Things Had Gone On Like This For Three Years, And The
Interest In The Siege Had Begun To Languish, When Kublai Determined To
Make A Supreme Effort To Carry The Place, And At The Same Moment The Sung
Minister Came To The Conclusion To Relieve It At All Hazards.
The campaign of 1270 began with a heroic episode - the successful dispatch
of provisions into the besieged town, under the direction of two Chinese
officers named Changkoua and Changchun, whose names deserve to be long
remembered for their heroism.
The flotilla was divided into two bodies,
one composed of the fighting, the other of the store-ships. The Mongols
had made every preparation to blockade the river, but the suddenness and
vigor of the Chinese attack surprised them, and, at first, the Chinese had
the best of the day. But soon the Mongols recovered, and from their
superior position threatened to overwhelm the assailing Chinese squadron.
In this perilous moment Changchun, devoting himself to death in the
interest of his country collected all his war-junks, and making a
desperate attack on the Mongols, succeeded in obtaining sufficient time to
enable the storeships under Changkoua to pass safely up to Sianyang. The
life of so great a hero as Changchun was, however, a heavy price to pay
for the temporary relief of Sianyang, which was more closely besieged than
ever after the arrival of Kublai in person.
After this affair the Mongols pushed the siege with greater vigor, and
instead of concentrating their efforts on Sianyang they attacked both that
fortress and Fanching from all sides. The Mongol commander, Alihaya, sent
to Persia, where the Mongols were also supreme, for engineers trained in
the working of mangonels or catapults, engines capable of throwing stones
of 160-pounds' weight with precision for a considerable distance. By their
aid the bridges across the river were first destroyed, and then the walls
of Sianyang were so severely damaged that an assault appeared to be
feasible. But Fanching had suffered still more from the Mongol
bombardment, and Alihaya therefore attacked it first. The garrison offered
a determined resistance, and the fighting was continued in the streets.
Not a man of the garrison escaped, and when the slaughter was over the
Mongols found that they had only acquired possession of a mass of ruins.
But they had obtained the key to Sianyang, the weakest flank of which had
been protected by Fanching, and the Chinese garrison was so discouraged
that Liuwen Hoan, despairing of relief, agreed to accept the terms offered
by Kublai. Those terms were expressed in the following noble letter from
the Mongol emperor: "The generous defense you have made during five years
covers you with glory. It is the duty of every faithful subject to serve
his prince at the expense of his life, but in the straits to which you are
reduced, your strength exhausted, deprived of succor and without hope of
receiving any, would it be reasonable to sacrifice the lives of so many
brave men out of sheer obstinacy?
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