Too long to quote here; the link is below...
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/medieval/articles/mongolwarfighting.aspx
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/medieval/articles/mongolwarfighting.aspx
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An interesting article on the Mongol war machine
- Thread starter Knight-Dragon
- Start date
I take the liberty of quoting a few sections I find interesting here.
Song and Yuan Naval Construction
The military leaders of the Yuan drew upon the assistance of Chinese and Korean shipwrights and naval architects, defectors who possessed an extensive knowledge of naval affairs. Chinese naval theorists were innovative in the use of technology in their fleets. Artillery and fire weapons were both used aboard Chinese vessels, and according to Lorge, "naval operations were involved in creating Chinese empires from the very beginning to the very end."[78] For historians of the Yuan, Khublai Khan, more than anyone, created the Mongol navy. In 1270, Khublai ordered the construction of five thousand ships. Three years later, an additional two thousand ships were ordered to be built; these would carry about 50,000 troops to give battle to the Song. In 1273, when the Mongols attacked the city of Xiangyang, several thousand ships were deployed. The Song fleet, despite their deployment as a coastal defense fleet or Coast Guard more than an operational Navy, was more than a match for the Mongols. Yet, the Song Navy of the thirteenth century possessed a good deal of the state of the art technology available at the time. As early as 1129, Song vessels incorporated weapons such as trebuchets that could hurl gunpowder bombs. Between 1132 and 1189, the Song Navy deployed paddle-wheeled warships, and by 1203, their navy was utilizing armor on its warships.
Adept at Greek Fire, the Song also utilized piston engine flamethrowers to burn enemy vessels.[79] Contemporary maritime archaeology has revealed that Song shipwrights were quite sophisticated in their ship-building skills.[80] When Chinese archaeologists excavated the remnants of a Quanzhou ship in 1974, they discovered the remains of a Song hull buried within 2-3 meters of mud. There, researchers also found 504 gold coins minted during the Song dynasty. 1272 is the date of the latest coin in the batch, and this suggests that the vessel sank sometime after that year. The ship's length is 34.6 meters. The breadth or beam is 9.82 meters. Capable of displacing 374.4 tons, the ship is unlike anything the archaeologists had expected to find in a Chinese vessel. The ship had a double-planked hull that at the turn of the bilge became triple-planked. When constructed, the ship was built shell-first in the same manner as Mediterranean vessels.
When the ship was removed from the mud, archaeologists were surprised to find that the ship was fitted with a keel, constructed of three pieces of timber. Prior to this discovery, scholars didn't think that ships of this period had such a component. The rudder fit into the stern, suspended as it angled down onto a transom, but it did not connect to a sternpost. The tabernacles or mounts for the masts were located in the interior of the hull. These were the locations for two masts, though study of the vessel indicates that there was probably a third mast at the stern. Clearly, Song naval architecture was in advance of European vessels of the period.
Transom sterns, axial rudders, multiple masts, and the carrying capacity of Song ships appeared two hundred years before Europe adopted them in the fifteenth century.[81] Another innovation of the Song ship-building artisans was the use of watertight compartments below deck.
If the hull was damaged in combat or by mishap, the compartment could be sealed, increasing the ship's chances of remaining afloat. In the West, conversely, European ship-builders did not use watertight bulkheads until the nineteenth century.[82] Ben Armstrong, a U.S. Navy officer and military historian, believes that the development of the watertight bulkhead represents one of the most important innovations of the Song naval architects.
"The transom sterns, variable depth rudders and the use of tabernacles rather than keel-mounted masts, were all important but were dictated by the fact that Song vessels for the most part operated in the littorals (or shallow coastal waters) and rivers. The use of watertight compartments, however, was not an adaptation to environment. Instead, it was combat engineering and therefore it was something that the Europeans should have developed but did not. That's why [this] is the most important of all the Song innovations: it [demonstrates] their superior designs They were the also the first navy to use compasses for navigation[.] [83]
Certain Song warships, called sea hawks, were invented in the Tang Dynasty, and they utilized an interesting feature: Chinese shipwrights added four to six floating boards on each side, in order to stabilize the vessel at sea. Song vessels also made use of an iron-reinforced hull, and some had multiple decks to promote greater stabilization at sea. Warships of this period also employed fire-bomb catapults and incendiary arrows that made use of gunpowder. Thus, the military skills of the Song were considerable, so, too, were their weapons technology and understanding of war. In this way, the Song insured their survival for many years against powerful enemies like the Jin and the Mongols.[84] Post-1172, more than a century before the final showdown between Mongol and Song, the Song emperor, alarmed by the invasion of the Jurchen Jin, determined that a strong navy was essential to the survival of the state.[85] This insight turned out to be correct, and Song naval superiority insured that the Jin failed in their war against the Song Dynasty.
The Mongols, however, were another matter. They had learned well from their Chinese and Korean allies. Naval forces and operations were the obvious key to the undoing of the Song, and they resolved not to repeat the error of the Jin. Their plan called for victory. On 19 March 1279, the Mongol plan came to its bloody conclusion at the Battle of Yaishan.
The Battle of Yaishan19 March 1279
The conclusion of the Song---Mongol war occurred on 19 March 1279, when 1000 Song warships faced a fleet of 300 to 700 Yuan[86] Mongol warships. The Mongol fleet was commanded by Zhang Hongfan (1238-1280), a northern Chinese, and Li Heng (1236-1285), a Tangut. Catapults as a weapon system were rejected by the Mongols, for the Mongols feared the Song fleet would break out if they used such weapons. Instead, the Mongol plan called for a maritime siege, in order to starve the Song into submission.
