Siege of Dun-Kurrengev
| Siege of Dun-Kurrengev | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Daxian Polynesian Wars | |||||||
 Kiravian artist's rendition of the siege | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Kiravia | Daxia | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Captain Ignatius Siguatera | Admiral Zhu Bolin | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
1200 men (garrison) 85 ships |
15,000 Daxians 120 ships | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 800 killed (garrison) | thousands | ||||||
The Siege of Dun-Kurrengev was a military confict part of the Daxian Polynesian Wars in which Daxian forces besieged the Kiravian-ruled fortress of Dun Kurrengev on the island of Sarolasta. It ended in a Kiravian victory after the Daxians retreated. It is the first instance of the Daxian imperial fleet militarily intervening in the Polynesian Sea, as opposed to South Seas Company privateer forces.
Background
In the 17th century, Daxia's Qian dynasty first came into contact with civilizations from beyond the Polynesian sea. The sudden appearance of these technologically advanced seafaring nations arose a great deal of suspicion in Daxian ruling circles who saw the waters of the Polynesian as a closed off pond for them to explore (and exploit). The colonization of Australis was well underway at this point and there were fears the project could be jeopardized by these ambitious outsiders. The discovery of Kiravian settlement on the island of Sarolasta thus came as a very unwelcome and galling surprise. This was compounded by the island's rise to prominence in the lucrative yam trade in a few short years, in direct competition with Australis's yam producers which represented a reliable source of income. Multiple attempts to bribe Sarolasta's governor to turn coat and surrender the island were rebuffed. In light of these 'provocations' and the possible damages to Daxian profits, the Xiaodan Emperor commanded that an expedition be mounted to seize Sarolasta from the Kiravians. The fortress of Dun-Kurrengev in the southern tip of the island was considered to be a vital fortification for its defense, therefore its capture was of the highest priority if a land campaign was to be mounted.
Daxian fleet
The Xiaodan Emperor elevated the dwarf eunuch Zhu Bolin to the rank of admiral and commanded him to personally organize and lead the imperial expedition to Sarolasta. Zhu Bolin then spent the period from March to early May 1664 gathering an impressive armada of one hundred and twenty ships; composed of 70 galleys, 30 galleons and other ships of various sizes. The South Seas Company also sent a small force of armed dhows crewed by Christians in support, commanded by Caphirian mercenary Luidan Răzvala Saminian Dovinofo. Additionally the ground contingent counted with four hundred cannons and 15,000 men between soldiers and ship crews. With the army were five thousand slave-soldiers sent by the sultan of Ghanim, a Daxian vassal. The ship crews included several thousand polynesian slaves who would be forced into trench work during the course of the siege and suffer almost complete losses. The armada set sail from the port of Zong on June 25, calling at Zhijun before heading north to Sarolasta, arriving withing sight of Dun-Kurrengev on August 13.
Siege
The fortess of Dun-Kurrengev was under the command of the veteran captain Ignatius Siguatera, the fortess was garrisoned by 3,000 people of which 1,200 were soldiers mostly of local Sarolastan extraction. The northern gate of the fortress led into a dirt road that connected Dun-Kurrengev to the rest of the island; should the fortress find itself blockaded from the sea the road would be its sole lifeline. The Daxian fleet arrived before near fortress on August 13 and Zhu Bolin divided his armada into two sections. The smaller force under Luidan Răzvala would sail around the eastern shore of the island and raid whatever targets of opportunity were spotted such as trade ships, Kiravian patrols and poorly garrisoned towns. The second force under Bolin himself would enact a blockade of Dun-Kurrengev to prevent the ferrying of men and supplies to its shores and begin landing the ground forces onto the island. Upon seeing the arrival of the enemy fleet, captain Siguatera ordered his men to refill their water supply, empty the supply warehouses outside the walls and burn anything else that could not be moved inside in a timely fashion. By August 15 the Daxians had disembarked with most of their infantry and set up a fortified camp to the west of Dun-Kurrengev. Bolin's plan was to construct a system of trenches and fortifications that would span all across the north side of the fort and cut off the road out. Before the Daxian landing, the Kiravians sent riders to the city of Taigovæloa to warn of the attack and seek relief. The first weeks saw little movement on the ground as the Daxians worked in their siege contravallation and the Kiravians only attempted a few sallies that were pushed back. By August 25 the Daxian artillery had been unloaded and set up in strong positions and the bombardment of the walls began in earnest. A first wave of Polynesian slaves were sent to scale the walls with ladders on the 27th but they were repelled with around one hundred dead and many more wounded. A new attempt was made on the next day that now included Ghanim's ghulams who successfully climbed on top of the walls before also being repelled after two hours of fighting. After this second failure, the blockading fleet also began to open fire from the sea; counterbattery fire from the walls of Dun-Kurrengev managed to sink one galley at the cost of two cannons lost.
