Talk:Battle of Salsu

Year

OK, I'll start this talk.

I see that 612 is the year of this battle. That's nice, but '612' hardly defines any time in particular -- '612' requires a reference date.

Will those with less ignorance than I please supply an appropriate 'zero year' for this '612'? A BCE or CE would be nice, but other forms are fine, too. Don 01:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sources

The article seems to be based on Korean sources. Can someone provides Chinese or third party sources or statistics so the neutrality of this article will not be disputed? Kc0616 20:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Sui troops

時, 帝以<仲文>有計劃, 令諸軍諮稟節度, 故有此言. 由是, <述>等不得已而從之, 與諸將, 渡水追<文德>. <文德>見<述>軍士有饑色, 故欲疲之, 每戰輒走. <述>一日之中, 七戰皆捷, 旣恃驟勝, 又逼群議, 於是, 遂進東濟<薩水>, 去<平壤城>三十里, 因山爲營. <文德>復遣使詐降, 請於<述>曰: “若旋師者, 當奉王, 朝行在所.” <述>見士卒疲弊, 不可復戰, 又<平壤城>險固, 度難猝拔, 遂因其詐而還. <述>等爲方陣而行, 我軍四面鈔擊, <述>等且戰且行. 秋七月, 至<薩水>, 軍半濟, 我軍自後擊其後軍, 右屯衛將軍<辛世雄>戰死. 於是, 諸軍俱潰, 不可禁止. 將士奔還, 一日一夜, 至<鴨淥水{鴨綠水}>󰄲, 行四百五十里. 將軍<天水><王仁恭>爲殿, 擊我軍却之. <來護兒>聞<述>等敗, 亦引還. 唯<衛文昇>一軍獨全. 初, 九軍到{度}󰄲<遼>, 凡三十萬五千, 及還至<遼東城>, 唯二千七百人, 資儲器械巨萬計, 失亡蕩盡.

Samguk Sagi vol. 20, 三國史記 高句麗本記 瓔陽王條 23年.

This article is enough evidence. 三十萬五千 also 二千七百人 was deserve attention.

Korea history 14:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No, you are misreading the last sentence. It noted that 305,000 men crossed the Liao, not that they crossed the Yalu. The losses, therefore, are for the entire campaign, not for Salsu (and even if it could be read as "crossed the Yalu," they certainly didn't all die at that single battle, but died during the part of the campaign led by Yuwen Shu). Part of the army remained under Emperor Yang's own command and was sieging Liaodong. --Nlu (talk) 14:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Further, in a passage that you did not quote (and which I can't get to right now since the Seoul National University site hosting the PDF files is down), Yu Zhongwen stated that he and Yuwen Shu had 100,000 men. While that obviously wasn't an exact figure and was used for effect by Yu, it is at least some evidence of the number of men they had. --Nlu (talk) 14:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It says that about 3,000 escaped from the original 300,000 [1] Good friend100 15:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Correct; the question is, though, does 300,000 refer to the army that Yuwen and Yu commanded that crossed the Yalu River against Pyongyang? A reasonable reading of the passage (the whole passage, not just the part Korea history quoted) indicates that 300,000 was the overall Sui troop strength. Further, even if arguendo 300,000 crossed the Yalu, they did not all die at Salsu; there were many other battles on that campaign. --Nlu (talk) 15:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Primary sources

We should not take primary sources from fourteen centuries ago at face value for casualty numbers, if we don't have corroborating evidence.

Agreed, although I would go further, this article should either be rewritten or deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.31.188 (talk) 12:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should at least add an NPOV tag, because this article clearly isn't based on reliable sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.115.10 (talk) 06:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Number of soldiers

I find it highly unlikely that an army of 10,000 troops could defeat an army of 300,000 soldiers, with the second army having all but 3,000 die. Perhaps 100,000 is the correct number instead of 10,000?

