Controversy Project
The Western Regions are vast, more than 6,000 miles from east to west, more than 4,000 miles from north to south, bordering the Hexi Corridor in the east and the Persian Plateau in the west. There are mountains in the north and south of the Western Regions, and there are rivers.
Aside from other places, only the Tianshan Mountains stretch for nearly 2,000 miles from east to west, and hundreds of miles from north to south. The ice peaks and snow ridges on the top of the mountains are like white jade screens towering across the sky, and the snow melts when the spring is warm, surging torrents, rushing down, irrigating large and small oases.
In addition to the high mountains, the Western Regions are deserts, among which the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin is a nightmare for the people of the Western Regions. The Tarim Basin is bounded by the Tianshan Mountains, the Pamir Plateau, the Kunlun Mountains and the Altun Mountains in a counterclockwise direction. The Tarim Basin is elliptical in shape, with a maximum length of about 1,500 kilometers from east to west and a maximum width of about 600 kilometers from north to south, with a total area of about 530,000 square kilometers. The altitude of the Tarim Basin is between 800 and 1300 meters, the terrain is high in the west and low in the east, and the salt in the east (Puchanghai, Lop Nur) is the lowest point in the basin and the center of salt accumulation, with an altitude of about 780 meters.
The Tarim Basin is bordered by foothills, Gobi and oases (alluvial plains), and in the center is the Taklamakan Desert, the farthest point from the ocean in the world. Because the Tarim Basin is surrounded by high mountains, it is difficult for the moist air currents of the ocean to reach, and the basin receives very little annual rainfall, and the Taklamakan Desert almost does not rain all year round.
The Taklamakan Desert is the tenth largest desert in the world, with a maximum length of about 1,000 kilometers from east to west, a maximum width of about 400 kilometers from north to south, and an area of about 330,000 square kilometers.
Gu Zuyu, a historical geographer of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote: If you want to protect Qinlong, you must consolidate Hexi; If you want to consolidate the west of the river, you must reject the Western Regions. It means that if you want to keep Qinlong, you must stabilize Hexi, and if you want to stabilize Hexi, you must open up the Western Regions.
During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Western Regions were divided into 36 countries. Li Guangli set out for the second time to conquer the Dawan Kingdom, Tuluntai, Zhu Dawan, and destroy Yucheng, raising the power of the Han Dynasty in the green mountains (Pamir Plateau) and beyond, and the Western Regions were terrified. Later, the Han Dynasty set up the Western Regions Protectorate and included the countries of the Western Regions under its jurisdiction.
During the Tang Dynasty, the Anxi Protectorate was set up to govern the four towns of Anxi: Qiuzi, Yanzhi, Khotan, and Shule, with a strength of 24,000.
When the jurisdiction of the Anxi Protectorate was the widest, it stretched from Jinshan (now Altai Mountain) in the east, to Xihai (now Caspian Sea) in the west, across the east and west of the Green Mountains, east to Xizhou, and west to the vast area of the Yaozhishui (now Syr Darya) and Wuhushui (now Amu Darya) basins, which was larger than the Western Regions controlled by the Han Dynasty.
However, in the Ming Dynasty, it failed to control the Western Regions again, and the combat effectiveness of the early Ming Dynasty was comparable to that of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
In 1368 (the twenty-eighth year of Emperor Yuan Shun and the first year of Hongwu of Ming Taizu), Zhu Yuanzhang was proclaimed emperor in Yingtian (now Nanjing), and the country name was Daming.
In 1368, the Ming general Xu Da conquered Dadu (present-day Beijing), Emperor Yuan Shun retreated to Shangdu, and the Yuan Dynasty fell. In 1369, the general of the Ming army, Chang Yuchun, conquered Shangdu (Kaiping, now the Blue Banner of the Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia).