But at the outset, there was a defect in the Song tactics that would later be exploited by Yuan at the conclusion of the battle. The Song wanted a stronger defensive position, and the Song fleet "roped itself together in a solid mass[,]" in an attempt to create what appears to be in a nautical skirmish line. Results were disastrous: the Chinese could neither attack nor maneuver. Escape was also impossible, for the Song warships lacked any nearby base to which they might take refuge.[87] The course, then, was clear: the Song must stand and fight! Not all the Chinese did, though. On 12 March, a number of Song combatants defected to the Mongol side. On 13 March, a Song squadron attacked some of the Mongols' northern patrol boats. Lorge thinks this action was an attempted breakout, but if so, it failed. The Chinese squadron was crushed with an appalling loss of life.[88]
By 17 March, Li Heng and Zhang Hongfan opted for a decisive battle.[89] Four Mongol fleets moved against the Song: Li Heng attacked from the north and northwest; Zhang would proceed from the southwest; the last two fleets attacked from the south and west.[90] Weather favored the Mongols that morning. Heavy fog and rain obscured the approach of Li Heng's dawn attack. The movement of the tide and the southwestern similarly-benefited the movement of the Mongol fleet which, in short order, appeared to the north of the Song. It was an unusual attack, in that, the Mongol fleet engaged the Song fleet stern first.
In hindsight, this was a very good tactic. It enabled the naval infantry archers to take full advantage of the ships' high sterncastles. Prior to the battle, the Mongols constructed archery platforms for their sea soldiers. As a result of this simple innovation, the archers atop the sterncastles were transformed into force multipliers against the Song. The position enabled the archers to direct a higher, more concentrated rate of missile fire against the enemy. Fire teams of seven or eight archers manned these platforms, and they proved devastatingly-effective as the battle commenced at close quarter.
Li Heng's first attack cut the Song rope that held the Chinese fleet together. Fighting raged with great intensity at a hand-to hand distance. The Song gave fierce resistance, but by eleven, they had lost three of their ships to the Mongols, though the outcome was still by no means certain. Then, by the forenoon, Li's ships broke through the Song's outer line, and two other Mongol squadrons destroyed the Song formation in the corner of the northwest. Around this time, the tide had shifted; Li's ships drifted to the opposite direction, the north.[91]
The Song believed that the Mongols were halting the attack and, foolishly, dropped their guard. Their mistake was obvious when, suddenly, Zhang Hongfan's fleet, riding the northern current, slammed into the Chinese ships. Zhang was determined to capture the Song admiral, Zuo Tai. The Mongol flagship was protected by shields to negate the Song missile fire. Later, when Zhang did capture the Song flagship, his own vessel was riddled with arrows. Then, as if the Song did not have enough difficulties, Li Heng's fleet returned to the battle. By late afternoon, it was obvious to all observers that the battle was over. The Mongols had prevailed, and the Song navy surrendered.
Horrified, the ruling elite, unwilling to submit to the Mongol yoke, opted for death by suicide. The Song councilor, an important post, in that, he was tasked with literally holding the infant child-emperor of the Song in his arms during the battle, also elected to join the Song leaders in death. Not only did he plan his own death, he, or perhaps others, decided to take the infant Emperor to his royal destruction, too. As harsh a decision as this sounds, it is not without its own cruel logic. Presumably, the councilor did not wish to see a mere baby trampled to death in Mongol tradition, as undoubtedly the Yuan would have done to the child-emperor, to leave no doubt that the Song Dynasty was literally dead. Tragically, the councilor jumped into the sea, still holding the child in his arms. Both would die; the Song Dynasty would die with them.; Lorge described the scene and its aftermath:
Tens of thousands of Song officials, and women threw themselves into the sea and drowned. The last Song emperor went to the bottom with his entourage, held in the arms of his councilor. With his death, the final remnants of the Song dynasty were eliminated. Khublai's Mongol Yuan dynasty completed the conquest of China with naval campaign and a climactic battle at sea more than 2,000 miles south of the Mongolian homeland.[92]
Korea and Japan
At the same time, Khublai was in contention with the Song, he attacked Koryo (Korea), and the campaign, there, took place over a period of years. Time and again, the Koreans, as the Song did for many years, successfully defended their land, and fought-off the Mongols. However, the Mongols' assaults were relentless, and, eventually, the Koreans capitulated. With the surrender of King Kojong, he and Koryo became the vassals of Khublai Khan. After this humiliating development, the Khan gave one of his daughters in marriage to the King of Koryo, Chung-ryol, which effectively united the two states through the diplomacy of marriage. This, however, was a mixed blessing, for as a vassal and as a member of the great Khan's family, Kojong was obligated to assist the Khublai Khan in his next great imperial adventure: the invasion of Japan.
How, why, and under what circumstances, the Mongol leader decided to invade Japan may never be completely understood. One story, perhaps apocryphal, has it that Khublai decided to invade Japan, after a Koryo courtesan convinced him that Japan could be easily subdued. Another interpretation holds that the Khan hoped to utilize Japan as an ally in his struggle against the Song in China, which at this time was still in progress.[93] The Khan also may have had concerns that the Japanese would join forces with the Song. Another possibility was that Japan posed an economic threat to Mongol China, which may have moved the Khan to attack Japan to maintain stability in the region to his Empire's advantage.[94] Strategically, the Mongols would have readily grasped that in conquering Japan, the Yuan could come to dominate all of Asia. They would then have access to the Pacific Ocean for both trade and the natural resources available in that direction.[95]
Whatever the truth of the matter, if Khublai attacked Japan, the Koreans would be obligated to participate in the invasion.[96] And when the Yuan emissaries were rebuffed by the Japanese, the Khan resolved to punish them, aided by his Korean and Chinese allies. The invasion of Japan required the King of Koryo provide ships, sailors, soldiers, and provisions for the campaign. Thousands of carpenters were tasked with the construction of 300 large ships, and in October 1274, the armada was ready. A Korean army of 5,000 men, under the command of Kim Bang-Gyong, joined a Mongol army of 20,000, under the command of Hol Don. On 3 October 1274, the Allies left Masan in a fleet of 900 ships, manned by 6,700 Koryo sailors. 35,000 Chinese, Mongol, and Korean soldiers crowded onto the vessels in preparation for the war against Japan. On 5 October, the Koryo army attacked Tsushima, occupied the island, while the Mongols occupied Iki Island. By 14 October, they occupied Hirado and moved to Hakata Bay. Here, the steppe warrior of the Yuan Dynasty met the poet-warriors of Japan, the samurai.
