I watch in tv shows that in the past when there were still no canons, the soliders had 2 ways to attack a city that had high walls.

1. Many soliders will carry 1 very heavy and big piece of wood and than try to bang open the gate of the wall so that when it is broken the soliders will be able to charge in.

I find this method very lousy. When they are still trying to break the gate, the soliders on the top of the wall had many methods to attack them. They could shoot arrows at them, throw large stones at them, pour down oil at them and than throw fire down to burn them alive etc..

Before they could even break open the gate, the majority of them will have been killed.

2. Put ladders and climb up the wall.

I think this method is even worst. Before they could even climb up to the top, the soliders on the wall could simply push the ladder and let the soliders fall to their death. Even if the minority of soliders manage to climb up, it will be a few soliders fighting against thousands of soliders. There is no way they could win

yes, before fire weapon was created, it is hard to strom a well walled city.

btw, there are many ways to do so other than that 2 way you said.
most easily, just siege it for a while, let the city dry out of food and water...
so they will come out to fight you.
or you may use a spy get in the city to open the gate for you,
or you may dig a channel underground,
or you may just provoke the general in the city come out...

What if the city had more than enough food and water and the general refuse to come out to fight with you no matter how you provoke him..

Did they have the technology at that time to dig a channel underground? If yes how long will it normally take to dig a channel?

There were cases where both methods were successful or failed.

People did dig tunnels in the imperial time, and sometimes they were successful in getting into the city. The other times, the city guards heard the noises and set a trap for the enemies or made the tunnel collapse and buried the enemies alive in their tunnels. Sometimes, even though the tunnels collapsed, it also undermined the structure of the city walls, and the city walls collapsed because of it.

they will not get enough food and water for sure in ancient time.
since building wall need stone and man power, the wall is usually just big enough to surround the house, not the large area of fram land.
the fram land is always out of wall, just lack of irrigate for a week, most of crops will die, that cost great loss at ancient time.
also, the fram may give enemy food supply...

and there are no refrigerator that time, food can not be stored for too many.
the city will starve within weeks.
the city will thirst within a week too since enemy surely will block the water way, no water will flow into the city anymore,
if the city got wells inside, they will soon discover that the well water had become toxic.

and as Fireice said, enemy will try to dig your wall bown.

so in most of cases, you dont have to provoke the gerenal, he will come out for must.

Sometimes though, there really were large stockpiles of food.

There's also the use of siege towers, like the mechanical Cloud Ladders or belfries, and artillery (on both sides).

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there was a case where, Cao Cao inundated Lu Bu's last fortress, but I don't know if this was merely a fictional tactic, or one used much in history.

This method will work if the city food last shorter than the enemy food supplies.

If the enemy food supply last shorter than the city, than they can't use this method of making the city starve.

Whats cloud ladders and belfries.

I mean in the past where there were no artillery yet..

Mechanical Artillery includes catapults and ballistae as well, not just gunpowder artillery.

A Belfry is a mobile siege tower with steps and a bridge that can be moved up to a wall and disgorge troops onto the top. The Cloud Ladders are somewhat similar-- the following link can provide more info.

(Similar to a European Belfry)-- http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...s-chongche.html

Cloud Ladders-- http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...s-yuntiche.html

Refer to Liang Jieming's site on Siege Warfare for a wonderful glimpse at the machines used on both sides.

http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...sh13102007.html

Don't believe everything you see on TV. Ancient soldiers thought differently from modern TV or movie producers. After all, the producer only wants to save money on props. The soldier risks getting shot dead by arrows or crushed by a rock. Chances are that the soldier would be more interested in spending time and money on protecting himself than a movie producer would be in giving his extras historically accurate siege equipment.



That is why the fenwen 轒輼 (also known in ancient Roman warfare as the testudo [tortoise] or vinea) was invented in China. It was a covered shed with wheels, under which soldiers could bring a battering ram up to the city gate, or throw objects into the moat to fill it up, or just closer to the wall in order to use scaling ladders.