Zhu Yuanzhang's troops attacked westward in three ways, and after several major battles, they basically controlled the Guanlong and Hexi regions, and although the Ming army achieved military victories, it still had a long way to go to gain a firm foothold for a long time. Since the Hexi Corridor was already a mixture of nomadic and agricultural land, the proportion of the farming population in the local area was not dominant, and the Ming Dynasty usually reorganized the surrendered Mongol tribes into "guards" to rule.
In Zhu Di's era, the Ming army was still strategically advantageous, and the five northern expeditions made the remaining Mongols dare not meet the Ming army head-on, but the situation was different after Zhu Di's death.
In 1449 (the fourteenth year of the orthodoxy of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty), Zhu Qizhen of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty was bewitched by the eunuch Wang Zhen, regardless of the opposition of the ministers, and led an army of 500,000 people to conquer in person. As a result, the Ming army was surrounded by the Wara army in Tumubao, Ming Yingzong was captured, dozens of ministers with the army were killed in battle, and the main force of the three major battalions of the Beijing Division was lost, which was known as the "Tumubao Change" in history.
After that, the Ming Dynasty used troops abroad, mainly defending, and the north direction could not prevent the remnants of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, and the northwest was unable to take care of it at all.
Everyone should have some impression of the "Wuliangha Three Guards", these three guards are the Mongol tribes assigned by the Ming court to guard the northeast. Also in the northwest direction, the Ming Dynasty also set up seven guards, namely: Andingwei, Aduanwei, Qu Xianwei, Handongwei, Shazhouwei, Chijin Mongolian Wei, and Hamiwei. The leaders of these seven guards were all Mongol nobles without exception, and the Ming obviously did not expect them to expand their territory, maintain their loyalty to the Ming court, and hold their own jurisdiction. The Ming Dynasty wanted to stabilize the northwest first, wait for the destruction of the remnants of the Mongol forces in Mobei, and then turn back to strengthen the rule of the northwest, and even recover the Western Regions, but the Ming Dynasty did not control Mobei until its demise.
In 1509 (the fourth year of Zhengde of Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty), the Ministry of War commented on the "Seven Guards of Guanxi": "Xirong is strong, and it cannot be controlled since the Han and Tang dynasties." I built Hami, Chijin, and Handong Zhuwei in the court, and awarded officials and edicts, and the dog's teeth were systematic, not only breaking the right arm of the Huns, but also strengthening the western soil fence. That is to say, the Ming Dynasty followed the example of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty through the Western Regions, that is, "cut off the right arm of the Xiongnu", and cut off the connection between Mongolia and the Western Regions through the Seven Guards of Guanxi.
Before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Western Regions was the sphere of influence of the Chahatai Khanate, one of the four major Mongol khanates, and later the Turpan Khanate basically inherited the military power of the Chahatai Khanate. Judging from the distribution of the "Seven Guards of Kansai", even the Hamiwei, which is the most western, is only located in the eastern part of present-day Xinjiang, and the remaining six guards are either in Qinghai or Gansu, which are unable to exert military influence on the Western Regions. Moreover, "strong guests do not suppress the lord", the military pressure of the Turpan Khanate, which had the advantage of distance, on the "Seven Guards of Guanxi" never stopped for a moment, and in the third year of Jiajing, all the Seven Guards of Guanxi withdrew to the east of Jiayu Pass, and the Ming Dynasty's strategy for the Western Regions was declared bankrupt.
In general, the Ming Dynasty's management of the Western Regions tended to be conservative, and the root cause was "weakness". The main enemy of the Ming Dynasty was always due north, and even though the Mongol Empire no longer existed, the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, Tatar and Warat, still left the Ming Dynasty in a state of devastation.
The military center of gravity of the Ming Empire was long arranged in the area of Datong and Xuanfu, and even in the best period, it could only win over one faction and attack one faction against the Mongol tribes, and the fundamental solution to the problem would not be until the Qing Dynasty. After exhausting the Ming Dynasty for 276 years, the remnants of the Northern Yuan Dynasty were not destroyed, and the Ming Dynasty had no intention or ability to operate the Western Regions.