The samurai and the Yuan Mongols were very different in their understanding of themselves and of the nature of war. The Mongol was a horse-nomad, turned imperialist-conqueror, and more recently a sailor and naval infantryman. The samurai, conversely, understood the martial world differently.
[The samurai] were a warrior people They were warriors of a recognizably 'primitive' sort, practicing a highly-ritualized style of combat and valuing skill-at-arms largely as a medium for defining social status and subordinating the unsworded to the rule of the samurai.[97]
In the ensuing fighting, as much a clash of culture as combatants, the Japanese losses were considerable, and they were forced to retreat inland to defend Dazaifu. Tactically, the two forces approached combat in very different ways.
The Koreans and Mongols fought as disciplined units. The Japanese, on the other hand, fought for the glory of individual combat in the Japanese tradition of personal heroism. The samurai had not fought anyone outside Japan before, and the differences between the Mongols using organized, group-combat concepts in their tactics, together with the high-tech weapons they acquired in China, were noticeable within the battlespace of Japan.. The samurai fought with sword, armor, and horse.[98] In combat, the Japanese advanced individually in battle, yelling their names and pedigrees, in order to engage the Mongols individually. As the knightly class of feudal Japan, the only warriors in Japan who could wear two swords, the samurai were practitioners of something other than war: they were practitioners of style. [99]
Everything about the samurai was designed to make an impression: style of clothing, weapons, martial skill, and battlefield deportment. They were similar to the chivalric knights of Europe in this regard. Yet, unlike the armed and mounted aristocracy of Europe, the samurai were highly-literate, and according to Keegan, "the samurai commonly wished to be known both as swordsmen and poets."[100]
Thomas Cleary[101] in his discussion of the Japanese warrior class writes that to understand the rise of the samurai class, one must look at the two words which designate its members: samurai and bushi. Samurai comes from a Japanese verb, saburau, which translates "'to serve as an attendant.'" The word, bushi, on the other hand, is of Sino-Japanese origin; it translates as "'armed gentry.'" In Japan, classes other than the warrior class referred to these men as samurai. The samurai, themselves, used the term, bushi. [102] The samurai served the nobles of Japan as attendants.
The nobles tended to be absentee landlords, and the samurai attended to their estates, policing, defense and civil administration. As time went on, they made a political move to seize some of the wealth and power from the absentee landlord-nobles. From this situation, power would come to be shared by various factions, the Emperor, the Shoguns, and the samurai between. As a result of the clash between samurai and the nobles, there arose in Japan a new kind of Japanese polity, a military para-government of the dominant samurai, the so-called Shoguns. The polity the Shogun presided over was the Bakufu, the Tent Government.
By the time the Mongols were on the beaches of Japan, the first Bakufu or Tent Government was in power. According to Cleary, the warriors of this government were "descendants of noble houses, many of whom had honed their martial skills for generations in warfare against the Ainu people in eastern Japan."[103] The Tent Government of this period was seated near modern Tokyo, in the small town of Kamakura, hence, the name given to the period, the Kamakura Era.[104]
Cleary writes that Japanese history and culture is not comprehensible unless one realizes that until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, no government ruled unilaterally. The Shoguns enjoyed power, but it was not absolute, even within its own polity. Similarly, the imperial house was dominated by the emperor, the nominal ruler of all Japan, theoretically, but not in reality. The realpolitik of Japanese government meant that the imperial house was one of a number of powerful factions in Japan. All ritual and rhetoric to the contrary, the emperor could not, in actuality, project power throughout the whole of his supposed realm.[105]
This was the state of affairs in Japanese politics when the Mongols and their allies stormed the islands of Japan. It was to these invaders that the Japanese bushi yelled their names and pedigrees, seeking to engage the Mongol, man-to-man, and hand-to-hand. The Mongols, however, had other ideas. In all likelihood, most of the attacking Yuan force would have understood neither the Japanese language, nor the significance of the ritualized Japanese approach to battle. And if they had, it is doubtful that they would have been interested. The Mongol response had none of the drama of the Japanese bushi; it was, rather, pragmatic and unceremonious: they showered the samurai with a hail of arrows and exploding bombs. The intent was to move forward en masse, in juggernaut fashion destroying the Japanese where they found them.
The Mongols came equipped with all the technology that the Song Dynasty had bequeathed to them. The Mongol bows had a longer range than the Japanese weapons, and the frightful explosive weapons of the Song were hurled from trebuchets at the bushi. The battle's fury forced the Japanese to retreat to Dazaifu. In the process, the Mongols destroyed the countryside and burned down a shrine at Hakozaki.[106] In their usual style, the Mongols didn't hesitate to murder the civilian population, and non-combatant losses were high. Then, on 21 October, the Mongol forces returned to the ships for rest and resupply, when a sudden storm arose and halted the Mongol fleet which returned to Masan.[107] In the hiatus, the Khan once more attempted diplomacy. They sent a Korean emissary to the Japanese Hojo Bakufu in 1275, to deliver terms. This envoy, Sub Chan, went to the Japanese with a letter from Khublai. The Japanese responded by murdering Chan on the spot and sending back his severed head. Appalled by the insult, the Khan ordered another invasion of the Japanese islands.