Of course there were still ways to destroy a mobile shelter, for example with fire or hot oil.



It's not as stupid as it seems. Firstly, the soldiers on the wall would not be able to push the ladder if there are a few enemy soldiers at the foot of the ladder holding it steady. Secondly, the soldiers on the wall may not even be able to get close to the ladder and the enemy soldiers climbing up if there are also enemy soldiers at the foot of the wall, laying a covering fire of arrows and crossbow bolts on the ramparts. Thirdly, there were usually many more soldiers in the besieging army than in the defending one. As long as there were enough ladders, they could keep coming on all sides of the city, and the defending soldiers would eventually get exhausted and careless.

Furthermore, as Yang Zongbao mentioned there are better ways of getting to the top of a wall, including siege towers and cloud ladders.

Still, a really well-defended city can be very hard to take. Most sieges in ancient warfare succeeded when someone inside lost his morale and opened the gate - it could be the commanding general, or it could be just a normal officer or soldier.

This is why every ancient Chinese city has wall.

Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "上兵伐谋，其次伐交，其次伐兵，其下攻城"。Sun Tzu regarded storming a walled city as the most stupid way of attacking.

The usual obvious observation.

In those days, that was true.

Now read between the lines.

There is a hidden point behind that principle and how it connects to the main premise behind the supreme strategy mind.

Of course generals see the obvious weakness of such tactics. As Yun said, movie producers are more interested in just giving us a general idea than spending thousands on accurate equipment, especially for a movie which isn't beeing billed as a historically accurate movie. A crew carrying battering ram is generally much better protected than just a bunch of men carrying sticks. Most rams are in safe carriages, with walls and sloping roofs, which the crew can get in and be safe from falling projectiles. Ladders are especially useful because they are the most mobile siege weapon as well as the cheapest, meaning soldiers can make tons of them and move them to any point where the garrison isn't defending, quickly, while other troops kept the defenders preoccupied. And although gunpowder did not exist, other forms of artillery did which could batter down a wall, such as trebuchets, large crossbows, etc. You would enjoy forumer Liang Jieming's website on Chinese siege weapons: http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...sh04122007.html

Hi Firice,
Here is just a smattering of terrible ways in which to to win.

When Li Ch.uan said “ Weapons are tools of ill omen, War is a grave matter: one is apprehensive lest men embark upon it without due reflection “: he most certainly knew what he was saying. and must have been one who was there and saw with his own eyes the utter brutality and carnage of warfare.

What follows here are a few horrible examples of methods used to increase the efficiency of a siege at little or no cost to the siegers and at great cost to the besieged.

One of the most terrible and brutal methods used to lessen siege time, was to employ the method used by the Romans when the had were not having much success with the siege of a Jewish city. They simply started to systematically catapult a captured Jew over the walls into the besieged city every so many minutes.

They were not the only ones to use catapults in this way.

In 1334, after the plague started in China, and spread to a Genoese trading station on the Black Sea ,where the Tartars had the station under siege. The Tartars started to get sick and die, so they began to catapult plague invested bodies over the walls into the midst of the besieged Genoese.

The catapulting of fireballs to catch wood roofs on fire within the walls of a besieged city was commonplace.

I always thought the purpose of digging a tunnel is to collapse the city wall, and not to get in the city.

I mean, how many soldiers can get in to the city through a tunnel that cannot go too deep or too shallow, and is supported by wood. [Which makes collapsing it easy.]

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In another sense, siege of Xiang Yang last quite a well, so did Cheng Du, against Mongol invasion. Twenty some years in Xiang Yang and 40 some in Cheng Du. In my memory.

Usually a siege just reduces to the attacker waiting it out until the defender is demoralized for one reason or another(lack of food, lack of water, boredom, etc....). Besides, the defender do have the tactical advantage of height, but they probably wouldn't have the strategic advantage of logistics and numbers. The process of waiting it out would only be a natural result.

