Yuan Zhi depicted the prosperous scene of the Hexi Corridor in the past, where it was densely populated, the mulberry was dense, the wine was ripe and happy, and the red and green flags were vermilion.
Downstairs is called Zhuo Nu, and the name of the guest at the head of the building is not worried. The villagers don't know the bitterness of parting, and most of them are stagnation and travel. However, all this beauty was shattered in the Anshi Rebellion, the war shattered the prosperity of the prosperous era, and Hexi fell into the flames of war, which opened a century-old painful history.
In the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty army was defeated at the beginning, and famous generals such as Feng Changqing, Gao Xianzhi, and Ge Shuhan fought with the Anshi rebels and lost one after another. As soon as Tang Xuanzong saw that the situation was not right, he ran away and hid in Shu.
After Tang Suzong ascended the throne in Lingwu (now Yinchuan, Ningxia), he organized ** with the assistance of a group of Wenchen generals, but the main force of the Tang army in the early stage of the war was almost defeated, how can this be rectified?
The Tang army could only demolish the east wall to make up the west wall, and send elite soldiers stationed in Helong to reinforce and fight against the Anshi rebels. Therefore, the border defense of Hexi was suddenly empty, and the perennial tiger-eyed Tubo saw that when it came to the fat meat in its mouth, how could it be allowed to slip away, so in the next few years, it took the opportunity to send troops to invade dozens of states in Hexi and Longyou in the Tang Dynasty.
According to historical records, Tubo "trapped, Kuo, He, Shan, Tao, Min, Qin, Cheng, Wei and other prefectures, and took the land of Hexi and Longyou." ......In the past few years, dozens of states in the northwest have fallen one after another, from the west of Fengxiang to the north of Pizhou, all of which are left-handed."
In the first year of Guangde (763), Tubo sent 200,000 troops to kill all the way from Hexi to Chang'an.
The Tibetan people were arrogant, and after breaking through Chang'an, they looted the troubled capital of the country, set it on fire, and also supported Li Chenghong, the king of Guangwu, as the emperor, intending to establish a puppet court.
Miao Jinqing, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, was sick in bed, and the Tubo people dragged him to the palace and threatened him to take the lead and obey the arrangement. Miao Jinqing glared angrily and kept silent, and the Tubo people did not dare to kill this old minister easily for a while.
Soon after, the famous general Guo Ziyi led 30 cavalry to the front line, quickly gathered the fleeing Tang army, and led the army to recover Chang'an again. Tang Dynasty Sect finally had a false alarm and ended this unexpected "holiday".
The Tibetan invasion of Chang'an in Guo Ziyi's portrait was no less than the impact of the Anshi Rebellion for the Tang Dynasty. After the poet Du Fu, who was wandering in Shu, learned of the news, he wrote in the poem "Relieving Boredom": "The four seas have not disarmed the army for ten years, and the dog Rong has also returned to Xianjing. ”
Although the Tang Dynasty was in flames for many years after the Anshi Rebellion, the invasion of Tubo undoubtedly made the Tang Dynasty feel the same threat as the destruction of the country in the Western Zhou Dynasty. One of the important reasons why the Tibetans were able to easily break through Chang'an was that they invaded the Hexi Corridor, which caused the Tang Dynasty to lose the barrier west of Gyeonggi, the door was wide open, and the connection with the Western Regions was also cut off, and the towns of Anxi and Beiting were isolated and exotic.
Many people of insight knew that Hexi was an important frontier area, and they sent troops to the imperial court to recapture Hexi, but the Tang Dynasty obviously had not eased up. Du Fu was deeply worried about this, and in the late Tang Dynasty, the Hexi Corridor was still in the hands of Tubo, and "Little Du" Du Mu was also angry in "River Huang".
During the reign of Emperor Zong of the Tang Dynasty, Prime Minister Yuan Zai had a deep understanding of the importance of Hexi, and suggested that Yuanzhou (now Guyuan, Ningxia) should be used as a starting point to gradually recover the Helong region, and advocated that measures should be taken to alleviate the troubles in the northwest as soon as possible.
However, Wonjae's character was questioned, his advice was not adopted, and he was later convicted by the emperor. Despite this, Yuan Zai still has a heart of concern for the country. The two armies of Tang and Tibet confronted each other, and the Tang army could not take much advantage, and the imperial court had already admitted it.