Daxian attempts to storm the walls continued for the following seven months, including digging tunnels to try and undermine sections of the wall, scaling the walls with ladders, hooks and siege towers and the ever present cannon bombardment. Dun-Kurrengev however had an extensive system of mines and tunnels that were used to hear the Daxian sappers as they worked, and swiftly raids against them or flood the tunnel and the sheer thickness of the walls made them highly resistant to even concentrated cannon fire. Daxian morale was sapped by the spread of dysentery in the siege camps and news that a Daxian fleet carrying reinforcements was destroyed in a storm northwest of Lotoa, with a reported loss of some six thousand men. With his forces dwindling with every assault, Zhu Bolin ordered the construction of wooden catapults and the gathering of rotting enemy corpses from the battlefield so they could be flung past the walls. The grisly tactic did serve its purpose of spreading disease inside the fortress but also strenghtened the resolve of the garrison to resist. This is one of the first recorded instances of biological warfare being used. On 18th November 1665 Luidan Răzvala's fleet returned from a scouting expedition and brought news extracted from a burgher taken from Sarolasdra, a large Kiravian fleet under Alcibiades Verramar was on its way to provide relief to Dun-Kurrengev.
The news of the enemy fleet made Daxian commanders very uneasy. The Daxians were penned in near the fortress and impeded from easily advancing further into Sarolasta by a chain of fortifications to the north that stretched across the island. Problems were mounting with dwindling supplies, the spread of sickness and inclement weather not to mention the lack of reinforcement. The inability to reduce Dun-Kurrengev even after a siege that prolonged for over a year was starting to create a mutinous feeling. A late night conference that included representatives of the soldiery agreed on one final assault attempt on November 22th, if it failed the siege would be abandoned. During the early morning of the 22th a sustained cannonade finally cracked a hole in one of the northern walls, upon seeing this a general assault was ordered. Daxian assault columns charged forth with mobs of pickaxe-wielding slaves running ahead to clear the rubble. The battle for the collapsed gap in the wall saw the most ferocious melees of the siege yet; two of Siguatera's chief lieutenants were killed there as was the mercenary leader Răzvala who lost an arm and was speared through the neck. Zhu Bolin charged into the battle firing a special crossbow from atop a palanquin carried by slaves. The fighting raged for hours but eventually the gap was choked up with bodies and the Daxians began to pull back, with the Daxian leader being carried off after his palanquin was set on fire. The failure to take the gap mean the last effort was defeated, the Daxians burnt their siege camps along with the dead they had recovered before reembarking on the 25th and sailing southwards; the siege of Dun-Kurrengev ended in a victory for Kiravia.
Aftermath
The failure of the siege meant that Daxia was unable to push the Kiravians from Sarolasta and deprive them from a base of operations on the northern Polynesian Sea, although they would try a similar scheme against Burgundie in 1670 during the Sudmoll Expedition. That the siege happened at all worsened relations for the next century and made trade with southern Crona a dangerous proposition as Kiravian navies and freebooters would now target Daxian trade ships. The Daxian court would not look back towards Sarolasta for 70 years, preferring instead to concentrate its resources closer to Australis and the eastern trade route to Sarpedon and Vallos. Estimates of casualties hover around six to seven thousand casualties for the Daxian side, an enormours toll of almost half of Zhu Bolin's forces, his great failure saw him removed from military command and stripped down to the rank of regular palace eunuch working in the Imperial Lemon Grove. The notable failure of Daxian tunnel warfare tactics in attempting to collapse the walls would lead to improvements in the training and equipment of Daxian sappers such as flotation devices made of inflated goat testicle skin to help during flooding attemtpts and leather masks to try and protect against smoke attacks. The long time it took cannons to produce a breach during the siege resulted in the design and production of heavier types of cannons and bombards, as the ones used during the siege were in some cases a hundred years old.