When playing the "siege" game, the focus of the attacker(s) is to position the defender into desperate grounds. Where the defender focus is to outlast the attacker(s) while creating counter and/or secondary measures (if he is smart enough).

I wouldn't say that. The British used only 4 ladders to storm and capture the city of Ahmedneggur in a single day in 1803.

Infantrymen would rush to the base of the walls with their ladders. Most cities are not equipped to deal with enemy troops at the base of their walls. It is very difficult for archers and crossbowmen to shoot arrow at men directly below.

While infantrymen rush to the walls with their ladders, archers, crossbowmen and musketeers would provide covering fire from behind. They will clear the city walls of enemy archers and troops who try to pour boiling oil down.

It is cheap and can be effective because it takes very little time to rush ladders to the wall. Siege towers, while much better armoured, take a longer time to reach the wall.

It all depends.

Taking a walled city; the first thing is that the attacking army must have is numerical superior forces like 20 or 40 to 1 or more against the defenders.

If there is enough patientce on the attacking army they can always waite it out, surround the city cut off food and water supply and waite until the defenders get too hungry & tired to fight, this will take maybe months depending on how many food and water supply the defenders have stored away.

Having good seige weapons is important without good seige weapons it will be useless for the invaders to take a walled city, they will not be able to get pass the wall and their numerical superirotity will only get cut down until it becomes 1 to 1 or less than 5 to 1 against the defenders, allowing the defenders to counter attack.

Battering ram and ladders are the most common seige weapons other will include towers and catapults. Battering rams must have good protection for soldiers pushing the ram to the gates. Ladders must have hooks to make it more difficult for defenders to push ladders away.

Tactics will play a big role too; for the attacking army using catapults with flaming projectiles to shoot over the wall to create damage and most of all panic to the defenders as well keep them busy in dousing out the fires. Then with enough forces attacking three side of the walls, concentrating on one side while use the other two as a diversion to split the defenders forces.

Again without numerical superior forces it will be senseless and useless for the attacking army to try a direct appraoch in storming a walled city. The best wil be to isolate it and waite it out.

The Romans are well known for being patient and applying isolation tactics to take a walled city or frotress.

There has been some mention of digging tunnels under the walls. This tactic, known as mining, actually involved digging under the walls, and then setting fire to the wooden props to make the walls above collapse. The defenders would sometimes engage in counter-mining, which involved digging tunnels of their own, and attacking the enemy's sappers. The siege of Vienna in 1606 (I know it wasn't in ancient times, but the methods were still the same) saw furious mining and counter-mining at the height of the siege.

The defenders could be reduced through disease. During the middle ages it was common to hurl diseased dog carcasses over the walls of a fortress with catapults.

The Romans used their engineering expertise to build a ramp up to the side fo the wall, and then pour over it. This tactic was used in the siege of Masada during the Second Jewish War.

Tunnel digging to set fire on the foundation of a wall causing the walls to collaps was successfully use by the Moors against the Crusades powerful fortification. The Crusades at that time build strong fortification that could withstand any direct attack with enough storage facilities to last for months against a seige.

I saw a comment earlier that an attacker would need a ration of between 20:1 and 40:1 to successfully take a fortified city. I am not sure this is correct.

In contemporary military theory, the rule of thumb is that an attacker needs a numeric ratio of 3:1 to succeed in a standard attack against defenders who are in place. If the defenders have had the chance to fortify, that can go out to 4:1 to 7:1, depending on the terrain, fortifications (not walls but pill boxes, obstacles and the like) and other force multipliers. The attackers can reduce that ratio by use of artillery and air attack to weaken defences and reduce defender strength. Of course this is premised on modern weapons which favour the attackers because of their lethality and range.

In classical times the defenders were only able to avail themselves of weapons of lesser lethality and range. The defenders tended to be in more densely formed units though.

