Sweep Yuan

Chapter 295 Political and Military Battles

A thunderous roar of cheers erupted from the Yuan army ranks. The morale, which had been slightly dampened by the minor setbacks in the siege a few days earlier, was reignited by Toqto'a's arrow, and the morale was boiling like fire.

Tuotuo put down his bow expressionlessly, stepped down from the chariot, and glanced at the group of generals around him whose faces were flushed with excitement.

The arrows fell on the Han banner; what he wanted was to quickly inspire the morale of the entire army through his personal courage and bravery.

The subsequent siege battles demonstrated his ruthlessness and efficiency as a military commander.

Despite the high morale and personal prestige, Tuotuo did not force his soldiers to attack the city with their bare hands. Xuzhou was only the first stop of this southern expedition. If too many elite troops were lost here, it would be difficult to continue.

His methods were more ruthless, and more effective.

"Drive the laborers forward to draw the enemy's arrows!"

Tuotuo's orders were relayed down the chain of command. Soon, thousands of laborers who had been captured from villages and towns around Xuzhou in the past few days were driven towards the city walls under the threat of the Yuan army's swords and spears, crying and pleading.

They were ragged and carried only simple tools for filling trenches and breaking through obstacles, such as hoes, straw bags, and hooks. At most, they were equipped with thin wooden boards and pot lids as protective gear, forming a desperate crowd that surged toward death.

On the city wall, the hoarse commands of the defending officers, the creaking of the soldiers drawing their bowstrings, and the heavy, suppressed breathing of their comrades as they faced the onslaught of their own comrades mingled together.

"Fire arrows! We can't let them destroy the barricades and the sheep and horse wall!"

The Han army had previously relocated the people of Xuzhou south several times to prevent the Yuan army from using them to fill the moats and attack the city. These people had been hiding in various places, and now they were being driven by the Yuan army to attack the city, so the defenders could not be blamed for being ruthless.

Arrows rained down, and the laborers, lacking protective gear and skills, fell in droves, their shrill screams echoing everywhere. Driven by the Yuan army, the remaining laborers pressed forward relentlessly.

Xuzhou was almost emptied by the stone mountain. The Yuan army had been busy for several days and only managed to gather more than 3,000 laborers. Of course, Toqto'a did not just use them as live targets to exhaust the defenders and deplete the city's supplies. He not only allowed the laborers to carry protective equipment, but also had backup plans.

The Yuan soldiers, concealed behind massive shield towers and sturdy palisades, slowly approached the city walls. Only when they were within optimal firing range did they unleash a dense rain of arrows at the officer's command, swarming the city walls like locusts to suppress the defenders with firepower.

"Raise your shield! Raise your shield!"

Immediately, the officer's hoarse shouts rang out from the city wall. Arrows struck the iron-clad wooden shields with muffled thuds, occasionally punctuated by the muffled groans of soldiers struck by arrows.

This asymmetrical war of attrition lasted for less than three hours.

After sacrificing the lives of more than 2,300 laborers and over 100 soldiers, the Yuan army finally managed to forcibly open up three siege routes, each several meters wide, leading directly to the moat.

Although this was the first time that Toqto'a had commanded an army of 100,000, he was well-versed in military strategy. Instead of sending his troops to charge forward all at once, he ordered each unit to select brave warriors from the Henan local militia, the Yuan army in the interior, and the elite troops from Goryeo and Liaoyang to take turns pushing siege equipment close to the city walls and launch a fierce attack.

Thus, troops from different regions, with varying equipment and combat capabilities, launched wave after wave of attacks against the defending forces.

The Henan militia, chanting slogans, pushed heavy moat carts, shield carts, battering rams and other weapons, and approached the city wall under the cover of archers, destroying the remaining defensive facilities below the wall.

The Yuan army in the interior that followed was even more well-trained, with swordsmen and shieldmen carrying ladders and rushing straight to the city walls, attempting to be the first to breach the city.

When the elite archer formations of Goryeo and Liaoyang pressed forward, the arrows rained down on the city walls with a suffocating density.

This tactic of attrition warfare can maintain the offensive momentum while ensuring that casualties in each unit are not too great. The intention is to use continuous pressure to torment the defenders' nerves, exhaust their physical strength, and ultimately break their will.

However, the resistance of the Han army on the city walls was more tenacious than the Yuan generals had anticipated.

