vrcanaries Chapter 64 Guo Xin
Chapter 64 Guo Xin
During the Zhenguan period of Emperor Taizong
Li Shimin was in tears, his trembling hands clutching his chest. He could hardly believe that they had held on for more than twenty years, and that they would continue to hold on!
Without reinforcements or supplies from the imperial court, how did the soldiers and civilians there manage to hold out for so many years amidst being surrounded by enemies?
The Tang Dynasty has truly failed these soldiers who guarded the Western Regions!
Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui exchanged a glance and sighed. Their emperor had cried so many times since the Tang Dynasty chapter was published. What should they do about the Western Regions?
Even if they were given food and weapons, could those people really win against Tibet with the full strength of the nation? Besides, the Tang Dynasty had already declined by then.
But those Tang soldiers and civilians shouldn't have died!
On the other side, Lin Ke suddenly received a message from the system.
999 System: Host, give me 100 million points, and I'll show you a time-travel function!
Lin Ke (waving his hand): More!!!
.......
Lin Ke's live stream wasn't over yet, and her voice continued to ring out.
"At this time, Dunhuang City had run out of food and supplies. In desperation, Yan Chao surrendered to Tubo on the condition that people would not be relocated to other places. However, Yan Chao underestimated the ruthlessness of the Tubo people. Not long after, they poisoned Yan Chao's boots and killed him (New Book of Tang, Biography of Tubo)."
"At this point, only Anxi and Beiting remained in the western part of the Tang Dynasty."
"In the same year, Li Yuanzhong, the Grand Protector of Beiting who had defended the Tang Dynasty for more than 20 years, passed away in May 787. After receiving the news, the Tang court ordered Yang Xigu, the acting military governor of Beiting, to succeed him as the Grand Protector of Beiting."
In 787 AD, the Tubo Kingdom proposed to fulfill the conditions of the previous Qingshui Alliance, return the Yanzhou, Xiazhou and other places that it had already occupied, and hoped that the two sides could continue the talks in Pingliangchuan.
"If Tibet were willing to return what it has already occupied, then these two places would have been fought for nothing. What are they after? It's easy to see if you think about it. Unfortunately, the Tang court actually believed it and didn't realize that this was a conspiracy carefully orchestrated by Tibet."
Li Erfeng of the Tang Dynasty: This emperor is truly speechless, why doesn't he use his brain!
"On the day of the alliance meeting, the Tibetan army, which had been lying in ambush, launched an attack on the Tang army. This event is known as the Pingliang Raid. The Tang border defense forces suffered heavy losses in this surprise attack. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Tibetans launched a large-scale offensive in the east and Anxi regions."
"In that year, Li Mi became prime minister. He proposed a marriage alliance with the Uyghurs to win over the Nanzhao Kingdom and jointly restrain the Tubo Kingdom. This suggestion was approved by Emperor Dezong of Tang, which relieved the military pressure on the border of the Tang Dynasty."
"But not long after, in the winter of 789 AD, the Tibetan Empire, allied with the three Karluk tribes who had migrated south, attacked the garrison in Beiting. The Uyghurs sent reinforcements, but they were defeated by the Tibetans."
"Around April of the following year, Tingzhou fell. Yang Xigu, the Grand Protector of Beiting, led more than 2,000 men to retreat to Xizhou. A few months later, Yang Xigu attempted to recapture Tingzhou, but was defeated by the Tubo. His forces were reduced to only a few hundred men."
"Yang Xigu was later assassinated by the Uyghurs and died. After the Tang army in Beiting was destroyed, Xizhou, which had lost its commander, finally fell in 792 AD. The only remaining Anxi lost its connection to the Uyghur route, and Chang'an never received any news from Anxi again."
Between 788 and 790 AD, the monk Wukong, who had returned from India, mentioned in his memoir, *Wukong's Journey to India*, that he met Guo Xin, the commander of the Tang army in Anxi, when he passed through the region. This was the last time Guo Xin appeared in historical records.
"The fate of Guo Xin, the last Protector-General of Anxi, and the Tang soldiers of the four garrisons under his command, after holding out for 28 years, has become a historical mystery."
"The Khotan Documents, unearthed in later archaeological excavations, mention that in 802 AD, the Uyghurs attacked Shule City, and Tang Dynasty general Luo Tijie led 2,000 troops in a planned attack on Khotan."
"Perhaps this also shows that at that time, Shule and Khotan had been captured by the Tibetans, but Kucha was still in the hands of the Tang army."
"In 809 AD, the poets Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen interviewed an old soldier who had fled from Anxi back to the Central Plains and composed two poems entitled 'Bound the Rong.'"
"Based on this assumption, the journey from Anxi to Chang'an took one year, leading to the prediction that Anxi was finally lost and Guo Xin was killed in battle in 808 AD."
"If this speculation is true, then we should start counting from 764, the year Liangzhou fell."
"These Tang soldiers who guarded Anxi have transformed from ambitious young men into white-haired veterans on this land, and they have persevered for more than forty years with their own passion."
"It's hard to imagine what kind of belief they had that kept them going when they couldn't get reinforcements from the Tang Dynasty."
As later generations have said:
The city is full of white-haired people, yet they would rather die than discard their long-handled swords.
Having fought alone for fifty years, how could I ever forget the Great Tang?
A lone minister stands amidst thousands of miles of deserted lands, surrounded by soldiers with white hair.
Born a Han Chinese, I will die a Tang soldier.
Everyone in the Wan Dynasty lived in Bengbu. They had a very difficult time. If it weren't for the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion, how could the once glorious Tang Dynasty have reached this point!
This is all Li Longji's fault for wanting to lie down and give up!