However, before the attack came, the Japanese rebuilt the shrine at Hakozaki and began offering services for divine intervention. Knowing that the Mongols would attack soon with horses and carts as soon as practical, the Japanese built a wall to impede the coming invasion. The Shogun had decided that a cavalry defense was most appropriate, and he began training his troops for that style of combat. The Japanese also built a number of small, maneuverable ships to damage the larger transports of the Mongols.
Still, the Mongols had superior equipment. By the time the Mongols attacked Japan for the second time, they were even better armed and equipped than they were in their first invasion of Japan. Cross-bows, slings, gun powder, and artillery could all be found in the Mongol armamentarium. However, the amphibious nature of the operation meant that the Mongols could not deploy their famed cavalry until they were on land. The Japanese, as before, were armed with bows, and their tactics were traditional Samurai tactics, based upon heroic, individual combat. Such tactics were valuable at close range, but were of little use against Chinese-crafted artillery.[108]
On 3 May 1281, the new armada set out for Japan. Kyushu was targeted, but the Japanese were ready for the enemy and were able to repel the Mongol forces. However, the Mongols once again took Tsushima and occupied it. Attacking Hakata on 6 June, the Mongols and their allies[109] were pushed back to Shiganoshima. Several days, thereafter, the Mongols were thrown out of Shiganoshima by the Japanese. They returned to Iki and then to Hirado. However, a second Mongol army was proceeding from a southern route, and they finally arrived in a huge fleet of 3500 Chinese ships in mid-July. In the Mongol attack, the Japanese were initially repulsed, but the samurai rallied and drove the Mongols back to Hakata Bay.
The Japanese then began small-unit, guerrilla actions against the crews and troops aboard the ships at anchor. These assaults, more in the nature of terrorism, perhaps, were highly-effective against Mongol morale, and they caused the allies to withdraw to the island of Iki. However, a second fleet was expected to invade Hakata Bay. Once again, the Japanese prayed for divine intervention. The timing of the attacks coincided with typhoon season, but the Mongols, aware of the treachery of the weather around the Japanese islands, were little concerned. They did not anticipate a long campaign, and paid little attention to the weather. As before, the Mongols attacked again, and once more the Japanese resisted fiercely. The strength of the Japanese defense was so intense, it managed to delay the Mongols for a period of six weeks.
On 29 July, a powerful storm arose. Panicking, the Mongol generals sailed to the safety of Masan, leaving the invasion fleet at half-strength. Then, an epidemic broke out amongst the Mongols, killing thousands of allies. On 1 August, another storm erupted; the surviving ships were forced to abandon a token army of 20,000 soldiers that had been left behind. The storm was of such destructive force that 4,000 Mongol ships were lost, and a staggering number of troops were lost. As for the Yuan combatants left behind, he Japanese turned fiercely on these outnumbered troops and killed all but 10,000 troops. For the Japanese, the powerful storm was seen as a kamikaze, a divine wind, a heavenly intervention in their struggle against Khublai Khan. The Mongol view of this theory is unknown, although it is known that the Mongols, fearing Khublai's wrath, fled to Koryo to hide from the Khan, rather than return to China.
Modern underwater archaeological expeditions conducted in the waters of Imari Bay, in Japan, have yielded interesting artifacts of the Mongol invasion of Japan. Archaeologist, James P. Delgado[110] found an intact Mongol helmet, iron arrow tips, a tetsuhau, or bomb that in the thirteenth century was filled with black powder. Scholars were unaware that such weapons were available at this point in military history, but Delgado's research confirmed that they were available to the Mongols. Remnants of a large Mongol warship and an anchor also were uncovered, and the forensic, archaeological examination of the anchor's materials revealed their source of origin was Fujian Province in China, a marshaling point for the 1281 invasion fleet.
One especially interesting find was the personal seal of a Mongol commander, written in Chinese and Phags-pa, a specially-constructed Mongolian language. It was found by local fishermen in1980, in the waters of Takashima in a dive conducted by Tokyo engineering professor, Torao Monzai. Various weapons were also recovered from the waters around the invasion site: crossbow bolts, swords, and ceramic bombs filled with gunpowder. Poignantly, the underwater examination of the battle site revealed human remains, the hard reminder of the true nature of armed, human conflict. The remains include a human cranium and a pelvis, possibly from the same individual.[111] These remains and artifacts support what is known about the nationalities of the invasion force. According to Delgado: "Initial study of the artifacts has revealed [that] one percent of the finds can be attributed to a Mongolian origin; the rest are Chinese. The Mongol invasion was Mongol only in name and in the allegiance of the invading sailors and troops."[112]
In Japan, the end of the war did not bring peace. True enough, Hojo Kamakura Bakufu, or Tent Government was victorious, but due to the subsequent money problems caused by the war, many Japanese turned upon them in resentment. Ordinarily, the bushi would be rewarded with rights to land. But that only applied if the enemy was in a foreign country. Since the war was fought at home, no land was to be forthcoming, a turn of events that caused great anger amongst the victorious Japanese. The result was that the Kamakura Shogunate came to an end. In China, the Khan intended to invade a third time, but his death put a halt to any such operation.[113] By the late fourteenth century, in the 1360s, it was the Yuan Dynasty's turn to die. And before long, the entire Mongol polity that had done so much in such a short time would be unable to sustain itself, and an extraordinary period of wars, international developments, and relationships would slowly play itself out on the world stage.
