Song Conquest Of Southern Tang
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In 975 AD the Song managed through force to subdue the state now known as
Southern Tang Southern Tang ( zh, c=南唐, p=Nán Táng) was a Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic state of China that existed during Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Located in southern China, the Southern Tang proclaimed itself to be the successor ...
, to distinguish it from the synonymously named
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
, of which the Southern Tang proclaimed itself to be successor, as part of a series of Song conquests to reunify
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
.


Battle on the Yangtze

On the river
Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
near Nanking, the capital of the Southern Tang, a major naval battle took place in 975 between the Song empire and the Southern Tang.


Forces

Southern Tang The Tang had a fleet of ships that were ten decks high and equipped with multiple flamethrowers. There were at least 150,000 soldiers and sailors under the command of Zhu Lingyun. Song The admiral for the Song was Cao Bin. The Song ships were smaller, but the crew on board were better archers. The ships had
flamethrower A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...
s and were filled with bundles of reed soaked in oil to be thrown at the enemy ships.


Battle

The Song ships attacked ferociously, firing so many arrows that soon, the Tang ships were studded with them. Zhu Lingyun then ordered the flamethrowers to be fired. Normally, any attacker would be destroyed; however, the wind blew in the opposite direction of the flamethrowers so the burning oil flew back onto the Tang. At that moment, the Song started throwing the bundles of burning reeds into the wind to cause more damage. The Song may have started using their own flamethrowers at this stage. About 150,000 Tang soldiers and sailors were killed in the fire and Zhu Lingyun committed suicide by jumping into the flames.lines 12-14


Analysis of battle

Considering the position of Nanking in China, where the imperial capital would have been, and the above "evidence", it can be assumed that there was a strong westerly wind on the day of that battle. The attackers would have had the advantage of having a good wind behind them, their ships would have travelled much faster, and their arrows, "burning bundles" and burning oil would have had extra propulsion. However, the defending side would have had the exact opposite to this. Considering the claimed size of the defenders ships, Zhu Lingyun would have probably been inside the ship and may have not been aware of what the weather was like, which would have led him to make the mistake of ordering the flamethrowers to be fired. On a technological note, we know that the ''
Wujing Zongyao The ''Wujing Zongyao'' (), sometimes rendered in English as the ''Complete Essentials for the Military Classics'', is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044. The book was compiled during the Northern Song dynasty by Ze ...
'', written in 1044 (although the oldest edition is from around the 1560s), describes the flamethrowers oil being lit by fire drug (a flammable, quasi explosive compound that would in later cultures and generations be refined into gunpowder) and we know that fire drug was invented as a medicine sometime in the 9th century, but whether this battle did use gunpowder is speculative.


Aftermath

Li Houzhu Li Yu (; 937 – 15 August 978), before 961 known as Li Congjia (), also known as Li Houzhu (; literally "Last Ruler Li" or "Last Lord Li") or Last Lord of Southern Tang (), was the third rulerUnlike his father and grandfather, Li Yu never rule ...
, the emperor of the Southern Tang, was more interested in poetry than ruling, and soon after this battle the Southern Tang were absorbed into the new Song Empire. He was captured and sent to the Song capital, one of his wives raped and he was eventually poisoned. After the fall of Tang, Lu Jiang acting Military Governor of Zhaowu Circuit continued to resist Song army after seizing She Prefecture before persuaded to surrender; General Hu Ze at Jiang Prefecture also continued the resistance for four months more.


See also

*
Li Houzhu Li Yu (; 937 – 15 August 978), before 961 known as Li Congjia (), also known as Li Houzhu (; literally "Last Ruler Li" or "Last Lord Li") or Last Lord of Southern Tang (), was the third rulerUnlike his father and grandfather, Li Yu never rule ...
*
Nanking Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yan ...
*
Song Empire 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, ending ...


References


Citations


Sources

* Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China Volume 5 Part 7 the Gunpowder Epic, page 89 {{refend 970s conflicts 975 Wars involving the Song dynasty Wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Southern Tang