History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0143/01430.txt

Text File | 1992-10-11 | 18KB | 307 lines

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$Title{Genghis Khan
Chapter XX: Battles And Sieges}
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Title:       Genghis Khan
Author:      Abbott, Jacob

Chapter XX: Battles And Sieges

     After the fall of Bokhara and Otrar, the war was continued for two years
with great vigor by Genghis Khan and the Monguls, and the poor sultan was
driven from the place to place by his merciless enemies, until at last his
cause was wholly lost, and he himself, as will appear in the next chapter,
came to a miserable end.

     During the two years while Genghis Khan continued the war against him, a
great many incidents occurred illustrating the modes of warfare practiced in
those days, and the sufferings which were endured by the mass of the people in
consequence of these terrible struggles between rival despots contending for
the privilege of governing them.

     At one time Genghis Khan sent his son Jughi with a large detachment to
besiege and take a certain town named Saganak.  As soon as Jughi arrived
before the place, he sent in a flag of truce to call upon the people of the
town to surrender, promising, at the same time, to treat them kindly if they
would do so.

     The bearer of the flag was a Mohammedan named Hassan.  Jughi probably
thought that the message would be better received by the people of the town if
brought to them by one of their own countrymen, but he made a great mistake in
this.  The people, instead of being pleased with the messenger because he was
a Mohammedan, were very much exasperated against him.  They considered him a
renegade and a traitor; and, although the governor had solemnly promised that
he should be allowed to go and come in safety, so great a tumult arose that
the governor found it impossible to protect him, and the poor man was torn to
pieces by the mob.

     Jughi immediately assaulted the town with all his force, and as soon as
he got possession of it he slaughtered without mercy all the officers and
soldiers of the garrison, and killed also about one half of the inhabitants,
in order to avenge the death of his murdered messenger.  He also caused a
handsome monument to be erected to his memory in the principal square of the
town.

     Jughi treated the inhabitants of every town that dared to resist with
extreme severity, while those that yielded at once were, in some degree,
spared and protected.  The consequence of this policy was that the people of
many of the towns surrendered without attempting to defend themselves at all.
In one case the magistrates and other principal inhabitants of a town came out
to meet him a distance of two days' journey from them, bringing with them the
keys of the town, and a great quantity of magnificent presents, all of which
they laid at the conqueror's feet, and implored his mercy.

     There was one town which Jughi's force took by a kind of stratagem.  A
certain engineer, whom he employed to make a reconnoissance of the
fortifications, reported that there was a place on one side of the town where
there was a ditch full of water outside of the wall, which made the access to
the wall there so difficult that the garrison would not be at all likely to
expect an attack on that side.  The engineer proposed a plan for building some
light bridges, which the soldiers were to throw over the ditch in the night,
after having drawn off the attention of the garrison to some other quarter,
and then, mounting upon the walls by means of ladders, to get into the town.
This plan was adopted.  The bridges and the ladders were prepared, and then,
when the appointed night came, a feigned attack was made in the opposite part
of the town.  The garrison were then all called off to repel this pretended
attack, and in this way the wall opposite to the ditch was left undefended.
The soldiers then threw the bridges over the ditch, and planted the ladders
against the wall, and before the garrison could get intelligence of what they
were doing they had made their way into the town, and had opened one of the
gates, and by this means the whole army got in. The engineer himself, who had
proposed the plan, went up first on the first ladder that was planted against
the wall.  To take the lead in such an escalade required great coolness and
courage, for it was dark, and no one knew, in going up the ladder, how many
enemies he might have to encounter at the top of it.

     The next place which the army of Jughi approached was a quiet and
beautiful town, the seat of several institutions of learning, and the
residence of learned men and men of leisure.  It was a very pleasant place,
full of fountains, gardens, and delightful pleasure-grounds, with many
charming public and private promenades.  The name of this place was Toukat,
and the beauty and attractiveness of it were proverbial through all the
country.

     Toukat was a place rather of pleasure than of strength, and yet it was
surrounded by a wall, and the governor of it determined to make an effort to
defend it.  The garrison fought bravely, and they kept the besiegers off for
three days.  At the end of that time the engines of the Monguls had made so
many breaches in the walls that the governor was convinced that they would
soon get in, and so he sent to Jughi to ask for the terms on which he would
allow them to surrender.  Jughi replied that he would not now make any terms
with him at all.  It was too late.  He ought to have surrendered at the
beginning.

     So the Mongul army forced its way into the town, and slaughtered the
whole garrison without mercy.  Jughi then ordered all the inhabitants, men,
women, and children, to repair to a certain place on the plain outside the
walls.  In obedience to this command, all the people went to the appointed
place.  They went with fear and trembling, expecting that they were all to be
killed.  But they found, in the end, that the object of Jughi in bringing them
thus out of the town was not to kill them, but only to call them away from the
houses, so that the soldiers could plunder them more conveniently while the
owners were away.  After being kept out of the town for a time they were
allowed to return, and when they went back to their houses they found that
they had been pillaged and stripped of every thing that the soldiers could
carry away.