In the fourth year of Jianzhong (783), when Tang Dezong, the son of Tang Dynasty Zong, was forced to make peace with Tubo, and the two sides signed the Qingshui Covenant. When the national boundaries were negotiated, the Tang Dynasty recognized the Tibetan occupation of Shazhou (present-day Dunhuang, Gansu) and other places in the Helong area, and although they were unwilling, they could only give up some land.
Bai Juyi later wrote in a poem: "Liangzhou has been in the past 40 years, and Helong has invaded 7,000 miles. Usually Anxi is thousands of miles away, and today the border defense is in Fengxiang. "Since most of the land in Hexi was allocated to Tibet in the Qingshui Alliance, the Tang Dynasty's northwestern frontier defense was in vain, and the emperor had to defend against the Tibetan attack at Fengxiang (present-day Baoji, Shaanxi), not far from his home.
However, soon after the Qingshui Alliance, the Tibetans broke the treaty and started war again. Tang Dezong, an honest man, had no choice but to resume the state of war with Tubo, and Hexi became a long-standing problem.
Tang Xianzong was one of the more accomplished emperors in the Middle Tang Dynasty, during his reign, Tubo invaded Jingzhou (now Jingchuan, Gansu), Yanzhou (now Dingbian, Shaanxi) and other places, Xianzong sent generals to defeat them many times, and also planned to recover Hexi.
But this emperor loved alchemy, and in the later part of his reign, he was addicted to elixir, his mental state was not very stable, and the government was controlled by eunuchs, and he returned to the west before he had time to go west.
Many years later, Du Mu also lamented this in the poem "River Huang".
Image source: Photo.com. 2 The Hexi Corridor has fallen for a hundred years, and the people are living in dire straits. In the second year of Jianzhong (781), Tubo captured Shazhou. The Tang general Yan Dynasty led the army and people in the city to resist for many years, and when the ammunition and food were exhausted, Tubo agreed to surrender out of the city, but he not only hurt the local people, but also poisoned the Yan Dynasty.
Yan Chao was one of the retrograde officials in Hexi at that time, and his predecessor, Zhou Ding, lost his fighting spirit after being surrounded by Tibet, advocated burning the city and fled eastward. The Yan Dynasty captured Zhou Ding, strangled him to death with a rope, and then took charge of the state affairs and commanded Shazhou to resist Tibet.
The military and civilians of Shazhou have been defending it for ten years. After the Tibetan conquered the prefectures of Hexi, they took the Zhuangding into slavery, ordered them to plough the fields and graze, and worked endlessly.
According to history, during the first year of Tang Zhen (785-805), the Tubo army captured more than 10,000 Han people in Hexi and brought them back to their territory as slaves. As they passed through a stretch of canyon, the grief-stricken Han captives stopped and bid farewell to their homeland to the east.
Hundreds of people cried until they fell into a coma, and some people would rather die than give in, jumping off a cliff to their deaths. The Tubo people also practiced culture, strictly prohibiting the people of Hexi from wearing Han costumes and speaking Chinese.
However, under the oppression of Tibet, every Spring Festival, the people of Hexi prefectures still secretly wear Han costumes, worship their ancestors, and worship to the east. I'd rather be a peace dog than a troubled world.
The call of the people of Hexi to resist has been echoing in the Tang border pass. During the Kaicheng period (836-840), the envoys of the Tang Dynasty passed through Hexi, and the local people wept loudly when they saw the Tang envoys and asked: "Does the emperor still miss the trapped creatures?" ”
What makes people even more infuriating is that the Tang Dynasty was cowardly and incompetent, not only unable to send troops to recover the lost territory, but also suspicious and wantonly abused the people of Hexi who fled back at the risk of death. Bai Juyi, who is good at acupuncture and disadvantages, wrote a poem "Binding Rong People", which said: Since Yunxiang manages the Liangyuan, it has declined in the middle of the calendar.
For 40 years, he wore a fur fur and tied a wool belt. ......Wufan was imprisoned to think of the Han land, and the Han was robbed as a captive. During the reign of Emperor Zong of the Tang Dynasty, the Han people in Hexi who were forced to fall under the rule of Tubo, although they were wearing beards, still had a passion for serving the country, and for decades people continued to flee from Hexi to the border of the Tang Dynasty, but they were captured by the border generals of the Tang army who were not divided into black and white, and asked the court for merit and reward as prisoners of Tubo.
Bai Juyi criticized the border generals who did evil, and lamented for the innocent people of Wubo: "Since ancient times, this injustice should not have been done, and the Chinese heart is Tubo. With the fall of Hexi, the Western Regions, which were further away from Chang'an, also cut off contact with the imperial court.
