Talk:Battle of Xiangyang

message: While the presence of siege weapons (bricola, huihuipao, etc.) played a notable role in the siege, they were perhaps not as decisive as it may seem. 
Even before the actual siege took place, the Mongols were already busy encircling the city by surrounding it with forts, cutting off its supply lines from Sichuan and isolating the city from further contact with the outside world (just as they isolated the rest China by conquering Northern India, Vietnam and other South Asian states). 
When the actual siege begin, the Mongols not only concentrated on the city walls, but also patrolled the rivers to ensure no Song relief would get through. Although the Song navy broke through the Mongol blockade numerous times, and successfully allowed some 100,000 men to aid Xiangyang, as well as the delivery of vital supplies, their efforts proved trivial. Soon, the Mongols were to bring a significant portion of their (Chinese) manpower to bear, defeating the the world's largest navy in the process, while capturing the city of Fancheng. Xiangyang stood alone. What Xiangyang needed then was not stronger walls against soaring rocks, as its inhabitants were starving from within. It needed soldiers, food and grain. Moreover, if at all possible, Xiangyang needed an army to break through the Mongol siege. 
While the presence of trebuchets might have accelerated the defeat of Xiangyang, it was only a matter of time before Xiangyang itself collapsed, with or without the siege weapons. 
- Tak
: I would say the counterweight trebuchet played a similar role as the A-bomb in WW II. While the outcome of the war was already certain prior to Hiroshima and Nagsaki, the dropping of the A-bomb made further resistance most obviously futile and brought the war to an abrupt end. It goes without saying that the Mongols had first to enclose the city, before they could bring their trebs into effect, but the encirclement of the fortress was a not-out-the-ordinary tactic to be expected. But once the city was surrounded, it was clearly the unexpected fire power of the Muslim and Christian counterweight trebuchets which forced the Chinese commanders to capitulate quickly. 
: Note that the article is a stub. You are welcome to expand on the events in the run-up to the final assault. Please do so with footnotes to credible sources. Regards Gun Powder Ma 19:23, 22 November 2006
: That's an extreme hyperbole, it was definitely the lack of supplies that cause the city's surrender. As they were already running low before 1273 and vastly outnumbered, also the city was surrounded for years so getting supplies there was already difficult. 173.180.73.251 (talk) 02:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Siege Weapons Overstated? 

message: Wouldn't a better word be conflict.  Unless the armies constatly fought each other for 6 years it wasn't a battle.
*Conflict is not appropriate.  It was a key point of an all-out war.  Do you mean campaign?  --user talk:hillgentleman 07:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battle? 

message: I changed the name of General such as Ashu, and added Arikhgiya, probably Uighur warrior. --Enerelt (talk) 05:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, Liu Zheng was the vice-commander.--207.112.5.153 (talk) 01:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Achu or Aju not Ashu 

message: This event appears to qualify as a siege, and is referred to as the Siege of Xiangyang in many of the article's own sources. Is there any particular reason why it's called the "Battle of Xiangyang"? —General534 (talk) 22:46, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of the article 

message: I see that you are still editing articles even though you have not responded to comments on the report section for both me and you.
So in the meantime, please continue the talk section here you were engaged in 14 years ago. Qiushufang (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Dude, what quote? The quote and page references by Chevedden are in the version you keep on reverting if you mean them. You are now the king of disruptive. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Where is Chevveden cited at all or do you even know how to make a proper citation? The only thing that turns up when searching Chevedden are in the main article and none in the reference section? And what has changed since your discussion in the talk section 14 years ago? Has the situation changed at all to warrant this addition?Qiushufang (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

text: Spell out what you want. I did not add any unsourced stuff. If there are sources lacking, it is because they were lacking before. That does not justify reverts. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:33, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Hi there Gun Powder Ma

message: Mangonels as originally conceived  in the 6th Century are manpowered using a single lever, and as such are limited in their capabilities against strong walled fortifications. Trebuchets, however, using mechanical advantage of the massive drop-weight are the real terror weapons of their day. Saying mangonel when you mean counterweight trebuchet is like saying armored car when you mean a tank. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangonel
"It was replaced as the primary siege weapon in the 12th and 13th centuries by the counterweight trebuchet"
The confusion is also pointed out here: 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet
Confusion between the onager, mangonel, trebuchet and other catapult types in contemporary terminology has led some historians today to use the more precise traction trebuchet instead, with counterweight trebuchet used to distinguish what was before called simply a trebuchet.[4][5] Some modern historians use mangonel to mean exclusively traction trebuchets, some call traction trebuchets traction mangonels, and counterweight trebuchets counterweight mangonels.[6]
Because of this I'm going to add the word counterweight in front of each occurrence of the word mangonel in this article to try to keep the confusion at a minimum. Deliusfan (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The terms mangonel and trebuchet used interchangeably are misleading