     There was another large and important town named Kojend.  It was situated
two or three hundred miles to the northward of Samarcand, on the River Sir,
which flows into Aral Lake.  The governor of this city was Timur Melek.  He
was a very powerful chieftain, and a man of great military renown, having
often been in active service under the sultan as one of the principal generals
of his army.  When Timur heard of the fall of Toukat, he presumed that his
city of Kojend would be next attacked, as it seemed to come next in the way of
the Mongul army; so he began to make vigorous preparations for defense.  He
broke up all the roads leading toward the town, and destroyed the bridges.  He
also laid in great supplies of food to maintain the inhabitants in case of a
protracted siege, and he ordered all the corn, fruits, and cattle of the
surrounding country, which he did not require for this purpose, to be taken
away and stowed in secret places at a distance, to prevent their falling into
the hands of the enemy.

     Jughi did not himself attack this town, but sent a large detachment under
the orders of a general named Elak Nevian.  Elak advanced toward the city and
commenced his operations.  The first thing that was to be done was to rebuild
a bridge over the river, so as to enable him to gain access to the town, which
was on the opposite bank.  Then he set up immense engines at different points
along the line, some of which were employed to batter down the walls, and
others, at the same time, to throw stones, darts, and arrows over the
parapets, in order to drive the garrison back from them.  These engines did
great execution.  Those built to batter down the walls were of great size and
power.  Some of them, it was said, threw stones over the wall as big as
millstones.

     Timur Melek was equally active in the defense of the town.  He built a
number of flat-bottomed boats, which might be called floating batteries, since
they were constructed for throwing missiles of all sorts into the camp of the
enemy.  These batteries, it is said, were covered over on the top to protect
the men, and they had port-holes in the sides, like a modern man- of-war, out
of which, not cannon balls and bomb-shells indeed, but arrows, darts,
javelins, and stones were projected.  The boats were sent out, some on the
upper side of the town and some on the lower, and were placed in stations
where they could most effectually reach the Mongul works.  They were the means
of killing and wounding great multitudes of men, and they greatly disturbed
and hindered the besiegers' operations.

     Still Elak persevered.  He endeavored to shut up the city on every side
as closely as possible; but there was on one side a large morass or jungle
which he could not guard, and Timur received a great many re-enforcements, to
take the place of the men who were killed on the walls, by that way.  In the
mean time, however, Elak was continually receiving re-enforcements too from
Prince Jughi, who was not at a great distance, and thus the struggle was
continued with great fury.

     At last Timur contrived an ingenious stratagem, by which he hoped to
cause his enemy to fall into a snare.  It seems that there was a small island
in the river, not far from the walls of the city, on which, before the siege
commenced, Timur had built a fortress, to be held as a sort of advanced post,
and had garrisoned the fortress with about one thousand men.  Timur now, in
order to divert the attention of the Monguls from the city itself, sent a
number of men out from the city, who pretended to be deserters, and went
immediately to the Mongul camp.  Of course, Elak questioned them about the
defenses of the city, in order to learn where the weak points were for him to
attack.  The pretended deserters advised him to attack this fortress on the
island, saying that it could very easily be taken, and that its situation was
such that, when it was taken, the city itself must surrender, for it
completely commanded the place.

     So Elak caused his principal engines to be removed to the bank of the
river, opposite the island, and employed all his energies and spent all his
ammunition in shooting at the fortress; but the river was so wide, and the
walls of the fortress were so thick and so high, that he made very little
impression.  At last his whole supply of stones - for stones served in those
days instead of cannon balls - was exhausted, and as the town was situated in
an alluvial district, in which no stones were to be found, he was obliged to
send ten or twelve miles to the upland to procure a fresh supply of
ammunition.  All this consumed much time, and enabled the garrison to recruit
themselves a great deal and to strengthen their defenses.