Song and Yuan Naval Construction
The military leaders of the Yuan drew upon the assistance of Chinese and Korean shipwrights and naval architects, defectors who possessed an extensive knowledge of naval affairs. Chinese naval theorists were innovative in the use of technology in their fleets. Artillery and fire weapons were both used aboard Chinese vessels, and according to Lorge, "naval operations were involved in creating Chinese empires from the very beginning to the very end."[78] For historians of the Yuan, Khublai Khan, more than anyone, created the Mongol navy. In 1270, Khublai ordered the construction of five thousand ships. Three years later, an additional two thousand ships were ordered to be built; these would carry about 50,000 troops to give battle to the Song. In 1273, when the Mongols attacked the city of Xiangyang, several thousand ships were deployed. The Song fleet, despite their deployment as a coastal defense fleet or Coast Guard more than an operational Navy, was more than a match for the Mongols. Yet, the Song Navy of the thirteenth century possessed a good deal of the state of the art technology available at the time. As early as 1129, Song vessels incorporated weapons such as trebuchets that could hurl gunpowder bombs. Between 1132 and 1189, the Song Navy deployed paddle-wheeled warships, and by 1203, their navy was utilizing armor on its warships.
Adept at Greek Fire, the Song also utilized piston engine flamethrowers to burn enemy vessels.[79] Contemporary maritime archaeology has revealed that Song shipwrights were quite sophisticated in their ship-building skills.[80] When Chinese archaeologists excavated the remnants of a Quanzhou ship in 1974, they discovered the remains of a Song hull buried within 2-3 meters of mud. There, researchers also found 504 gold coins minted during the Song dynasty. 1272 is the date of the latest coin in the batch, and this suggests that the vessel sank sometime after that year. The ship's length is 34.6 meters. The breadth or beam is 9.82 meters. Capable of displacing 374.4 tons, the ship is unlike anything the archaeologists had expected to find in a Chinese vessel. The ship had a double-planked hull that at the turn of the bilge became triple-planked. When constructed, the ship was built shell-first in the same manner as Mediterranean vessels.
When the ship was removed from the mud, archaeologists were surprised to find that the ship was fitted with a keel, constructed of three pieces of timber. Prior to this discovery, scholars didn't think that ships of this period had such a component. The rudder fit into the stern, suspended as it angled down onto a transom, but it did not connect to a sternpost. The tabernacles or mounts for the masts were located in the interior of the hull. These were the locations for two masts, though study of the vessel indicates that there was probably a third mast at the stern. Clearly, Song naval architecture was in advance of European vessels of the period.
Transom sterns, axial rudders, multiple masts, and the carrying capacity of Song ships appeared two hundred years before Europe adopted them in the fifteenth century.[81] Another innovation of the Song ship-building artisans was the use of watertight compartments below deck.
If the hull was damaged in combat or by mishap, the compartment could be sealed, increasing the ship's chances of remaining afloat. In the West, conversely, European ship-builders did not use watertight bulkheads until the nineteenth century.[82] Ben Armstrong, a U.S. Navy officer and military historian, believes that the development of the watertight bulkhead represents one of the most important innovations of the Song naval architects.
"The transom sterns, variable depth rudders and the use of tabernacles rather than keel-mounted masts, were all important but were dictated by the fact that Song vessels for the most part operated in the littorals (or shallow coastal waters) and rivers. The use of watertight compartments, however, was not an adaptation to environment. Instead, it was combat engineering and therefore it was something that the Europeans should have developed but did not. That's why [this] is the most important of all the Song innovations: it [demonstrates] their superior designs They were the also the first navy to use compasses for navigation[.] [83]
Certain Song warships, called sea hawks, were invented in the Tang Dynasty, and they utilized an interesting feature: Chinese shipwrights added four to six floating boards on each side, in order to stabilize the vessel at sea. Song vessels also made use of an iron-reinforced hull, and some had multiple decks to promote greater stabilization at sea. Warships of this period also employed fire-bomb catapults and incendiary arrows that made use of gunpowder. Thus, the military skills of the Song were considerable, so, too, were their weapons technology and understanding of war. In this way, the Song insured their survival for many years against powerful enemies like the Jin and the Mongols.[84] Post-1172, more than a century before the final showdown between Mongol and Song, the Song emperor, alarmed by the invasion of the Jurchen Jin, determined that a strong navy was essential to the survival of the state.[85] This insight turned out to be correct, and Song naval superiority insured that the Jin failed in their war against the Song Dynasty.
The Mongols, however, were another matter. They had learned well from their Chinese and Korean allies. Naval forces and operations were the obvious key to the undoing of the Song, and they resolved not to repeat the error of the Jin. Their plan called for victory. On 19 March 1279, the Mongol plan came to its bloody conclusion at the Battle of Yaishan.
The Battle of Yaishan19 March 1279
The conclusion of the Song---Mongol war occurred on 19 March 1279, when 1000 Song warships faced a fleet of 300 to 700 Yuan[86] Mongol warships. The Mongol fleet was commanded by Zhang Hongfan (1238-1280), a northern Chinese, and Li Heng (1236-1285), a Tangut. Catapults as a weapon system were rejected by the Mongols, for the Mongols feared the Song fleet would break out if they used such weapons. Instead, the Mongol plan called for a maritime siege, in order to starve the Song into submission.
