The Reunification of China: Peace through War under the Song Dynasty by Peter Lorge

Author:Peter Lorge [Lorge, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

The Northern front

The Northern force’s commander, Wang Quanbin’s, first task was to secure his line of communication to Jianmen, the key defense position protecting Shu. In order to do this, beginning on 24 January 965, he systematically reduced the screen of Shu forts defending the approaches to Jianmen, steadily driving the Shu army back. He captured significant amounts of military provisions as he advanced, some four hundred thousand piculs after capturing Xing prefecture alone, and a further three hundred thousand piculs after scattering a Shu army at the Xi county seat. As the Shu troops retreated, they destroyed the rope bridges and wooden roads connecting the precipitous routes into the mountains. This only briefly delayed the main Song army, as small advance units rapidly secured and repaired the roads.

After a series of Song victories, Wang Quanbin entered Li prefecture on 4 February, taking possession of eight hundred thousand piculs of military provisions left behind by the Shu army.23 Shu troops continued to fall back to Jianmen. At a council of war, Wang Quanbin brought up the problem of the strength of the position at Jianmen, a position long known for its difficulty of egress. Fortunately, a Shu soldier who had surrendered knew a route around the mountains to the rear of Jianmen. A small Song force took this precipitous route, drove off a Shu unit guarding a river crossing, and attacked Jianmen from the rear. A simultaneous attack from the front by the main Song army shocked the Shu army, which abandoned the position. Wang Quanbin then captured Jian prefecture and killed more than ten thousand Shu soldiers. The Shu ruler surrendered shortly afterward.24 The campaign had taken sixty-six days (counting from when the Song generals left Kaifeng), and brought forty-six prefectures, containing two hundred and forty counties and 534,290 households into the Song empire.

Wang and his men entered Chengdu, the Shu capital, on 1 March 965. Liu Guangyi‘s Yangzi army arrived several days later. For the moment, it seemed that Taizu’s gamble had paid off. The Song army had conquered Shu in a remarkably short period of time, campaigning in the dead of winter over formidable natural obstacles. It had brushed aside the Shu army with remarkable ease. But now it would manifest the darker side of a force raised and trained during the Five Dynasties.

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