Art De La Guerre

[KevinD]

I find the terrain options for the Southern Song to be odd. Why do they not get Mountains? Why do they get Plains?

The Jin had two basic routes to invade the Song. The western one ran through some very serious mountain passes leading into Szichuan, and a serious of battles were fought in these mountains and passes.

Conversely after the loss of Kaifeng and the Yellow river flood plain in 1127 the Song did not defend in plains, but either in the mountains of Sichuan or in predominantly naval engagements along Yangtze, it’s tributaries and lakes and associated swampy land - notoriously difficult ground for cavalry that I think is better classed as Forest than Plains.

The battles fought in open country after this were offensive actions by Yuen Fei as he drove into lands controlled by the Jurchen or Qi, the Jurchen vassal state in the Yellow River flood plain.

Also, why do the Northern Song not get Jurchen allies prior to 1126? Following the Alliance Conducted at Sea (i.e., from 1115-1125) the Northern Song coordinated their offensives against the Liao with the Jurchen. (The Jurchen attacks were wildly successful while the Song attacks were shambolic disasters.) Is it because their armies (Song and Jurchen) generally operated separately, even if in a coordinated fashion?