The Twin Cities Hold: A Southern Song Survival

The siege of Constantinople in 1453 captivates our imagine, but there was another siege on the other side of the world that's largely forgotten, despite its equal significance. This was the siege of Xiangyang and Fan-ch’eng. Located near modern Hubei, these cities are on opposite sides of the Han River, which flows into the Yangtze. The two cities, supplied by the Song fleet on the river, stood astride the easiest way to invade China.

The siege lasted for five years, on and off, but the cities were ultimately taken when the Yuan built their own fleet to choke the cities off.

Suppose the city had held?
 
Would it have been enough to hold off the Yuan? In the long run, the Southern Song were at the disadvantage. I suspect unless they admninistered a crushing defeat, the invaders would just come back next campaigning season. They had acess to the recruiting reservoir of Central Asia, plenty of young men happy to risk life and limb to plunder the riches of China, and at the time there really was nobody to play off against them, was there?

A resurgent Yuan Yuan? Korea? Kill the Great Khan and things look ever so slightly more possible.
 
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