The most tragic battle in Chinese history was the Battle of Tang Suiyang
In the middle of the Anshi Rebellion, after the Anshi Rebellion destroyed Hebei, the Anshi Rebels went south to conquer Luoyang and reach Tongguan. At the same time, the Tang general Hu Ling was sent to lead an army of 40,000 to attack Qiu Yong (邱勇, in modern Qi County, Henan). There is a town near Qiu Yong County. The county magistrate Zhang Xun recruited 1,000 men and first occupied Qiu Yong. When the rebels arrived, Zhang Xun took the lead.
He led his troops straight to the enemy camp and repelled the rebels.
The next day, the rebels gathered again and set up more than 100 cannons around the city. Climb the ladder to the city. Zhang Xun ordered the soldiers to pour the oil on the wild artemisia grass, and then threw it on the city wall to repel the rebels again. Zhang Xun led his troops out of the city while the rebels were resting, or lowered the city wall at night to sneak into the enemy camp. In this way, he led Qiu Yong's soldiers to hold out for more than 60 days, wearing armor, eating, bandaging wounds, and then fighting again. The attack of more than 300 rebels was repelled, killing most of the rebels and forcing Ling Fox tide to retreat.
Two months later, Ling Fox Chao once again led an attack on Qiu Yong. Chang'an fell, Xuanzong fled to Sichuan, and Qiu's warriors were greatly encouraged. Six of the most prestigious generals in the capital joined forces to persuade Zhang Xun to surrender, and Zhang Xun pretended to agree. The next day, Zhang Xun convened a meeting and erected a portrait of the emperor in the hall. He took six generals to the front and beheaded them on the spot. The morale of the army was boosted and they vowed to defend the city.
Rebels continued to attack the city. As time went on, the city's arrows ran out. Late at night, Zhang Xun told the soldiers to bundle up thousands of grasshoppers, wrap them in black cloth, and hang them on the head of the city with ropes. When the rebels found out, they kept shooting arrows at grasshoppers until dawn, when they realized they were grasshoppers. When the defenders repelled the grasshoppers, they were given hundreds of thousands of arrows.
The next night, Zhang Xun selected 500 of the dead and hung them in the city with ropes. The rebels, believing that another scarecrow had deceived the arrow, smiled and ignored it. So these five hundred people took advantage of the enemy's lack of preparation and directly attacked the Fox Tide camp, so that the Fox Tide had no time to organize resistance, and tens of thousands of rebels fled everywhere, retreating all the way for more than ten miles. Hu Lingchao became angry and continued to send troops to surround Qiu Yong.
Zhang Xun's garrison was only more than a thousand, while the rebel army always had tens of thousands. But just like that, he kept it for a year. Until one day, Zhang Xun received an urgent official document from Xu Yuan of the Sui Emperor (present-day Shangqiu, Henan), saying that the rebel general Yin Qi led an army of 130,000 to attack the Sui Emperor and demanded that he be rescued immediately.
Zhang Xun arrived at Suiyang and joined Xu Yuanbing, but only 6,000 men. Although Xu Yuan was in a high position, he knew that Zhang Xun was a crack soldier, so he ordered Zhang Xun to go to the town to guard. Although the strength of the two sides was far apart, Zhang Xun's troops held their positions and fought with the rebels for 16 days, capturing more than 60 enemy troops and eliminating more than 20,000 enemy troops, forcing ZiQi to withdraw.
Two months later, Yin Ziqi was reinforced and surrounded by Suiyang. The situation is becoming increasingly critical.
One night, Zhang Xun asked the soldiers to beat drums. The rebels outside the city heard the drums and immediately got ready. Waited until dawn, but still did not see the defenders come out. Yin sent someone to climb the mountain and look out over the city. The city is quiet and there is no movement. He ordered the soldiers to take off their armor and rest. The rebels nervoused all night and fell asleep. At this moment, Zhang Xun, Lei Wanchun, Nanji and more than a dozen other generals, each leading 50 cavalry, simultaneously killed out of the city gate and broke into the enemy camp by different routes. The rebels were defenseless and immediately plunged into chaos. Defenders killed more than 5,000 people.
Zhang Xun wanted to shoot Yin when he wasn't on the command line, but Yin usually went to war, always leaving several people dressed like him, unable to tell the difference. Once, when the two armies faced each other, Zhang Xun ordered his soldiers to shoot arrows made of wild wormwood at the enemy position. The rebel soldiers took the arrows, thinking that the arrows in the city were exhausted, and rushed forward to report to Yin. When Yin had just taken the arrow, Zhang Xun at the head of the city ordered Nanjiyun to surround him and shoot at Yin. Nan Jiyun shot an arrow past, hitting Yin's left eye, and then fell off his horse. Zhang Xun ordered to go out of the city and rush to kill, and fought another big victory.
He failed to capture the city, but lost a goal. He refused to give up. Sui Yang was tighter around him. There were more and more rebels outside the city, and there were fewer and fewer defenders until only 1600 men remained. Food was also cut off, and one by one the soldiers ate bark, tea and paper hungry.
In desperation, Zhang Xun had no choice but to send Nan jiyun to lead 30 cavalry to rush out of the encirclement and borrow troops from Helan Jinming, the garrison commander of Linhuai (present-day northwest of Suining, Jiangsu). He, Jin Lanming, feared the rebels and refused to send troops to save Suiyang. However, he cherished the bravery of Nanjiyun and gathered his men to set up a banquet for Nanjiyun, hoping to leave Nanjiyun for his own use. Nan Jiyun knew that jin Lanming would not borrow soldiers, where did he want to go to eat? He bit down a finger and tearfully said he had not been able to complete his mission, leaving a finger to come here as a witness.