Yin Congdao had served in the army for more than 20 years and had experienced many bloody battles. He was experienced and had long understood Tuotuo's intentions.

If he were to hold Xuzhou for a long time, facing the Yuan army's superior forces launching repeated attacks, he would have to avoid excessive casualties that would cause morale to collapse, and he would also have to make reasonable use of the city's defense resources. There really wasn't a good way to do this. However, he had already made preparations to withdraw after the battle, so he didn't have these concerns.

Apart from the necessary reserves, his main force was divided into three waves, interlocked with the Yuan army's offensive sequence. When one wave of the Yuan army's offensive subsided and the troops were rotated, the defenders on the city walls also completed a rotation.

The newly arrived Han soldiers were in high spirits, firing their crossbows in unison. Rolling stones and logs rained down on them, and the boiling molten metal and oil turned the area at the foot of the city wall into a scorching hell.

Although the Yuan army had an absolute advantage in troop strength, it was limited by the narrow front of the siege and could not fully deploy its forces.

They launched several fierce attacks, but only left nearly five hundred corpses at the foot of the city, and never managed to get a single soldier to climb the more than three-zhang-high city wall of Xuzhou.

However, Toqto'a never intended to rely on his superior military strength to forcibly breach the city.

Just as the various units took turns attacking the city, keeping the defenders' attention firmly focused on the city walls, dozens of siege weapons covered in tarpaulins were slowly pushed to the front lines. Lifting the tarpaulins revealed the dark, heavy barrels of the cannons—the very new firearms that Toqto'a had placed so much hope in!

Having personally witnessed the test firing of the cannons, Toqto'a knew that although the cannons were loud and powerful, their effect on damaging a city wall several meters wide was actually quite limited. He knew how difficult it would be to breach the city wall of Luzhi in a short period of time.

But he knew even better that Xuzhou was no longer the fortified city it once was.

Last year, the Yuan army used the Xiangyang Cannon to bombard the city wall day and night for more than a month, and the main structure of the city wall had already become loose and badly damaged.

In the aftermath of the war, Xuzhou lacked manpower and resources. Yin Congdao could only organize laborers to mix lime with clay bricks and stones and hastily apply a layer of "mud film" to the damaged areas to prevent the dilapidated city walls from collapsing due to rainwater erosion. Its defensive capabilities were reduced to less than one-tenth.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

A deafening roar of cannon fire shattered the brief silence of the battlefield. Solid iron projectiles, with a deathly whistle, slammed into the crumbling city walls at extremely close range.

Almost every hit would kick up a cloud of dust, sending up large amounts of loose city bricks, or knocking off a piece of mortar used for repairs, exposing the loose rammed earth core underneath.

The Yuan army fired a few shots and then moved on to another section of the city wall to continue firing. After probing for nearly an hour, they finally blasted through the "mud film" of the city wall on the east side of the south wall and discovered a particularly obvious crack that resembled a centipede winding.

"All artillery, bombard this spot!" the Yuan army artillery battalion commander roared excitedly.

In an instant, all the Yuan army's cannons adjusted their firing angles and unleashed a barrage of fire on the crack and its surroundings. The cracking sounds of shattering bricks and stones filled the air, and the crack continued to widen and spread under the relentless bombardment.

The cannons copied by the Yuan army had not solved problems such as the airtightness of the cannon barrel and the ratio of gunpowder, so their range was very short. The firing positions had to be set up very close to the city wall in order to exert their power effectively. Toqto'a sent a large number of archers to take turns protecting them.

Under the protection of his personal guards, Yin Congdao risked his life to come to the south city wall to supervise the battle. Seeing the destruction caused by the Yuan army's cannons, he immediately organized archers to shoot the Yuan army's gunners, but was met with a fierce counterattack from the Yuan army. He killed only one gunner, while four or five of his own men fell.

He quickly abandoned this morale-draining exchange of fire. He carefully observed for nearly an hour, assessing the actual destructive efficiency of the artillery—the power was alarming, but at this rate, it would take at least two or three days to completely collapse this section of the wall.

"The Tartar archers are heavily guarded, which will only increase casualties. The garrison in the south city should focus on monitoring and avoiding direct artillery fire. We should save our arrows for a more critical moment."

