When the time came to the year when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was 36 years old.
Wei Qing had defeated the Xiongnu many times and recovered the Hetao Plain, and the main force of the Xiongnu Shan Yu also retreated to the depths of the desert to avoid the advance of the Han army.
Zhang Qian had returned from the Western Regions and described a vast new world to the Han Dynasty. There were not only possible allies of the Han Dynasty, but also many things that the Han Dynasty had never seen.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set his sights on the Hexi Corridor.
There are more than 100,000 Hun cavalry entrenched here, and the largest tribes are the Hun Evil King and the Hutu King.
Taking the Hexi Corridor can first remove the threat of the Xiongnu to the Han Dynasty's border in the west, second, it can open up the road from the Han Dynasty to the Western Regions, and third, it can obtain a good horse breeding land.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not let the general Wei Qing go on the expedition again.
The generals he chose for this battle shocked the world.
That is only 20-year-old Huo Qu's disease.
01, Huo Quai's first battle in Hexi.
In the second year of Yuanzhan (121 BC), in early spring, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered Huo Qubing to lead 10,000 elite cavalry to attack the Hexi Corridor.
It was a temptation.
It is not only to test the strength of the Hun cavalry in the Hexi Corridor, but also to test whether Huo Quai, a young general who is only 20 years old and has led 800 cavalry to shine, has the ability to control a large army of 10,000 people.
Huo Quzhi handed over an amazing answer sheet.
He led this cavalry, like a sharp knife, into the Hexi Corridor, crossed the Wulu Mountain, defeated the Pu, crossed the Hunu River, and only took 6 days to fight 5 Xiongnu kingdoms.
His attitude towards these kingdoms was that "those who are afraid of the people are frightened", which means that he confessed that he was strict with resistance, and as long as the Huns showed obedience and did not fight the Han army, he would not attack them or plunder their property, and put all his energy on dealing with the resisting Huns.
This attitude of carrots and sticks made Huo Quzhi's march extremely smooth. At the foot of Gaolan Mountain, he engaged his greatest opponents in this battle, the Xiongnu's Zhelan and Luhu kings.
It was a brutal bloody battle.
Huo Qubing eventually annihilated the armies of King Zhelan and King Luhu, and cut off the heads of these two kings.
And the price paid by Huo Qubing was: the division rate minus tithes.
Meaning, the 10,000 cavalry he led lost about 7 10, or 7,000 people.
In the era of cold weapons, generally speaking, if an army's battle losses are about two or three percent, its morale will collapse. Huo Quai's battle loss was 7 percent, but he was still able to kill the two kings of the Huns, and safely withdrew from the Hexi Corridor where the army of more than 100,000 Huns was entrenched, which can be seen that his control over the army has reached a terrifying level.
And Huo Quai's results this time were quite brilliant: he completely annihilated the army of the two kings of the Huns, killed 8,960 enemies, and robbed King Hugh Tu's sacrifice to the heavens.
This was also the first time that the cavalry of the Han Dynasty attacked the Hexi Corridor, and for the first time had a preliminary understanding of the terrain and enemy situation of the Hexi Corridor.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was very satisfied with the results of Huo Quzhi's battle, and added 2,000 households to Huo Quzhi's food estate.
02, Huo Quai's World War II Hexi.
In the summer of the same year, Huo Qubing returned to the Hexi Corridor.
Compared with the in-depth temptation of 10,000 lonely troops in the spring, this time Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty invested a bigger effort, and the purpose was obviously to take the Hexi Corridor in one fell swoop.
He sent 4 generals in one go.
In addition to Huo Quai, who made great contributions in the spring, he also sent a veteran general to cooperate with Huo Quai, that is, Wei Qing's old friend Gongsun Ao. In Wei Qing's several battles, Gongsun Ao can be seen, and Gongsun Ao was also made a marquis under Wei Qing.
Huo Qubing and Gongsun Ao led tens of thousands of cavalry into the Hexi Corridor in two ways, preparing to attack the Xiongnu in front and rear.
The flying general Li Guang and Zhang Qian, who had previously sent an envoy to the Western Regions, led 14,000 cavalry to exit the fortress from Youbeiping. Their purpose was not the Hexi Corridor, but in the other direction, which played a role in containing the Xiongnu.
However, the development of the war situation was not smooth. After Li Guang and Zhang Qian separated, they led 4,000 cavalry and ran head-on into the army of King Zuoxian of the Xiongnu. By the time Zhang Qian arrived late with the remaining 10,000 people, Li Guang had already fought to annihilate the entire army.
And Huo Quai's and Gongsun Ao's journey was also full of accidents.
After Huo Quzhi arrived at his destination, he found that he couldn't contact Gongsun Ao. Gongsun Ao, who was originally scheduled to cooperate with Huo Quai, actually got lost.
Between withdrawing from the Hexi Corridor to keep it safe, and adventuring to go deep alone, Huo Qubing chose the latter.
He crossed Juyan, passed through the Xiaoyue clan, and unexpectedly appeared at the foot of the Qilian Mountain, engaged the powerful Hun cavalry.
This time, Huo Quai's army killed 30,200 enemies, captured 5 kings of the Xiongnu, 5 queen mothers, 59 people from the Shan Yu clan and princes, and 63 Xiongnu ** people such as Xiangguo, generals, danghu, and Duwei.
In the course of the battle, 2,500 people surrendered to Huo Quai's army.
This is the most brilliant result achieved by the Han Dynasty since its counterattack against the Xiongnu.
And Huo Qu's disease, compared with spring, has improved again. In the spring, his battle loss was 7 percent, and in this battle, his battle loss was 3 percent.
So, what is the number of troops led by Huo Qubing in this battle?