But at the outset, there was a defect in the Song tactics that would later be exploited by Yuan at the conclusion of the battle. The Song wanted a stronger defensive position, and the Song fleet "roped itself together in a solid mass[,]" in an attempt to create what appears to be in a nautical skirmish line. Results were disastrous: the Chinese could neither attack nor maneuver. Escape was also impossible, for the Song warships lacked any nearby base to which they might take refuge.[87] The course, then, was clear: the Song must stand and fight! Not all the Chinese did, though. On 12 March, a number of Song combatants defected to the Mongol side. On 13 March, a Song squadron attacked some of the Mongols' northern patrol boats. Lorge thinks this action was an attempted breakout, but if so, it failed. The Chinese squadron was crushed with an appalling loss of life.[88]
By 17 March, Li Heng and Zhang Hongfan opted for a decisive battle.[89] Four Mongol fleets moved against the Song: Li Heng attacked from the north and northwest; Zhang would proceed from the southwest; the last two fleets attacked from the south and west.[90] Weather favored the Mongols that morning. Heavy fog and rain obscured the approach of Li Heng's dawn attack. The movement of the tide and the southwestern similarly-benefited the movement of the Mongol fleet which, in short order, appeared to the north of the Song. It was an unusual attack, in that, the Mongol fleet engaged the Song fleet stern first.
In hindsight, this was a very good tactic. It enabled the naval infantry archers to take full advantage of the ships' high sterncastles. Prior to the battle, the Mongols constructed archery platforms for their sea soldiers. As a result of this simple innovation, the archers atop the sterncastles were transformed into force multipliers against the Song. The position enabled the archers to direct a higher, more concentrated rate of missile fire against the enemy. Fire teams of seven or eight archers manned these platforms, and they proved devastatingly-effective as the battle commenced at close quarter.
Li Heng's first attack cut the Song rope that held the Chinese fleet together. Fighting raged with great intensity at a hand-to hand distance. The Song gave fierce resistance, but by eleven, they had lost three of their ships to the Mongols, though the outcome was still by no means certain. Then, by the forenoon, Li's ships broke through the Song's outer line, and two other Mongol squadrons destroyed the Song formation in the corner of the northwest. Around this time, the tide had shifted; Li's ships drifted to the opposite direction, the north.[91]
The Song believed that the Mongols were halting the attack and, foolishly, dropped their guard. Their mistake was obvious when, suddenly, Zhang Hongfan's fleet, riding the northern current, slammed into the Chinese ships. Zhang was determined to capture the Song admiral, Zuo Tai. The Mongol flagship was protected by shields to negate the Song missile fire. Later, when Zhang did capture the Song flagship, his own vessel was riddled with arrows. Then, as if the Song did not have enough difficulties, Li Heng's fleet returned to the battle. By late afternoon, it was obvious to all observers that the battle was over. The Mongols had prevailed, and the Song navy surrendered.
Horrified, the ruling elite, unwilling to submit to the Mongol yoke, opted for death by suicide. The Song councilor, an important post, in that, he was tasked with literally holding the infant child-emperor of the Song in his arms during the battle, also elected to join the Song leaders in death. Not only did he plan his own death, he, or perhaps others, decided to take the infant Emperor to his royal destruction, too. As harsh a decision as this sounds, it is not without its own cruel logic. Presumably, the councilor did not wish to see a mere baby trampled to death in Mongol tradition, as undoubtedly the Yuan would have done to the child-emperor, to leave no doubt that the Song Dynasty was literally dead. Tragically, the councilor jumped into the sea, still holding the child in his arms. Both would die; the Song Dynasty would die with them.; Lorge described the scene and its aftermath:
Tens of thousands of Song officials, and women threw themselves into the sea and drowned. The last Song emperor went to the bottom with his entourage, held in the arms of his councilor. With his death, the final remnants of the Song dynasty were eliminated. Khublai's Mongol Yuan dynasty completed the conquest of China with naval campaign and a climactic battle at sea more than 2,000 miles south of the Mongolian homeland.[92]
Korea and Japan
At the same time, Khublai was in contention with the Song, he attacked Koryo (Korea), and the campaign, there, took place over a period of years. Time and again, the Koreans, as the Song did for many years, successfully defended their land, and fought-off the Mongols. However, the Mongols' assaults were relentless, and, eventually, the Koreans capitulated. With the surrender of King Kojong, he and Koryo became the vassals of Khublai Khan. After this humiliating development, the Khan gave one of his daughters in marriage to the King of Koryo, Chung-ryol, which effectively united the two states through the diplomacy of marriage. This, however, was a mixed blessing, for as a vassal and as a member of the great Khan's family, Kojong was obligated to assist the Khublai Khan in his next great imperial adventure: the invasion of Japan.
How, why, and under what circumstances, the Mongol leader decided to invade Japan may never be completely understood. One story, perhaps apocryphal, has it that Khublai decided to invade Japan, after a Koryo courtesan convinced him that Japan could be easily subdued. Another interpretation holds that the Khan hoped to utilize Japan as an ally in his struggle against the Song in China, which at this time was still in progress.[93] The Khan also may have had concerns that the Japanese would join forces with the Song. Another possibility was that Japan posed an economic threat to Mongol China, which may have moved the Khan to attack Japan to maintain stability in the region to his Empire's advantage.[94] Strategically, the Mongols would have readily grasped that in conquering Japan, the Yuan could come to dominate all of Asia. They would then have access to the Pacific Ocean for both trade and the natural resources available in that direction.[95]
Whatever the truth of the matter, if Khublai attacked Japan, the Koreans would be obligated to participate in the invasion.[96] And when the Yuan emissaries were rebuffed by the Japanese, the Khan resolved to punish them, aided by his Korean and Chinese allies. The invasion of Japan required the King of Koryo provide ships, sailors, soldiers, and provisions for the campaign. Thousands of carpenters were tasked with the construction of 300 large ships, and in October 1274, the armada was ready. A Korean army of 5,000 men, under the command of Kim Bang-Gyong, joined a Mongol army of 20,000, under the command of Hol Don. On 3 October 1274, the Allies left Masan in a fleet of 900 ships, manned by 6,700 Koryo sailors. 35,000 Chinese, Mongol, and Korean soldiers crowded onto the vessels in preparation for the war against Japan. On 5 October, the Koryo army attacked Tsushima, occupied the island, while the Mongols occupied Iki Island. By 14 October, they occupied Hirado and moved to Hakata Bay. Here, the steppe warrior of the Yuan Dynasty met the poet-warriors of Japan, the samurai.
