The Chinese Commander Then Hastened To Occupy The Towns Of
Souchow And Kia-Yu-Kwan, Important As Being The Southern Extremity Of The
Great Wall, And As Isolating Ninghia On The West.
Their loss was so
serious that the Mongol chief felt compelled to risk a general engagement.
The battle was keenly contested, and at one moment it seemed as if success
was going to declare itself in favor of the Mongols.
But Suta had sent a
large part of his force to attack the Mongol rear, and when this movement
was completely executed, he assailed the Mongol position at the head of
all his troops. The struggle soon became a massacre, and it is said that
as many as 80,000 Mongols were slain, while Kuku Timour, thinking Ninghia
no longer safe, fled northward to the Amour. The success of Suta was
heightened and rendered complete by the capture of a large number of the
ex-Mongol ruling family by Ly Wenchong, another of the principal generals
of Hongwou. Among the prisoners was the eldest grandson of Chunti, and
several of the ministers advised that he should be put to death. But
Hongwou instead conferred on him a minor title of nobility, and expressed
his policy in a speech equally creditable to his wisdom as a statesman and
his heart as a man:
"The last ruler of the Yuens took heed only of his pleasures. The great,
profiting by his indolence, thought of nothing save of how to enrich
themselves; the public treasures being exhausted by their malpractices, it
needed only a few years of dearth to reduce the people to distress, and
the excessive tyranny of those who governed them led to the forming of
parties which disturbed the empire even to its foundations.
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of 191255
