Thirty Thousand Of Their Best Troops Were
Slaughtered, And Their Newly-Created Fleet, On Which They Were Founding
Such Great Expectations, Was Annihilated, While 70,000 Chinese And Coreans
Remained As Prisoners In The Hands Of The Victor.
Kublai executed two of
his generals who escaped, but it is clear no one was to blame.
The Mongols
were vanquished because they undertook a task beyond their power, and one
with which their military experience did not fit them to cope. The most
formidable portion of their army was cavalry, and they had no knowledge of
the sea. Nor could their Chinese auxiliaries supply this deficiency; for,
strange as it may appear, the Chinese, although many of them are good
fishermen and sailors, have never been a powerful nation at sea. On the
other hand, the Japanese have always been a bold and capable race of
mariners. They have frequently proved that the sea is their natural
element, and all the power and resources of Kublai availed not against the
skill and courage of these hardy islanders. Kublai was reluctant to
acquiesce in his defeat, and he endeavored to form another expedition, but
the Chinese sailors mutinied and refused to embark. They were supported by
all the Chinese ministers at Pekin, and Kublai felt himself compelled to
yield and abandon all designs of conquest beyond the sea.
The old success of the Mongols did not desert them on land, and Kublai
received some consolation for his rude repulse by the Japanese in the
triumph of his arms in Burmah. The momentary submission of the King of
Burmah, or Mien, as it was, and is still, called by the Chinese, had been
followed by a fit of truculence and open hostility. This monarch had
crossed over into Indian territory, and had assumed the title of King of
Bengala in addition to his own. Emboldened by his success, he did not
conceal his hostility to the Mongols, sent a defiant reply to all their
representations, and even assumed the offensive with his frontier
garrisons. He then declared open war. The Mongol general, Nasiuddin,
collected all the forces he could, and when the Burmese ruler crossed the
frontier at the head of an immense host of horse, foot, and elephants, he
found the Mongol army drawn up on the plain of Yungchang. The Mongols
numbered only 12,000 select troops, whereas the Burmese exceeded 80,000
men with a corps of elephants, estimated between 800 and 2,000, and an
artillery force of sixteen guns. Notwithstanding this numerical
disadvantage the Mongols were in no way dismayed by their opponents'
manifest superiority; but seldom has the struggle between disciplined and
brute force proved closer or more keenly contested. At first the charge of
the Burmese cavalry, aided by the elephants and artillery, carried all
before it. But Nasiuddin had provided for this contingency. He had
dismounted all his cavalry, and had ordered them to fire their arrows
exclusively against the elephant corps; and as the Mongols were then not
only the best archers in the world, but used the strongest bows, the
destruction they wrought was considerable, and soon threw the elephants
into hopeless confusion.
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Words from 43201 to 43730
of 191255