The samurai and the Yuan Mongols were very different in their understanding of themselves and of the nature of war. The Mongol was a horse-nomad, turned imperialist-conqueror, and more recently a sailor and naval infantryman. The samurai, conversely, understood the martial world differently.
[The samurai] were a warrior people They were warriors of a recognizably 'primitive' sort, practicing a highly-ritualized style of combat and valuing skill-at-arms largely as a medium for defining social status and subordinating the unsworded to the rule of the samurai.[97]
In the ensuing fighting, as much a clash of culture as combatants, the Japanese losses were considerable, and they were forced to retreat inland to defend Dazaifu. Tactically, the two forces approached combat in very different ways.
The Koreans and Mongols fought as disciplined units. The Japanese, on the other hand, fought for the glory of individual combat in the Japanese tradition of personal heroism. The samurai had not fought anyone outside Japan before, and the differences between the Mongols using organized, group-combat concepts in their tactics, together with the high-tech weapons they acquired in China, were noticeable within the battlespace of Japan.. The samurai fought with sword, armor, and horse.[98] In combat, the Japanese advanced individually in battle, yelling their names and pedigrees, in order to engage the Mongols individually. As the knightly class of feudal Japan, the only warriors in Japan who could wear two swords, the samurai were practitioners of something other than war: they were practitioners of style. [99]
Everything about the samurai was designed to make an impression: style of clothing, weapons, martial skill, and battlefield deportment. They were similar to the chivalric knights of Europe in this regard. Yet, unlike the armed and mounted aristocracy of Europe, the samurai were highly-literate, and according to Keegan, "the samurai commonly wished to be known both as swordsmen and poets."[100]
Thomas Cleary[101] in his discussion of the Japanese warrior class writes that to understand the rise of the samurai class, one must look at the two words which designate its members: samurai and bushi. Samurai comes from a Japanese verb, saburau, which translates "'to serve as an attendant.'" The word, bushi, on the other hand, is of Sino-Japanese origin; it translates as "'armed gentry.'" In Japan, classes other than the warrior class referred to these men as samurai. The samurai, themselves, used the term, bushi. [102] The samurai served the nobles of Japan as attendants.
The nobles tended to be absentee landlords, and the samurai attended to their estates, policing, defense and civil administration. As time went on, they made a political move to seize some of the wealth and power from the absentee landlord-nobles. From this situation, power would come to be shared by various factions, the Emperor, the Shoguns, and the samurai between. As a result of the clash between samurai and the nobles, there arose in Japan a new kind of Japanese polity, a military para-government of the dominant samurai, the so-called Shoguns. The polity the Shogun presided over was the Bakufu, the Tent Government.
By the time the Mongols were on the beaches of Japan, the first Bakufu or Tent Government was in power. According to Cleary, the warriors of this government were "descendants of noble houses, many of whom had honed their martial skills for generations in warfare against the Ainu people in eastern Japan."[103] The Tent Government of this period was seated near modern Tokyo, in the small town of Kamakura, hence, the name given to the period, the Kamakura Era.[104]
Cleary writes that Japanese history and culture is not comprehensible unless one realizes that until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, no government ruled unilaterally. The Shoguns enjoyed power, but it was not absolute, even within its own polity. Similarly, the imperial house was dominated by the emperor, the nominal ruler of all Japan, theoretically, but not in reality. The realpolitik of Japanese government meant that the imperial house was one of a number of powerful factions in Japan. All ritual and rhetoric to the contrary, the emperor could not, in actuality, project power throughout the whole of his supposed realm.[105]
This was the state of affairs in Japanese politics when the Mongols and their allies stormed the islands of Japan. It was to these invaders that the Japanese bushi yelled their names and pedigrees, seeking to engage the Mongol, man-to-man, and hand-to-hand. The Mongols, however, had other ideas. In all likelihood, most of the attacking Yuan force would have understood neither the Japanese language, nor the significance of the ritualized Japanese approach to battle. And if they had, it is doubtful that they would have been interested. The Mongol response had none of the drama of the Japanese bushi; it was, rather, pragmatic and unceremonious: they showered the samurai with a hail of arrows and exploding bombs. The intent was to move forward en masse, in juggernaut fashion destroying the Japanese where they found them.
The Mongols came equipped with all the technology that the Song Dynasty had bequeathed to them. The Mongol bows had a longer range than the Japanese weapons, and the frightful explosive weapons of the Song were hurled from trebuchets at the bushi. The battle's fury forced the Japanese to retreat to Dazaifu. In the process, the Mongols destroyed the countryside and burned down a shrine at Hakozaki.[106] In their usual style, the Mongols didn't hesitate to murder the civilian population, and non-combatant losses were high. Then, on 21 October, the Mongol forces returned to the ships for rest and resupply, when a sudden storm arose and halted the Mongol fleet which returned to Masan.[107] In the hiatus, the Khan once more attempted diplomacy. They sent a Korean emissary to the Japanese Hojo Bakufu in 1275, to deliver terms. This envoy, Sub Chan, went to the Japanese with a letter from Khublai. The Japanese responded by murdering Chan on the spot and sending back his severed head. Appalled by the insult, the Khan ordered another invasion of the Japanese islands.