Tuotuo was very satisfied with the cannons' performance in actual combat. As dusk approached, he saw that a large area of ​​the city bricks in the area that had been bombarded by concentrated fire had fallen off, leaving the surface pitted and cracked, and the cracks were significantly larger than in the morning. A look of satisfaction appeared on his face.

He knew the true power of cannons—enough to destroy the already dilapidated walls of Xuzhou—but what he needed more was the imposing aura of these "indestructible" weapons to boost morale. He immediately exaggerated their power, laughing, "With such a city-breaking weapon, what worries does the Great Yuan have about not breaching a fortified city?"

After uprisings broke out in various places, the Yuan army feared siege warfare the most. Not only did they suffer heavy casualties, but they were also prone to losing morale due to prolonged sieges, and then they could easily be defeated by the rebel army.

The usual practice is to besiege the city for a long time, until the city runs out of food and is unable to fight back, before attacking the city.

Therefore, some Yuan generals, unaware of the true situation, seeing that the cannons had inflicted such terrible damage on the walls of Xuzhou after half a day of bombardment, were immediately more confident in this southern campaign and excitedly echoed their sentiments:

"With the Grand Tutor's divine weapon in hand, we will surely be able to slaughter these ignorant fools!"

"May the Eternal Heaven protect us! Grand Tutor is wise and mighty, the revival of our Great Yuan Dynasty is in sight!"

"Grand Tutor, your military strategy is divine. In my humble opinion, you can capture Xuzhou in three to five days at most! We can pacify the puppet Zhou this month, and cross the river to destroy the puppet Han next month. Then we will definitely be able to return to Dadu to celebrate the Spring Festival!"

……

Listening to these optimistic, even somewhat blind, discussions, Tuotuo had a different plan in mind.

With the powerful new firearms like cannons, he was indeed confident that he could quickly capture the devastated Xuzhou, and then take advantage of the victory to sweep away Zhang Shicheng, who was still consolidating his position, and resolve the Huaidong war before the end of the year.

As for continuing the effort to destroy Shishan, he had absolutely no interest in it.

It's not that Shishan is so powerful that it's invincible, and even Tuotuo is unwilling to fight it head-on. Rather, war has its own inherent laws, and violating these laws will inevitably lead to backlash.

How weak were Xu Shouhui and Liu Futong when they first started their rebellion?
If the Yuan court had not hastily mobilized troops, leaving defenses in various regions vulnerable, and if the generals had not underestimated the enemy and acted rashly, allowing the enemy to repeatedly win with fewer troops, accumulate momentum, and acquire a large amount of military equipment and supplies, thus becoming stronger with each battle, how could we have the current situation of war raging everywhere?
It wasn't until the puppet Song army wreaked havoc in Jiangnan and captured Hangzhou that the Yuan court learned its lesson and mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops, proceeding step by step, to besiege and suppress them for more than a year before finally managing to quell the rebellion.

They immediately launched an attack on the pseudo-Han people. The lessons of the past were still fresh in their minds. How could they repeat the same mistakes?

Moreover, the purpose of Toqto'a's southern expedition was to stabilize the court and, in turn, the entire Yuan Dynasty, rather than to seize power and usurp the throne. As the Grand Tutor and Left Chancellor who held sway over the country, his "main battlefield" was always in the court, not on the front lines where ordinary generals could operate.

Otherwise, he would have gone directly to Jiangnan to command the troops of the various provinces, instead of sending troops directly from Dadu to Xuzhou. The Yuan army of more than 200,000 from the three provinces of Jiangzhe, Huguang and Jiangxi, coordinated by Buyan Temur, was the real main force of the "million-strong army" in this southern expedition.

The elimination of the weak-founded pseudo-Zhou regime entrenched in Huaidong can and must be accomplished swiftly.

However, to suppress the already established and deeply entrenched pseudo-Han regime, it is necessary to mobilize overwhelming forces, proceed steadily and surely, and gradually shrink its living space. That will be a long war of attrition, with no end in sight for at least a year and a half.

Meanwhile, Toqto'a was deeply embroiled in the political struggle at court, with the slander of Hama and others like poisoned arrows constantly aimed at his back. What he lacked most was time; he dared not and could not afford to stay away from the power struggle in Dadu for long.

His plan was to hand over military power at the front lines and return to Dadu as soon as possible after he had dealt with Zhang Shicheng, stabilized the situation in the southeast, and gained enough political prestige.

