Peninsula was scorching hot with sudden downpours. The humid and humid miasma permeated the jungles and waterways all day long, and the Song army's prized firearms became the first weapons to fail.
The torrential rain caused the gunpowder to become damp and clump together, resulting in frequent barrel explosions in the Li Lin gun. The Thunderclap and Fireball oil tanks were difficult to ignite, and the bowstring of the Divine Arm Bow also loosened due to the moisture, greatly reducing its range and accuracy.
It can be said that the firearms advantage that the Song army once had in sweeping across the north has almost completely disappeared.
Li Gang, Zhao Li, and others had no choice but to order the packing away of their superior weaponry and to revert to using spears, axes, swords, shields, and bows and arrows captured from the Joseon Dynasty and Champa, employing only the most primitive infantry formations and fortifications to fight the allied forces to the death.
Meanwhile, the small countries in the Indochina Peninsula had hoped that the rainy season would allow them to use elephant cavalry to flatten the Song army's defenses.
However, they forgot about the Song army's firearms. Although they were difficult to use in large-scale operations in such weather, a certain amount of dry gunpowder remained. Whenever the allied forces drove their war elephants to charge, the Song army would concentrate on hurling their remaining thunderclap bombs or ignite the few Li Lin cannons. The deafening explosions, accompanied by thick smoke, were enough to startle the war elephants and cause them to lose control, even if the power was insufficient to kill too many allied soldiers.
Once the elephants get out of control, they will immediately turn around and run wildly, disrupting the formation of the allied infantry.
This made the allied forces dare not use their strongest elephant troops. The elephant troops of the small countries in the Indochina Peninsula, which used to sweep across the plains, were completely useless in the rainy season's water network and miasma, and could only serve as transport teams.
In short, the battles between the Song army and the allied forces of a number of small countries in the Indochina Peninsula over the past few months have been extremely fierce. The Song army had no firearms to roar, and the allied forces had no powerful elephant troops. All that remained between the two sides was the crisp sound of weapons clashing and the roars of soldiers.
Relying on their superior numbers, the main force of the allied forces launched a fierce attack on the Song army's fortresses in broad daylight with dense infantry. They charged forward through the wind and rain, trudging through the mud, and arrows rained down on the city walls like locusts.
The Queen's mountain infantry took advantage of the night to circle around to the flank of the Song army, using the jungle as cover to climb the earthen fortress, and used bamboo bows and poisoned arrows to shoot at the gaps in the Song army's defenses.
Several times, the allied forces nearly broke through the Song army's border defenses, but were ultimately counterattacked by the Song's elite troops and the civilian slave soldiers of Annam and Champa.
The two sides engaged in close-quarters combat on and around the fortress walls, hacking and stabbing with knives and spears. Corpses quickly filled the trenches, and when the torrential rain washed them away, the blood flowed down the gullies and into the rivers, staining the turbid waters red.
The Srivijaya navy guarded the mouth of the Mekong River, with warships sailing back and forth, blocking the Song army's sea supply while constantly sending troops ashore to harass Champa's coastal strongholds.
The Song Dynasty navy could have easily defeated the Srivijaya navy with overwhelming superiority.
However, because of this damned weather, the Song Dynasty navy was unable to use its Li Lin cannons, Li Lin muskets, Shenbi bows, and fierce fire oil tanks. They could only use outdated weapons such as swords, spears, bows and arrows, and Molotov cocktails captured from the Joseon Dynasty and Champa to ram and board the ships of the Srivijaya navy and fight on the deck.
This often resulted in the warships of both sides becoming entangled and sinking together in the turbulent waves.
Fortunately, the Song Dynasty's warships were larger, more advanced, and more developed, and under normal circumstances, they could still overpower the Srivijaya navy.
However, the miasma and epidemics in the Indochina Peninsula became the Song army's greatest enemies.
The Song army soldiers in the north suffered from acclimatization problems, and the combination of scorching sun and rain caused malaria and dysentery to spread, resulting in a large number of soldiers falling ill every day.
Faced with this situation, Zhao Yu's concubine Chen Miaozhen personally led thousands of doctors and tens of thousands of nurses drawn from all over the Song Dynasty to the front line by boat. Based on the "Ye Shiyun Medical Canon", she did her best to save the sick soldiers.
Thanks to the efforts of Chen Miaozhen and others, although non-combat casualties could not be avoided in the Song army, their numbers were effectively controlled.
In other words, the number of casualties due to non-combat was still within the Song Dynasty's tolerance range.
In this way, the Song Dynasty was able to hold on.
Meanwhile, the coalition of small countries in the Indochina Peninsula, though accustomed to the hot and humid climate, were also struggling to hold on due to the protracted war, insufficient supplies, and the increasing number of wounded and sick.
In addition, the priests of the Angkor Dynasty performed rituals and prayers daily, and the monks of Bagan chanted sutras along the streets, hoping that their army could defeat the invaders on the battlefield.