Turning to the siege itself, it was not necessary to surround the whole of the walls of a city to besiege it. One merely needed to cover each of the gates. To storm a fortress it was simply a matter of taking one gate, or making a breach in the wall, and then exploiting it. Once inside, the interior of a city (although not a fortress) could actually hamper defenders by limitiing the number of troops they could get to engage the attackers in narrow streets. ONce they were inside, attackers also had a significant advanatge in terms of morale as well as momentum.

At the siege of Antioch in 1098, the crusaders were actually outnumbered by defenders but still won after winning one of the gates.

There are cases of Chinese defenders sallying out not through the front gate but rather by climbing the walls down with cover of night, and suicide attempt to either kill enemy generals or break through the siege. If there were no soldiers there, depending on the terrain, they could get a free pass getting away for reinforcement.

Depending on the form of fortifications, in general corners are the weakest part of the fortification, and gate much stronger then other parts due to the physical build up and allowed room for passage. However, one needs to remember Chinese cities serve as both 'castle' and city whereas European castles are castles and cities are cities though there are grand cities that have walls that rival the walls of Luo Yang, in general European cities are far less impressive then the walls of their castle counterpart. Thus it might be one reason why they are captured so easily.

As for street fightings, these are often most deadly part of the siege if you did not manage to disease the city or utterly vanquish their morale. There are many cases where the attackers simply decided to turn around and run. One example of Song's attempt to capture Yang Jing, during the last moments of Liao Dynasty. It is unreliable to say once street fighting began, it signal the end of the siege, though it is fair to say the attackers have a huge advantage in attacking.

Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy for the attackers. There were a number of factors which made besieging a fortress quite difficult. Let me ennumerate some of them:

1. Disease - often the attacker was in greater danger of disease than the defender. This is because the attackers were forced to live in makeshift camps with poor sanitation, so that dysentery and other diseases cud carry off a large part of a besieging force in weeks.
2. Lines of communication - A besieging force was usually in someone else's territory. That meant they were at the end of a lone of communication which was vulnerable to attack. Without supplies the army could wither away and die.
3. Weather - Excesses of heat or cold, especially with an army camped in tents, could waste an attacking force very easily.
4. Lack of food or water - Even when the absence of hostile skirmishers allowed an attacker to forage, the surrounding countryside might not have enough food or water to maintain the attackers, and they might be forced to abandon the siege.
5. Insufficient money - if a siege went too long mercenaries were prone to walk off, often taking the baggage train with them as they went.

Attackers also had their own internal issues to manage. Frequently long periods of time spent in siege lines would cause dissent, or feudal levies would leave because their mandatory period of service had elapsed.

I would add the besieging force are vulnerable to attack from possible reinforcement if the defenders can send a message out prior to the siege (or trade and travel to the city is mysteriously disrupted) to nearby garrisons and cities for help.

I have had the chance to examine the numbers in a selection of successful Western medieval sieges where chronicles are reasonably reliable.

In roughly half the cases the attackers were outnumbered by the defenders. I suppose this begs that questions why the defenders did not simply stand and fight outside. One can only surmise that for whatever reason the defenders felt they had a better chance inside the walls than outside.

One possible explanation is incompetence. Another is seriously flawed intelligence about the attackers (although once they were in the field outside the fortifications, this could no longer be the case).

A better explanation is that the defenders felt that they would outlast the attackers, and that they were likely to suffer significantly lower casualties inside the walls than if they conducted an engagement in the field.

From the attackers point of view, it shows that a well conducted siege or assault could be successfully prosecuted in spite of inferior numbers. The answer to this must be the use of overwhelming force at the right place at the right time, as opposed to overwhelming force everywhere.

In a siege, the defenders have miles of wall that they need to man and guard. The besieges need only to seal off the main roads leading to the city/castle in order to start the siege.

What happens is that the besieger will make feints, to lure the defenders to guard other parts of their wall. And when the feint is successful, the attackers will launch a quick attack on the section of the wall that is poorly guarded. With enough ladders, a quick assault can be launched. All it takes for a city to fall is for one part of the wall to be breached and captured.

In reality, terrain would probably limit the number of places an attacker can actually assault.