At most, he could take Pingjiang Road (Suzhou) in the process. The war in Jiangnan would be taken care of by Buyan Temur and others. Toqto'a really couldn't afford to waste any more time in Jiangnan.

In fact, he clearly articulated his strategy during a private audience with the emperor.

However, these deeper considerations concerning the overall situation of the court could not be openly discussed with these frontline generals who were eager for military merit. Seeing that the morale of the troops had been stirred, Tuotuo stroked his beard, nodded, and then gave the order:

"The morale of the troops is high! It's getting late, so we'll call it a day. All units, hold your camps and conserve your strength. We'll launch another attack on the city tomorrow at dawn!"

His gaze swept over the generals, finally settling on one person:
"Marshal Wang!"

This "Marshal Wang" is none other than Wang Xuan, who followed Darmashili to Xuzhou last year after the defeat. Because he gathered the most defeated soldiers after the defeat, he was not only not held accountable by the Yuan court, but was also given some military equipment. Toqto'a's decision to bombard the Xuzhou city wall was also based on the intelligence he provided.

When Wang Xuan saw that Tuotuo had singled him out, he knew it must be for something important, so he quickly stepped forward from the crowd, clasped his hands in a fist and bowed.
"The general is here!"

"The artillery must not cease firing tonight! Your main camp is located in the south of the city, so the responsibility of protecting the artillery positions is entrusted to you."

Having long harbored a strong desire for revenge, Wang Xuan readily agreed upon hearing the offer to accompany Tuotuo on this expedition.
"This humble general will personally oversee the position tonight! If those traitors dare to launch a night attack outside the city, I guarantee they will never return!"

The city walls of Xuzhou.

As the Yuan army retreated from their sprawling camps like the receding tide, leaving only the intermittent yet unsettling cannon fire from the south, Yin Congdao's tense nerves finally relaxed slightly.

Today, we finally managed to hold on.

He was preparing to summon his generals to arrange the night's watch and finalize the breakout plan for the next day when he heard a rough voice beside him:

"General, the Tartar army has all returned to their stronghold, but they're still firing sporadically to the south, it's so noisy! Should I take a squad of brothers out tonight and sneak out to destroy their artillery position?"

The one who volunteered was Zhou Xian, a subordinate general. He was from Hefei, had a calm and steady personality, and was a veteran under Yin Congdao.

Yin Congdao turned around and saw Zhou Xian's eager yet tentative gaze, and immediately understood. This guy didn't really want to raid the camp; he was clearly worried that he would change his mind!
Before the battle, he made a clear promise to his generals that he would only defend Xuzhou for five days to buy time for Zhima Li and others to transfer.

Now that the five-day period has expired, the Yuan army has surrounded the city like an iron barrel and even used cannons to attack it. Zhou Xian is afraid that in order to "preserve his reputation" or "take a chance", he will order the city to hold out to the death and let everyone perish here.

"We must immediately dispel their doubts and stabilize morale!" Yin Congdao made a quick judgment.

A knowing smile spread across his face as he patted Zhou Xian on the shoulder and cursed:
"What's the point of kicking down the camp? The Tartars are just waiting for us to get out! Make sure we're all well-rested and sharpened tonight!"

He surveyed the crowd, his eyes gleaming, and proclaimed loudly:

"Brothers, the five-day agreement has been fulfilled, and we have bought precious time for the army! The gain or loss of Xuzhou is no longer relevant to the overall situation of this battle! The lives of our brothers are the foundation for driving out the barbarians in the future!"

He paused, his tone hardening, and gave the order:
"Tonight, except for necessary scouts, the entire army will eat their fill and rest soundly! Tomorrow at dawn, we will break out according to the original plan!"

"Yes!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Xian and the others' doubts vanished, replaced by a light of relief mixed with fighting spirit. They responded in unison with a resounding roar. Though their voices were subdued, they carried a resolute determination, as if breaking free from their cages.

Yin Congdao turned around and looked again at the endless lights of the Yuan camp outside the city, as well as the flashes of cannon fire that occasionally appeared to the south. His mind was clear.

"Tuotuo, the Xuzhou city you desire, I, Yin, will 'deliver' to you tomorrow. I just don't know if you can accept this 'gift' with peace of mind!"

……

P.S.: I was supposed to finish writing about the Battle of Xuzhou today and then move on to the Jiangnan storyline tomorrow, but I've been too busy with other things.

(End of this chapter)