However, before the attack came, the Japanese rebuilt the shrine at Hakozaki and began offering services for divine intervention. Knowing that the Mongols would attack soon with horses and carts as soon as practical, the Japanese built a wall to impede the coming invasion. The Shogun had decided that a cavalry defense was most appropriate, and he began training his troops for that style of combat. The Japanese also built a number of small, maneuverable ships to damage the larger transports of the Mongols.
Still, the Mongols had superior equipment. By the time the Mongols attacked Japan for the second time, they were even better armed and equipped than they were in their first invasion of Japan. Cross-bows, slings, gun powder, and artillery could all be found in the Mongol armamentarium. However, the amphibious nature of the operation meant that the Mongols could not deploy their famed cavalry until they were on land. The Japanese, as before, were armed with bows, and their tactics were traditional Samurai tactics, based upon heroic, individual combat. Such tactics were valuable at close range, but were of little use against Chinese-crafted artillery.[108]
On 3 May 1281, the new armada set out for Japan. Kyushu was targeted, but the Japanese were ready for the enemy and were able to repel the Mongol forces. However, the Mongols once again took Tsushima and occupied it. Attacking Hakata on 6 June, the Mongols and their allies[109] were pushed back to Shiganoshima. Several days, thereafter, the Mongols were thrown out of Shiganoshima by the Japanese. They returned to Iki and then to Hirado. However, a second Mongol army was proceeding from a southern route, and they finally arrived in a huge fleet of 3500 Chinese ships in mid-July. In the Mongol attack, the Japanese were initially repulsed, but the samurai rallied and drove the Mongols back to Hakata Bay.
The Japanese then began small-unit, guerrilla actions against the crews and troops aboard the ships at anchor. These assaults, more in the nature of terrorism, perhaps, were highly-effective against Mongol morale, and they caused the allies to withdraw to the island of Iki. However, a second fleet was expected to invade Hakata Bay. Once again, the Japanese prayed for divine intervention. The timing of the attacks coincided with typhoon season, but the Mongols, aware of the treachery of the weather around the Japanese islands, were little concerned. They did not anticipate a long campaign, and paid little attention to the weather. As before, the Mongols attacked again, and once more the Japanese resisted fiercely. The strength of the Japanese defense was so intense, it managed to delay the Mongols for a period of six weeks.
On 29 July, a powerful storm arose. Panicking, the Mongol generals sailed to the safety of Masan, leaving the invasion fleet at half-strength. Then, an epidemic broke out amongst the Mongols, killing thousands of allies. On 1 August, another storm erupted; the surviving ships were forced to abandon a token army of 20,000 soldiers that had been left behind. The storm was of such destructive force that 4,000 Mongol ships were lost, and a staggering number of troops were lost. As for the Yuan combatants left behind, he Japanese turned fiercely on these outnumbered troops and killed all but 10,000 troops. For the Japanese, the powerful storm was seen as a kamikaze, a divine wind, a heavenly intervention in their struggle against Khublai Khan. The Mongol view of this theory is unknown, although it is known that the Mongols, fearing Khublai's wrath, fled to Koryo to hide from the Khan, rather than return to China.
Modern underwater archaeological expeditions conducted in the waters of Imari Bay, in Japan, have yielded interesting artifacts of the Mongol invasion of Japan. Archaeologist, James P. Delgado[110] found an intact Mongol helmet, iron arrow tips, a tetsuhau, or bomb that in the thirteenth century was filled with black powder. Scholars were unaware that such weapons were available at this point in military history, but Delgado's research confirmed that they were available to the Mongols. Remnants of a large Mongol warship and an anchor also were uncovered, and the forensic, archaeological examination of the anchor's materials revealed their source of origin was Fujian Province in China, a marshaling point for the 1281 invasion fleet.
One especially interesting find was the personal seal of a Mongol commander, written in Chinese and Phags-pa, a specially-constructed Mongolian language. It was found by local fishermen in1980, in the waters of Takashima in a dive conducted by Tokyo engineering professor, Torao Monzai. Various weapons were also recovered from the waters around the invasion site: crossbow bolts, swords, and ceramic bombs filled with gunpowder. Poignantly, the underwater examination of the battle site revealed human remains, the hard reminder of the true nature of armed, human conflict. The remains include a human cranium and a pelvis, possibly from the same individual.[111] These remains and artifacts support what is known about the nationalities of the invasion force. According to Delgado: "Initial study of the artifacts has revealed [that] one percent of the finds can be attributed to a Mongolian origin; the rest are Chinese. The Mongol invasion was Mongol only in name and in the allegiance of the invading sailors and troops."[112]
In Japan, the end of the war did not bring peace. True enough, Hojo Kamakura Bakufu, or Tent Government was victorious, but due to the subsequent money problems caused by the war, many Japanese turned upon them in resentment. Ordinarily, the bushi would be rewarded with rights to land. But that only applied if the enemy was in a foreign country. Since the war was fought at home, no land was to be forthcoming, a turn of events that caused great anger amongst the victorious Japanese. The result was that the Kamakura Shogunate came to an end. In China, the Khan intended to invade a third time, but his death put a halt to any such operation.[113] By the late fourteenth century, in the 1360s, it was the Yuan Dynasty's turn to die. And before long, the entire Mongol polity that had done so much in such a short time would be unable to sustain itself, and an extraordinary period of wars, international developments, and relationships would slowly play itself out on the world stage.
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