That is certainly true.

I have recently been examining the records of sieges during the Albigensian Crusade in France in the thirteenth century. There is no clear relationship between numerical superiority and success in sieges during this time. In fact it would appear that terrain and environmental circumstances were just as significant if not more so during this period.

Well, there were many parts to storming a walled city or castle. Ladders, tunnels, towers, artillery, rams, biological...

What was used depended on a few things:
1) how well prepared the attackers were to assault
2) how long they'd been laying siege (which often affected the first point)
3) how long the attackers had before they could no longer afford to lay siege (enemy reinforcements, pay, seasons...)

Sometimes you could get away with a lucky and surprising assault like what happened at Ahmedneggur. That was a surprise attack and the defenders just weren't ready.

Ladders and towers were both used to get troops On the walls. Towers were also often used to protect the ram crews.
Rams and artillery were to break through the walls or gates. Artillery (catapults (light), Trebuchets (medium), Mangonels (heavy)) could sit back and throw rocks as large as 1 ton up to 1/2 a mile or more at the walls (accuracy not really being important when firing at a target the size of a city). Not many walls could withstand that for long. Let alone gates.
Rams were run right up against the target gate and smashed repeatedly into it till it splintered. Yes, this was very dangerous. Almost as much as running up a ladder and hoping some genius with a spear doesn't push your ladder off the wall or drop a rock on your head. However, even when the ram did not have a built-in roof, the ram crew was usually accompanied by a shield crew to hold their shields above the rammers to protect against everything short of either burning or boiling liquids (boiling sewage was a favourite. Easy to get ahold of, easy to boil, adds potential for disease, insulting).

Tunnels served dual purposes and failed as often as they succeeded. Either you dug under the walls to get inside, or to weaken the foundations. They really weren't used until the siege had been going on for awhile...

Biological warfare (a Chinese favourite) was accomplished by throwing dead bodies, rotten meat and vegetables, and waste over the walls via artillery. Using human bodies had an added morale advantage. The Romans and Mongols liked to throw living people...

Castle assaults never really changed despite changes in technology. They just got easier.

If I recall correctly, the longest successful siege took 11 years to pull off and the longest failed siege lasted a little longer before the neighbours got upset and threw their armies in to drive off the attackers...
There could have been several sieges that took longer during various, poorly documented periods of time.

Good post. What was the longest successful siege? How did the defenders hold out so long? How did the attackers keep up the effort, and after all that time, what was the turning point?

Unfortunately, William, I am forced to go by memory because I don't have the book I got that from and can't find it online. So, going purely by memory:
I'm not good with names, so I don't remember the name of the castle. It was on an island. A Muslim assault and a Chapter defense (wait, that was the failed siege). Well, that one, the defenders held out because they had access to seafood through an undergound channel that they had dug down to, and they had also build their castle right next to a spring for fresh water. They were particularly deft at medicine and were able to keep sickness down inside the castle. The attackers kept it up because it was a "holy Jihad" to kill all the infidels. And they went home when their Caliph died.

The longest successful siege turned around for the attackers with the advent of reliable gunpowder artillery, because trebuchets and mangonels just weren't enough to bring down the walls. Nor were tunnels. In point of fact, an interesting tidbit that I particularly remember was that entire sections of wall between towers and even the towers themselves had been completely undermined and were effectively just hanging over empty space by the end of the siege. I wish I could find it again.
It was a similar case to the Mongol siege of the Twin cities at the end of the Sung dynasty. They couldn't win till they got better artillery.

It seems to me that the most significant factor in the ability of defenders to hold out has been the availability of water and food (water being the more important in the short term). One would assume that the long standing siege you mentioned may have seen the defenders supplied by sea or river, or perhaps not even have been a complete siege (i.e. there may have been one gate open, as happened at Antioch in the First Crusade). Is this a reasonable assumption?