     The operations of the siege were in a great measure suspended while the
men were obtaining a new supply of stones, and the whole disposable force of
the army was employed in going back and forth to bring them.  At length an
immense quantity were collected; but then the Mongul general changed his plan.
Instead of throwing the stones from his engines toward the fortress on the
island, which it had been proved was beyond his reach, he determined to build
out a jetty into the river toward it, so as to get a stand-point for his
engines nearer the walls, where they could have some chance of doing
execution.  So he set his men at work to prepare fascines, and bundles, and
rafts of timber, which were to be loaded with the stones and sunk in the river
to form the foundation for the proposed bank.  The men would bring the stones
down to the bank in their hands, and then horsemen, who were ready on the
brink, would take them, and, resting them on the saddle, would drive their
horses in until they came near the place where the stones were to go, when
they would throw them down and then return for others.  In this way they could
work upon the jetty in many parts at once, some being employed in building at
the end where it abutted on the shore, while the horsemen were laying the
foundations at the same time out in the middle of the stream.  The work of the
horsemen was very difficult and dangerous, on account of holes in the sandy
bottom of the river, into which they were continually sinking. Besides this,
the garrison on the walls were doing their utmost all the time to impede the
work by shooting arrows, javelins, stones, and fiery darts among the workmen,
by which means vast numbers, both of men and horses, were killed.

     The Monguls, however, persevered, and, notwithstanding all the opposition
which the garrison made, they succeeded in advancing the mole which they were
building so far that Timur was convinced that they would soon gain so
advantageous a position that it would be impossible for him to hold out
against them.  So he determined to attempt to make his escape.  His plan was
to embark on board his boats, with all his men, and go down the river in the
night.

     In order to prepare for this undertaking, he employed his men secretly in
building more boats, until he had in all more than seventy.  These boats were
kept out of sight, in hidden places in the river, until all were ready. Each
of them was covered with a sort of heavy awning or roof, made of wet felt,
which was plastered over with a coating of clay and vinegar.  This covering
was intended both to defend the men from missiles and the boats themselves
from being set on fire.

     There was one obstacle to the escape of the boats which it was necessary
to remove beforehand, and that was the bridge which the Monguls had built
across the river, just below the town, when they first came to besiege it. To
destroy this bridge, Timur one night made a sally from one of the gates, and
attacked the men who were stationed to guard the bridge.  At the same time he
sent down the current of the river a number of great flat-bottomed boats,
filled with combustibles of various kinds, mixed with tar and naphtha. These
combustibles were set on fire before they were launched, and, as the current
of the river bore them down one after another against the bridge, they set the
wooden piers and posts that supported it on fire, while the guard, being
engaged with the party which had sallied from the town, could not go to
extinguish the flames, and thus the bridge was consumed.

     The way being thus opened, Timur Melek very soon afterward embarked his
family and the greater part of his army on board the boats in the night; and,
while the Monguls had no suspicion of what was going on, the boats were
launched, and sent off one after another swiftly down the stream.  Before
morning came all traces of the party had passed away.

     Very soon, however, the Mongul general heard how his intended prey had
escaped him, and he immediately sent off a strong detachment to follow the
southern bank of the river and pursue the fugitives.  The detachment soon
overtook them, and then a furious battle ensued between the Mongul horsemen on
the banks and in the margin of the water and the men in the boats, who kept
the boats all the time as near as possible to the northern shore.

[See Battle Of The Boats]

     Sometimes, however, when the stream was narrow, or when a rocky point
projected from the northern shore, so as to drive the boats nearer to the
Mongul side, the battle became very fierce and bloody.  The Monguls drove
their horses far into the water, so as to be as near as possible to the boats,
and threw arrows, javelins, and fiery darts at them, while the Mohammedans
defended themselves as well as they could from their windows or port-holes.

     Things went on in this way for some time, until, at length, the boats
arrived at a part of the river where the water was so shallow - being
obstructed by sand-bars and shoals - that the boats fell aground.  There was
nothing now for Timur to do but to abandon the boats and escape with his men
to the land.  This he succeeded in doing; and, after reaching the shore, he
was able to form his men in array, on an elevated piece of ground, before Elak
could bring up a sufficient number of men to attack him.

     When the Monguls at length came to attack him, be beat them off in the
first instance, but he was obliged soon afterward to leave the field and
continue his retreat.  Of course, he was hotly pursued by the Monguls.  His
men became rapidly thinned in number, some being killed, and others getting
separated from the main body in the confusion of the flight, until, at last,
Timur was left almost alone.  At last he was himself on the very point of
being taken.  There were three Monguls closely pursuing him.  He turned round
and shot an arrow at the foremost of the pursuers.  The arrow struck the
Mongul in the eye.  The agony which the wounded man felt was so great that the
two others stopped to assist him, and in the mean time Timur got out of the
way.  In due time, and after meeting with some other hairbreadth escapes, he
reached the camp of the sultan, who received him very joyfully, loaded him
with praises for the indomitable spirit which he had evinced, and immediately
made him governor of another city.

     In the mean time, some of the boats which had been abandoned by the
soldiers were got off by the men who had been left in charge of them - one
especially, which contained the family of Timur.  This boat went quietly down
the river, and conveyed the family to a place of safety.

     The city of Kojend, from which Timur and his men had fled, was, of
course, now without any means of defense, and it surrendered the very next day
to the Monguls.