Ismail (; zh, t=亦思馬因, p= Yisimayin, w=I-ssŭ-ma-yin; died 1330) was a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Iraqi counterweight mangonel expert who served the army of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

in the conquest of the

Southern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

.M. Rafiq Khan-Islam in China, p.8 In 1271,

Kublai Khan Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...

dispatched envoys to obtain persons skilled in the management of mangonels rebuchetsfrom his kinsman Abaqa, the

Ilkhan Il Khan (also ''il-khan'', ''ilkhan'', ''elkhan'', etc.), in Turkic languages and Mongolian, is a title of leadership. It combines the title ''khan'' with the prefix ''el/il'', from the word ''ulus'' – 'tribe, clan', 'the people', 'nation', ' ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. The latter sent Al al-Din and Ismail, together with their families, by post route to

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

, where they began by building large mangonels which they erected in front of the city gates. In 1273 he served at the Siege of Xiangyang. He surveyed the approaches, and planted a mangonel at the southeast corner. Its weight was 150 catties (over ) and when the machinery was discharged, the noise was said to shake heaven and earth. It broke down all before it, and pierced the ground to a depth of . Yisimayin died in 1330 and was succeeded by his son Yakoob.

References

Sources

This article incorporates material from

Herbert Giles Herbert Allen Giles (; 8 December 184513 February 1935) was a British diplomat and sinologist who was the professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge for 35 years. Giles was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British dip ...

's ''A Chinese Biographical Dictionary'' (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1898), which is now in the public domain. Year of birth unknown 1330 deaths Yuan dynasty people Military history of the Mongol Empire {{Mongol-Empire-stub