From What I have studied the most important Factors in successfully repulsing a siege is

[/indent]A: Enough troops to effectively guard the walls and inflict significant casualties ion the enemy
and

B: Enough food and fresh water to supply the garrison, city residents, and refugees from the surrounding county side (as they fled to the fortified city as the army approached in many cases)

And for a siege to succeed an army had to have

A: enough troops to cut off supplies, prevent reinforcements from reaching the city, and prevent anyone from leaving the city

B: A way to Effectively Threaten the City, Be it with Starvation, Artillery, or Assault
[indent]

C: The Proper equipment to set up an army in the same place for weeks on end. (one the essentials was the shovel and pick, which allowed the general to keep troops occupied by having them dig trenches for sanitation and water flow.)





PS: I saw an earlier post about Disease being the worry of the attacker, but the defender often had more to worry about from that quarter. A large group of people shut up in a confined space with the rapidly accumulating waste, dead, garbage, and the live animals needed for food would give disease a chance to run rampart through the besieged city. At the very least the chance of disease was more often equal if not slanted in favor of the defenders.

Accumulating waste wasn't really so much of a problem for the defenders, whereas it was a significant issue for the attackers.
The Defenders could just toss their waste over the walls (preferably while the attackers were actually storming the walls)

The attackers had real issues with it, though. Ever spent a prolonged time in a temporary campsite with no permanent facilities? Imagine doing that with a few thousand other people and all their animals...

Taran is quite right. History shows that attackers tended to fair worse from disease, especially dysentry, than the attackers. Remember too that much of the sewage from the city or fortress would just go straight through the walls, and into the fields occupied by the attackers.

Hell, it was one of their favourite defensive weapons. Can you imagine getting splashed with boiling sewage?

It was cheaper and more readily available than oil, boiled at a lower temperature, and often burned once it dried. What's not to like (from a defender's point of view)?

Evidence also points to the fact that disease struck hardest in areas of dense occupation, which would occurs to a city under siege due to the influx of refuges and live animals (to be used as food, but kept alive because there was no way to preserve it as easily as just keeping it alive). W. McNeil makes this point in Plagues and Peoples. While sewage could be flushed out into the attackers camp, if it was to be used as a weapon it had to be stored somewhere within the confines of the city, and would have increased the chances of epidemic disease within the walls.

And I will have to find the Source (which is proving elusive at the moment), but most commanders conducting a siege put there board soldiers to work creating a camp with adequate sanitation ditches to take sewage away from the cam and thus reduce the chance of disease. True that Dysentery was a common military problem (attacking or defending)and in the case of sieges it more often ad to do with the fact that cities and forts sought to control what clean water was available already, leaving at best second rate water for the defenders to use and often increased the chances of a dysentery outbreak.

I just respectfully say that you have probably not had the actual task of managing troops in a field encampment. Even these days one of a commander's highest priorities is field hygiene and sanitation. We know a lot more about these things than they did 500 or 1,000 years ago, and modern commanders don't have to worry about the dung and urine from a couple of thousand horses and mules fouling the lines. It would have been a nightmare.

These problems are more easily managed within the fortifications, because there are purpose built structures. There is no rainwater pooling in fields, and people are less likely to suffer the effects of dehydration or exposure (depending on the season).

Just look what happens whenever some natural disaster hits a developing country. People who lived vaguely healthy lives in poorly constructed towns and cities suddenly become the victims of disease in field encampments.

I suggest you do a survey of the First Crusade (for which good records exist) and see the effects of disease on attackers and defenders. The attackers had the worse of it.

If siege warfare was won by waiting until the defenders succumbed to the inevitability of disease, nobody would bother attacking the fortifications.

