Battle Of Gaixia

I think this will be my last post on Chinese war history for a while. It really is not my area of expertise...

So what was the battle of Gaixia?

The battle of Gaixia was the decisive battle that marked the beginning of the Han Dynasty. If you have read my last post on chinese history you will recall that the Han dynasty preceded the 3 Kingdoms. While the Three Kingdoms period was an age of famine, strife and civil war, the Han dynasty was the complete opposite. It was a time of peace and prosperity and technological advancement.

The inception of the Han dynasty though was bloody. When the Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty of China disintegrated in the face of rebellion (just like every other dynasty), the nation was left with two major factions vying for power, both of which formed from the rebel forces.

Xiung Yu of the Chu and Liu Bang of the Han both had ambitions to become China's next top model Emperor.

It was a pretty even fight with victories and defeats on both sides until Xiung decided to besiege Bang. Bang's leading general Han Xin promptly responded by not supplying Bang with reinforcements. Ah the joys of politics. Fortunately he had another strategist on his side. While Xiaung Yu was laying siege to Bang's fortress, Han general Zhang Liang assualted Xiaung's supply lines. Eventually, Xiaung lifted the siege and agreed to a peace treaty.

Little did he know that he was falling for Liu Bang's lies. Bang had set up ambushes along the road back to the Chu capital. The treaty was a trap.

In the chaos, Han forces captured Xiaung's wife. There they took her into Xiaung's own military nightmare. A canyon filled with traps and an army positioned to pounce on Chu forces.

The correct military decision for Xiaung would have been to leave her but Xiaung was soo emotionally overwhelmed that he marched his army into the obvious trap in order to rescue his wife. That battle was the battle of Gaixia. I won't bother to go into depth with the strategies employed, it was very one sided. Han forces had the advantages of morale, were well provisoned and had the higher ground and had encircled the Chu. The Chu were hungry and tired and outnumbered.

See all the black on that pic? That's the Han forces, numbering 300000 men. The Chu forces, shown in white numbered only 100000 men.

Xiaung's forces were decimated. Xiaung tried to escape and made some progress, but eventually Han cavalry caught up to him and demanded his surrender. Xiaung refused, he would not let himself be captured alive. Xiaung cut his own throat, preferring death to surrender.

Without the opposition of Xiaung, Liu Bang became the first Han Emperor. While the battle was completely one sided, it is important to note the strategies that were employed before the battle which set it up so completely in Han favor. Firstly, Xiaung made his decision to fight solely on emotion; he wanted his wife back. Secondly, Chu supply lines were under constant harassment whereas the Han supply lines were untouched.

But thirdly and most of all,  the Chu forces were maneuvered into the trap by the deceit of the enemy. It comes to me as no surprise when I remember that all of these principles are fundamental tenets in Sun Tzu's Art of War.

As the Chinese Master of war says, "The victorious warrior wins first and then goes to war".

The Three Kingdoms

I feel a little uneasy writing about this topic. While I am confident I am up to scratch when it comes to western history, I am relatively unfamiliar with Chinese history. Furthermore I know some of you readers (eg, Jess, R.C. Cola) know more about Chinese history than I do. I guess that's just the price I have to pay for taking Maths C back in high school instead of Ancient History.

Of all the nations in the world that have ever existed, China has the bloodiest. It's entire history can be summarised quite neatly: A dynasty is established, a civil war occurs, another dynasty is established, more civil wars,another dynasty.... etc etc. Research any dynasty and there is always a civil war preceding it and a civil war ending the dynasty.

In my honest opinion the three kingdoms period of china was just an extended civil war.

It all started when the Han dynasty was faced with the yellow turban rebellion and the five pecks of rice rebellion. The first of which was a peasant rebellion, both of which had ties to the Taoist/Daoist religion. Naturally, the royal court proceeded by absolutely crushing these rebellions by appointing generals and raising armies to slaughter the unruly peasants.

Unfortunately, the newly appointed generals were not keen to go back to their former jobs.

Instead the General-In Chief He Jin hung out outside the imperial capital with a few generals and petitioned the executions of the court eunuchs (for good reason, the eunuchs were always plotting against the imperial family). The eunuchs promptly replied by assassinating He Jin and all hell broke loose. He Jin's forces avenged his death and stormed the northern and southern palaces and killed the eunuchs.

I will save you the other bloody details but out of all this chaos, three contending dynasties emerged:
The Wu
The Wei
and The Shu

Needless to say, the Shu had the smallest territory of the three clans

All three claimed that they were the rightful heir of the Han dynasty and that they were the rightful Emperor of China.

Yes I stole this from wikipedia. This is the three kingdoms in 262. Just before China was unified.

Every story has a hero.

In this case it was Sima Yi. The Sima clan was a great land owning family of the Wei Empire and Sima Yi was one of the Wei Empire's great generals and one of the two co regents to help the young 8 year old Cao Fang rule his Empire. Cao Shuang was the other co regent and Sima's rival. I shall spare you the details of how Sima arranged a coup and made himself the new Wei Emperor but you are interested you can find out the details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_at_Gaoping_Tombs

When Sima Yi's son, Sima Zhao rose to the Wei Regency he had his eyes on conquering the Shu. Such a glorious conquest would convince everyone that the madate of heaven now sat firmly on the Sima Clan. Sima also wanted to conquer the Wu but settled on conquering the Shu first. The Wu had a natural barrier protecting them; the Yangtze River and an indisputably powerful navy to match. Invading the Shu would be be a nice easy land invasion by comparison.

The Wei had double the army that the Shu had and zerg rushed them to great effect. Nevertheless the Wei did employ some strategy; a three pronged attack marching onto one central location. Additionally, before the invasion, the Wei started building a massive fleet to give the impression that they were preparing to invade the Wu instead.

Unfortunately the conquest of the Wu was not going to happen in Sima Zhao's lifetime. Wei forces were exhausted and he was forced to consolidate. When Zhao's son, Sima Yan, rose to power the cogs of war started turning again. Sima Yan forced the rightful emperor of the Wei to abdicate, instead of the Sima Clan just being regents, now they were Emperors. Sima Yan renamed himself Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty.

The Jin Empire rapidly improved their navy and set out on another three pronged attack on the Wu. Wu Emperor Sun Hao responded by not really doing much at all. He was confident that the Yangtze and his navy were more than adequate to protect his empire. The Emperor of the Wu was wong, vewy vewy wong (sorry, I couldn't help myself there).

And thus the Three kingdoms fell and out of the ashes rose the mighty Jin dynasty, a dynasty constantly plagued by rebellion and wracked by civil war. Just like every other Chinese dynasty...