I agree. What is the source of this number? One of the articles on sources says that the Goguryeo army was just relatively smaller than the Sui. Also, that "million men" army sounds a little exaggerated, the source given doesn't look that credible, frankly. 89.180.89.156 (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I find it unlikely that it would be logistically fesiable to campaign with an army of that size for an extended period of time without it being broken into several separate groups, making the story of using a dam to drown them unlikely and probably impossible. Secondly, the river Salsu (Ch'ongch'on) drains an area of some 10,000 square kilometers. I find it unlikely it would be particularly huge, especially in the upper valley, where a dam would be possible. I also find it unlikely that a dam could be built to create a sufficiently large lake in 7th century AD, or in a reasonably short time, as needed for the operation. If it were, destroying it in a short enough time to allow destruction of a passing army is, at best, unlikely (and seems impossible without use of explosives, some 200 years before first appearance of gunpowder in China). Timing the destruction properly for the flash flood to drown the passing army is also a difficult task in an era of mounted messengers and no accurate means of measuring speed of the flowing water, no mathematical tools to calculate it, no models to estimate ... I could go on. Furthermore, to illustrate another point: an army of 300,000 men would stretch over 10 kilometers, if they were traveling in ranks of 30 and just 1 meter between ranks. That would be both very tight ranks forming a very wide line of soldiers - the story says they were crossing a river, so this illustration is meaningful. A flash flood to drown such a huge mass of men, with almost none escaping, also seems unlikely to the extreme. But hey, I don't have any actual sources saying this would be impossible, I'm just showing what the existing sources say. 193.95.194.20 (talk) 18:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Referring to the comments, there are a few things you're forgetting:

1) Most of the 300,000 were drowned, not actually killed in combat (though they still count as battle casualties). In addition, while only some 2,700 are said to have returned to China, there were significantly more left after the flash flood at Salsu; many more died on the rapid retreat to China, which may be more appropriately termed campaign casualties as opposed to battle casualties, though the Goguryeo harassment of the Sui retreat was specifically part of the strategies centered on Salsu as opposed to those for the overall campaign.

2) The Goguryeo troops, who were hardened battle veterans and renowned warriors, were fighting deep in their own territory, which was unfamiliar to the Sui troops, giving Goguryeo a significant advantage (both in terms of combat and picking better ground as well as planning/strategy/logistics). While this in itself might not be enough to offset the initial numerical differences (which would explain Goguryeo's defensive stance for much of the wars between itself and the Sui, it may have been the edge that Goguryeo needed once the masses of Sui troops were swept away by the induced flash flood.

3) The Sui troops were actually retreating from a failed siege of Pyongyang (the siege failed due to the lack of Sui naval support - let's not forget that Pyongyang is on a river that flows into the Yellow Sea - which had been intercepted by Goguryeo forces at sea). Taking this into account, while Goguryeo itself may have had some 100,000 men for the entire campaign, they were spread out all over its territory; the defenders in and around Pyongyang - i.e. those who actually pursued the retreating Sui troops - probably did in fact number around 10,000 (10% of Goguryeo's entire fighting force, which is understandable given the fact that Pyongyang was the kingdom's capital at the time), whereas the bulk of the Sui troops had been massed around the Pyongyang area. Therefore, the bulk of the Sui troops (i.e. some 300,000 or so) would have been at Salsu in organized retreat, and the Goguryeo troops pursuing them would indeed have been those who had been defending Pyongyang. The details of the Battle of Salsu, however, do imply that some prior planning must have been involved, for some of the reasons mentioned by others (i.e. the time required to dam the river in the fashion necessary, and so on) - indeed, Eulji Mundeok must have seen the Sui retreat coming and planned to deal them the ultimate blow (which again would have been possible, as he would have received reports of Goguryeo's interception of Sui naval forces first and could have sent units undetected through his home turf behind Sui lines to build the dam and so on).

4) There will inevitably be conflicts between the sources that record this battle on the Sui and Goguryeo sides; the Sui would have tended to downplay the numbers or otherwise minimize the magnitude of Goguryeo's victory, whereas Goguryeo would tend to emphasize its success.

