Is This The Most Lopsided Battle In History?

Outnumbered thirty to one and still prevailed

(Public domain)

History is littered with lopsided military victories where a vastly outnumbered force defies the odds and crushes a larger army. Some examples, like the Battle of Vienna (1683) and the Battle of Tours (732), have become legendary in the Western imagination due to the outmatched forces claiming victory. However, there is one battle that is perhaps the greatest example. The Battle of Salsu. This is not a well known battle. In fact, it has largely been forgotten in Western history. Despite that, the Battle of Salsu saw a Korean army destroy a Chinese army thirty times its size.

Background

The Battle of Salsu was fought between the forces of the Chinese Sui Dynasty and the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo. The Sui Dynasty invaded Goguryeo (northern Korea) with a vast army of 1.1 million men in the year 612 CE. This was supposed to be the final phase of a series of ongoing wars and conflicts between the Sui and the Goguryeo that began in 598. Up until this point, the wars had been costly and inconclusive. The wars were exasperating internal strife within China that was destabilizing the dynasty.

With the invasion, the Sui emperor, Emperor Yang, was hoping to crush the Goguryeo kingdoms once and for all and hold up a…