Those records do bear out your argument but there are also records of siege-craft that place commanders ordering troops to dig proper field trenches that drain and leech disease spawning waste away from the camp and its water sources. One could probably make a convincing argument that only inept commanders or very early ones would fail to put bored troops to work on the overall sanitation of a field camp. The baggage train presents an interesting factor in the sewage equation and think that the best study of this would be conducted on the early legions of the Roman empire (both the manipualr and cohortal).
The natural disaster example fails to hold because these people are not necessarily engaged in a specific enterprise other than survival, and lacked having a commander who had to keep his troops occupied during a long and boring siege. In fact the Romans again provide the best known example of putting their troops to work in order to prevent disciplinary problems... Having them dig latrines and drainage ditches, build ramparts, canals, begin rudimentary roads, build bridges, palisades, etc, etc. In fact the presence of these legions was a great bon to a region because it would become developed with the presence of unengaged troops, just as if they were engaged in a siege (active guard duty was a small percentage of besieging troops at any given point).

Atlas, it took a very knowledgeable commander to make sure those things were done. Military leaders tended to spend more time learning tactics and strategy or perfecting personal combat skills than learning about illness or sanitation.
The Romans were particularly adept at siege warfare, both as attackers and defenders and assuming that they represented the average army engaged in anything, let alone something as difficult and time consuming as a siege is foolish. Rather like assuming that the Mongols were the average representation of horse archers...

Most people both before and after Rome (and outside of Rome during that same period) knew little about the causes of disease or anything about sanitation.

A few general comments

a. why the defenders often out number the besieger but didn't sally: this answer is actually very simple, because the defender's number is typically bolstered (if not made almost completely out of) local residents mobilzed to defend thier home, these men (or women and childern quiet often) were certainly not soliders, while they might be somewhat helpful in throwing stones over the wall or moving equipments / keeping watches or even manning / constructing seige equipments. they would certainly be useless once outside the walls. where as the besiegers are obviously real soliders. and would easily win in an open battle.

b. why taking cities were tough: well duh... it was designed to make it tough that's why people build the thing. if it didn't give the defenders a huge advantage why would anyone do such a thing?

c. tunneling / mining : there's two way to do this, one is building a tunnel and the other was to sap the wall. why tunnellnig might work is because as we meantioned earlier, the defenders inside were very often NOT real soliders. even a small group inside could be a serious threat. not to meantion they could be used to open gates. or combined with an assualt.

I thought i've read somewhere that due to different methods of construction the Chinese walls were much harder to sap than European onces. probably because they were typically thicker and made of stuffed earth?

d. starving guys out and food supplies: this obviously depend on many factors. and like others have said, in many cases the besigers themself also had limitations to their food supplies. while in other cases the defender's supply may or may not be as endangered as procieved. in the seige of Xian Yang by the Mongols the Song defenders had no problem until the very end. because the city was next to the river, and they simply reinforced via waterways and they had naval superiorty. they even had a floating bridge contrusted between Xian Yang and Feng Chan.

On other methods that besiegers sometimes use. one somewhat common tactic was redirecting the nearby waterways, many larger cities have cannals flowing into the city to give them better water supplies and living qualities or used as moats. even without a direct waterways flowing into the cities, the vast majority of major human settlements in history could not happen without some sort of significant water supplies nearby. this can be exploited by the oppenents. by redirecting the waterways they can either cut off their water supplies and/or even create a man made flood towards the city. which could be devastating as it could smash gates, or ruin their food / weapon storage. or even drown people and will surely create a even more devastating moral effect on the opposition (particularly if done in the winter. can you imagine defending a city that's flooded by ice cold water?) China does this a lot of time, as did some occasions in the west. it obviously require some luck (how the city and rivers are positioned. the seasons and rain fall level etc..) and a lot of skill (how to properly redirect a large amount of water without killing yourself, there have been instances where the defenders sneaked out and destroyed the construction . and the results were typically not pretty for the attackers. or knowledge of typical weather patterns in the area)

Another tactic is that because such waterways tend to exist, there have been cases of besiges attempting to sneak into the city using these water ways. (ninja style! ) and the city designer in return usually design iron gates to block out such attempts.

I like the point on diverting rivers. Do you have any examples from classical Chinese history?