The history books do not record specific data, only saying "tens of thousands". Judging from the Han army's habit of attacking in the past, I guess it was around 30,000 people.
Huo Qubing once again proved his combat ability in the large corps. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who was overjoyed, added 5,000 households to him.
In addition to Huo Qubing receiving a reward, Huo Quzhi's subordinates also gained a lot, and there were 3 marquises.
We can notice that the three people who followed Huo Quai's feudal marquis, although Zhao Ponu was a Han Chinese, grew up in the Xiongnu since he was a child.
Gao Buzhi and many servants are all Hun generals.
This is also the first time in the history books that the Xiongnu generals followed the generals of the Han Dynasty to attack the Xiongnu and were crowned marquis for merit.
From here, we can see that the proportion of Xiongnu generals under Huo Qubing is quite large. He also has a lot of trust in them and makes them his right-hand man.
This is also one of the reasons why Huo Quzhi never got lost in the vast grasslands and deserts, and repeatedly attacked the Xiongnu with long-distance attacks.
However, although Huo Qubing has achieved fruitful results along the way, after all, he is a lone army, and Gongsun Ao, who was originally scheduled to fight with him, failed to arrive.
The Han Dynasty failed to complete its stated goal of taking the Hexi Corridor.
Huo Quai's illness will have to return to the Hexi Corridor sooner or later.
03, Huo Quai's three battles in Hexi.
In the course of Huo Quzhi's two sorties in the spring and summer of the Hexi Corridor, we can pay attention to two records.
First, Huo Quzhi's combat principle was to "take the heavy and the people are afraid of the people", and only attacked the Huns who were hostile to the Han Dynasty.
Second, in the summer war, 2,500 people voluntarily surrendered to the Han Dynasty. This should be the positive effect of Huo Qu's previous combat principle.
And the more positive effect was also the foreshadowing for the decision of the two biggest kings in the Hexi Corridor - the King of Hun Evil and the King of Xiu Tu - to surrender to the Han Dynasty.
It was the demonstration of these people in front of them that let them know that there was a way to survive if they surrendered to the Han Dynasty.
When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty celebrated Huo Quai's achievement, Shan Yu of the Xiongnu was also furious.
In just half a year, the Hexi Corridor was broken twice by a 20-year-old Han Dynasty general, losing tens of thousands of people.
Xiongnu Shan Yu believed that this was the result of the incompetence of the Hun Evil King and the Hutu King. He summoned the two kings to the court of the Huns and wanted to kill them.
Of course, the Evil King and the King of Hutu will not sit still. After analyzing the situation together, they decided to send an envoy and surrender to the Han Dynasty.
Emperor Wu of Han was not carried away by the victory.
He thought of a possibility: the embarrassed and angry Huns might lead an army to attack the Han border under the pretext of surrender.
For the sake of safety, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty asked Huo Quai, a great hero of the two battles in Hexi, to lead 10,000 cavalry to surrender. If the Huns really surrendered, they would naturally be happy. If the Huns surrendered fakely, Huo Qubing could fight back on the spot.
Emperor Wu of Han was right in his concerns. Before Huo Qubing came to the Hexi Corridor, things changed.
King Hutu thought about it, and felt that he had suffered little loss in the two battles of Hexi, and that he would not kill himself, and that it was better to continue to be the king of the grassland than to send people under the fence of the Han Dynasty.
But the evil king did not give him a chance to repent, and directly killed him and took over his army.
King Hutu's army was already fluctuating and did not want to surrender, and when he saw Huo Quai's army from afar, he couldn't help but feel frightened and wanted to flee.
Huo Qubing immediately made a decision and galloped into the camp of the Evil King, making sure that he was going to surrender sincerely.
Then, Huo Qubing killed the people who wanted to flee on the spot, and after killing more than 8,000 enemies, he controlled the rest of the army.
Huo Qubing brilliantly completed the surrender task, and the 40,000 Xiongnu army successfully returned to Han.
This was the first large-scale surrender of the Huns to the Han Dynasty since the Han-Hungarian war.
Since then, the Hexi Corridor, a narrow passage connecting the Han Dynasty to the Western Regions, has been incorporated into China's territory for the first time in history.
04. The significance of the Hexi Corridor to the Silk Road.
If we open the map, we can find that the Hexi Corridor is backed by the Qilian Mountains, the southwest is the lofty mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the north is the vast desert.
Only the Hexi Corridor is a treasure land sandwiched between mountains and deserts, with abundant water and grass, flat terrain, and can be used for both nomadic and agricultural purposes.
If the people of the Han Dynasty wanted to go to the Western Regions, of course, they could choose to cross the mountains or cross the vast desert. But in the Han Dynasty, it was a difficult journey of nine deaths and a lifetime, and the number of people who could pass through it was limited.
Only the Hexi Corridor is a smooth road to the Western Regions, and it is the only passage that allows the army to pass.
When the Hexi Corridor was in the hands of the Huns, Zhang Qian went back and forth in the Western Regions, and it took a full 13 years to fall into the hands of the Huns twice, more than 100 people traveled, and only 2 people returned.
With the Hexi Corridor, the Han Dynasty had the hardware conditions to smoothly resist the Western Regions and even control the Western Regions.
It can be said that the Hexi Corridor can be called the throat of the Silk Road, and without the Hexi Corridor, there would be no Silk Road.
Without the Hexi Corridor, there would have been no Zhang Qian's second mission to the Western Regions.
It's a pity that Huo Quai, the young general who opened up the Hexi Corridor, failed to see the prosperous scene of the Han Dynasty connecting the Western Regions.
He didn't even get to see Zhang Qian's second mission to the Western Regions.
This is an eternal regret on the Silk Road. History