Although Zhao Yu was well aware that the Song army was fighting a hard battle in the Indochina Peninsula and that the Song Dynasty had suffered considerable economic losses as a result of the war, he continued to escalate the conflict.
Zhao Yu was well aware that as long as he eliminated the small countries in the Indochina Peninsula and incorporated it into the territory of the Song Dynasty, not only would he become the emperor who conquered the largest territory in Chinese history, but with such a Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty would almost certainly never lack any resources in the future. More importantly, at that time, he could confidently unify the world and become the ruler of the earth.
The Song soldiers knew that if the defensive line they were currently defending fell, all the territory they had previously conquered would be for naught, and they would have no foundation for the decisive battle in the autumn. Therefore, they fought to the death, and even if their weapons were dulled and their armor was damaged, they held on to every earthen fort and every section of the city wall.
As for the coalition of small countries in the Indochina Peninsula, they knew very well that if they could not defeat the Song army and drive out the Song Dynasty during this period, by autumn, when the tide of battle would turn between them and the Song army, the Song army would likely sweep across the entire Indochina Peninsula in that winter. At that time, they, especially their royal families, clansmen, and nobles, would suffer greatly.
Therefore, the allied forces, driven by the determination to "drive the Song soldiers out of the country and protect the nation," charged wave after wave against the Song army's spear formations.
Suryavarman II personally went to the front-line altar, swore an oath in the name of the God-King, and personally commanded the allied forces to fight against the Song army.
Although Zhao Deviana was young, she showed the responsibility of a queen. She personally led the mountain infantry of the Queen's Kingdom to appear and disappear in the jungle, specifically targeting the Song Dynasty's logistics supply lines, causing great trouble for the Song Dynasty.
Even the incompetent Arun Siddhu, with the support of the nobles in the country, kept sending reinforcements to the front lines, and even sent more than 30,000 heavy infantry from Bagan.
The two sides continued their tug-of-war in the humid heat, muddy conditions, and miasma, every inch of land stained with blood, a brutal stalemate that lasted day after day.
By September, as the autumn winds began to blow, the torrential rains in the Indochina Peninsula finally began to subside, the miasma slowly dissipated, and the atmosphere of the dry season permeated the battlefield.
This fierce battle, which lasted for nearly five months, finally had a chance to come to an end.
Faced with this situation, Suryavarman II and others became afraid, because they saw that there were more and more Li Lin cannons, Li Lin guns, and Shenbi bows on the battlefield, and the Song Dynasty cavalry, which had not appeared for half a year, was beginning to gather.
Meanwhile, at sea, the Song army, re-equipped with powerful weapons such as the Li Lin cannon, Li Lin musket, Shenbi bow, and fierce fire oil tank, took the initiative to challenge the Srivijaya navy to a decisive battle.
Commander of this battle was Li Bao, the top naval commander of the Song Dynasty. Seeing that the south wind was strong, he immediately waved his flag and gave the order. Hundreds of Song warships were deployed to flank the Srivijaya navy and head straight for its anchorage.
In an instant, Li Lin's cannons roared, and cannonballs fell like meteors, piercing the wooden planks of the enemy ships; Li Lin's muskets fired in rapid succession, and lead bullets rained down, making it impossible for the soldiers of Srivijaya to raise their heads; the powerful arrows of the Divine Arm Bow pierced the air, targeting the sails and helmsmen of the enemy ships.
The south wind, carrying the raging flames spewing from the oil tanks, swept over the Srivijaya warships. These enemy ships, converted from merchant vessels, were already crude; their wooden hulls and oiled sails ignited instantly, and flames soared into the sky in an instant. The chained-up warships had no way to evacuate, and the fire spread continuously, with thick smoke obscuring the sea and the sky.
Taking advantage of the situation, the Song army's warships charged straight into the enemy's formation. Suicide soldiers, armed with long knives and hooks, climbed aboard the ships and engaged in close combat with the panicked Srivijaya navy. Screams echoed across the deck, and corpses floated on the waves.
Upon seeing this, the morale of the Srivijaya naval forces collapsed. Some jumped into the sea and drowned, while others surrendered without weapons. The commander was even beheaded by one of Li Bao's lieutenants.
Within half a day, the Srivijaya navy was completely annihilated, with hundreds of warships burned in flames and more than two hundred captured. The blockade of the Mekong River estuary was lifted, the Song Dynasty's sea supply route was fully restored, and the flags at sea pointed directly to the heart of the Indochina Peninsula, clearing the last obstacle for the decisive land battle during the dry season.
The key point is that, given this trend, it won't be long before the Song Dynasty can reopen the Maritime Silk Road and revive its maritime trade with the West and its great seafaring expeditions.
Faced with this situation, Suryavarman II and others quickly sent envoys to negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty...
...(End of chapter)