Cao Cao did this several times in his campaign. once against Lu Bu in the seige of Xia Pei .

it's a pretty commonly meantioned tactic in Chinese history. as it is probably the single best way to force an surrender without inflicting massive casaulties on both sides.

the First instances i read was in the late warring states when the Qin troops ended the kingdom of Wei by flooding their capital Da Lieng, thus forcing the Wei king to surrender.

It would be a pretty remarkable feat though, needing many elements to succeed, both the engineering skill to direct the water and the knowledge of rainfall level (since you probably need high level of water when you pull this trick, while it would be easier to start the daming during low water season. so wrong assesment of the seasons would usually prove to make this a fruitless if not disastorous effort.)

From what I have read, the ancient Chinese had a number of interesting siege weapons.

There were whirlwind catapults. Teams of men ran forward pulling a rope attached to the lever of a catapult. As the men ran forward, the lever would snap up, throwing a heavy rock at the city wall.

A siege tower known as a Cloud Bridge was much like a European medieval siege tower. It was a four or five story tower mounted on wheels. The exterior frame was covered with ox hide. The hide was soaked in water to resist fire arrows. Ladders inside the tower allowed armed men to climb to the top of the tower. Unlike their European counterparts, Cloud Bridges do not appear to have had bridges that they could lower to "bridge" the gap between the siege tower and wall. Unless the wall was vertical and not sloped, siege towers only had a limited use as observation platforms.

A cloud ladder was a mobile ladder platform mounted on four wheels. It featured a telescoping ladder similar in concept to that of a modern fire ladder truck. Pulleys were used to extend the ladder. Armed soldiers would climb the ladder ... usually under heavy fire from the battlements of the defending force. The opposing fire would have included arrows, crossbow bolts, flaming oil, and rocks.

The Chinese also had a siege weapon known as a Wooden Ox. This was basically a tortoise shaped wagon covered with heavy shields. It had slits in the top to allow crossbowmen to return enemy fire. The wagon would be pushed into place against city walls to protect sappers as they dug under the walls. Heavy ropes attached to the wagon allowed the Wooden Ox to be quickly withdrawn if it was damaged or set on fire.

As the miners dug under the walls, they used wooden beams to support their excavation. When enough of the wall had been mined, they would set fire to the beams and withdraw to friendly lines. As the wooden support beams burned, they collapsed and the section of wall immediately above them would also collapse.

Assault troops equipped with Knife Carts would try to exploit the collapse. A knife cart was a large wheelbarrow fitted with a heavy shield that faced forward. Sword blades were mounted on the shield. A series of knife carts could be used as a movable wall - allowing crossbowmen and archers to shelter behind the cart while peppering the enemy with bolts and arrows. I would imagine that the infantry would have had to carry the carts over the collapsed rubble - but once over, the carts could have been used to establish a defensible bridgehead

Reference: Siege Weapons of the Far East: AD 960-1644. By S. R. Turnbull, Osprey Publishing, 2001, ISBN:1841763403

try this http://www.grandhistorian.com/chinesesiegewarfare

Jieming

Hi Liang Jieming, I wonder where you got the information that the Hui Hui Pao replaced the Song trebuchet. Its true that the heavier ones were generally replaced but not the lighter ones. According to Needham, the original types of Chinese trebuchet were still used in the Ming. Emperor Hongwu himself preferred the older trebuchets:
""The old type of trebuchet was really more convenient. If you have a hundred of those machines, then when you are ready to march, each wooden pole can be carried by only four men. Then when you reach your destination, you encircle the city, set them up, and start shooting!"
This is due to the fact that counterweight were too large to carry and often had to be built right on the spot. Similarily, in the first invasion of Japan, it was said that the counterweight were not suitable for the warfare on the boat.

轒輼 wasn't exactly a testudo formation, it was mounted on a cart and covered by oxen skin. The people inside didn't have to hold it up.

“轒輼，四轮车，排大木为之，上蒙以生牛皮，下可以容十人。往来运土填堑，木石所不能伤。今所谓‘木驴’是也。”

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&...sa=N&tab=wi