5) Having said all that, it is likely that even back then Chinese dynasties were able to put hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of men in wartime; China was known even in those days to be a large nation with many people, and given how much Goguryeo continued to harass Sui outposts and renege on their treaties with the Chinese, it is imaginable that a Sui emperor would have attempted punitive campaigns of hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of men in order to teach a smaller nation some sort of lesson. In any event, the losses sustained by China during the several Sui campaigns against Goguryeo were enough to be one of the major reasons for the collapse of the dynasty responsible for the completion of the Grand Canal, so the sources must not be too far off, even if they are exaggerating.Ecthelion83 (talk) 04:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

RE: 4) There's a difference between 'emphasis' and 'talking out of your arse'. I really think this needs labelling as not properly cited. These references don't back up a claim on this sort of scale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.31.73.186 (talk) 10:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Re 1) The fact they are said to be drowned makes the argument slightly worse from your point of view. I wrote (way back) that it would be unfesiable to dam the river and then create a flash flood with 7th century technology. Other than timely demolision, the task of creating such an artificial flood would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to do so today.

Re 2), 3) This part is quite irrelevant. The story says a large majority drowned - it doesn't matter how great Goryugo warriors were and how well they fought. The story is unlikely to the extreme on many levels irrespective of that.

Re 4) This I agree with. Either the flood, the dam or the Sui casualties are inflated (and likely all are). It is relatively common for ancient sources to add roughly an extra zero to the enemy force. A (natural?) flash flood drowning a large portion of a 30,000 man army is belieavable. A ten times larger flash flood not so much. You will recall the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami killed fewer than that - not the best possible comparison, but the best avaliable, I think?

Re 5) It has been estimated elsewhere that the maximum practical limit for a preindustrial army to march together would be on the order of 250,000 men. This was done in regard to the size of the Persian army at Gaugamela, but the Chinese would suffer from sufficiently similar problems to make the comparison relevant. An army of 300,000 would therefore be on the limit of being still possible. I don't dispute the ability of China to field that many men in a single campaign, and it would be just possible for them to maintain cohesion and supply with their supply methods. However, I find the notion that an army of such size would be practically wiped out by an artificial flash flood coming from a damed river, ridiculus. The river is too large for such a project to be fesiable today, and yet it is too small for the flooding to destroy such a large army at the same time. 217.72.81.14 (talk) 08:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Reliable references needed

This article doesn't reference a single reference that could be considered a critical historical account of this battle. There needs to be a minimum of serious, neutral examination of primary sources for a secondary source to be considered reliable. The ones linked from this article don't even bother with which sources they're relying on and are for the most part clearly rather nationalist in their POV in describing the battle as "the most glorious military triumph in Korea's national history"[2] and "The forgotten glory of Koguryo"[3]. One of the links[4] doesn't even cite any figure at all, but is cited to look like it does. --85.227.238.121 (talk) 08:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm Korean. so i I'm not good at English

in chinese records. Battle of Salsu could be found in Book of Sui and Zizhi tongjian

and Goguryeo's record is based on Chinaese record.

in Samguk Sagi. Writer reveal Goguryeo's record is based on Chinaese record.

( 雖有乙支文德之智略張保皐之義勇微中國之書則泯滅而無聞 ) - Samguk Sagi -volumes 43

At last. Chinese Wikipedia ( http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%96%A9%E6%B0%B4%E4%B9%8B%E6%88%B0 ) is counterevidence 'nationalist in their POV' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.118.4.204 (talk) 08:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

possible change of nameICIWORLD (talk)

The name of this battle in Korean is 살수대첩 meaning great battle of Salsu (there are only two other battles that have this suffix 대첩 in Korean war history. I feel as though the name should be more reflective of this i.e. "the Great Battle of Salsu" thought??? 07:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)ICIWORLD

Drowning of the Sui troops

From many of the Korean sources I've read (including the Korean wikipedia article for the Battle of Salsu, the Sui troops were not actually caught in a massive trap involving damming a river. According to the Korean wikipedia article (with its proper reference), this is a popular misconception (even among Koreans) that arose in relatively recent records. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.113.109.45 (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

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Confusing phrase

What does "secret disposal" mean? It's in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the History section. Stara Marusya (talk) 22:15, 30 December 2022 (UTC)