The Anxi and Beiting Prefectures, which govern the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, have been defending for many years in the face of the tsunami-like arrival of the Tibetan army, and finally fell in the wind and sand. Guo Ziyi's nephew Guo Xin, since he was young, was ordered to stick to the four towns of Anxi (Broken Leaves, Qiuzi, Khotan, Shule), and the young green silk was boiled into white hair, and spent more than 40 years.
After the Hexi Corridor was blocked by Tibet, the hometown of the East became a distant place where Anxi soldiers could not return. When it came to the final battle with Tubo, Guo Xin and the last remaining soldiers were all gray-haired and burned their lives in the lonely domain.
After the Tang Dynasty severed its ties with the Western Regions due to the fall of Hexi, some Western Regions states close to the Tang Dynasty fell one after another. This profoundly influenced the development of the region in the following centuries, including religious and cultural transformations.
Qiuci, Khotan, Shule and other places were important Buddhist centers in the Western Regions before the Tang Dynasty.
After the fall of Hexi, the veterans of the four towns of Anxi had no one to help. At this time, the poet's verses evoke people's painful memories of the war, and also reveal the desire for famous generals.
They hope that someone will lead them to regain their lost land and return to their homeland. In this context, Zhang Yichao came into being.
The homeland of Hexi fell for a hundred years, and the people were subjected to foreign rule, and finally regained the lost territory under the leadership of Zhang Yichao. He was unwilling to cede the land and claim the king, but chose to go east to Chang'an and win the imperial court.
However, the road to Chang'an was difficult and dangerous, and the investigation of Tibet was even more difficult. At this time, the Hexi monk Hong Wei came up with a plan to let Wuzhen act as Zhang Yichao's messenger and use the identity of the monk as a cover to avoid the interrogation of the Tubo people.
Wu Zhen went all the way to the east, facing the vast desert and the unknown future, he only had firm beliefs, hoping to tell the imperial court about the heroic deeds of the soldiers and civilians in Hexi, so that the people of the world would know that they would always be the people of the Tang Dynasty.
Finally, with the help of Li Pi, Wuzhen successfully arrived in Chang'an and conveyed the demands of the people of Hexi to the Tang Dynasty. After that, Zhang Yichao sent envoys to the court again to win the victory, and presented the maps and household registrations of the eleven prefectures to show his loyalty to the Tang Dynasty.
This event was undoubtedly a ray of light for the Tang Dynasty and full of hope for the empire. After learning that the soldiers and civilians of Hexi had come to take refuge, Tang Xuanzong was overjoyed and sighed: "The generals from Guanxi are not vain!" ”
Du Mu also praised Zhang Yichao's exploits with allusions to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and King Xuan of Zhou, and lamented his bravery and wisdom. The Tang Dynasty later established the Guiyi Army and granted Zhang Yichao the title of the Guiyi Army's envoy, giving him a high degree of autonomy.
Under the leadership of Zhang Yichao, the Guiyi army resisted the Tibetan and Uighur armies in the Hexi region, and recaptured Liangzhou, an important town in Hexi, bringing hope to this long-lost peaceful land.
Zhang Yichao: The Returnee of the Century-old Left In the Hexi Corridor, Zhang Yichao is a respectable name. He not only did his best to consolidate the border defense, but also restored the Tang Dynasty etiquette system and Han customs in the local area, making "a hundred years of left-hand service, restored to the crown; The relics of the ten counties are all out of the soup fire".
His deeds have been widely praised and he is known as the "Hero of Hexi". However, his story is not just a legend of heroism. After running Hexi for many years, Zhang Yichao in his later years learned the news of the death of his brother Zhang Yitan, and rushed to Chang'an at the age of 69.
This move was to replace his brother as the new hostage of the Guiyi Army, as a sign of loyalty to the imperial court. As a highly independent place**, the Guiyi Army was inevitably suspicious of the imperial court, so it "entered the pledge first and expressed loyalty to the country; Aoi's heart is to the sun, and God's integrity is the only answer he has to the imperial court.
Zhang Yichao's efforts were not in vain. In the eighth year of Xiantong (867), he was promoted to Situ by the Tang Dynasty and enjoyed generous courtesies in Chang'an. In the years that followed, he spent the rest of his life peacefully away from the war.
When he died, Tubo had already been in the midst of internal and external troubles, but the Tang Dynasty was unable to continue to move westward, and it was difficult to use the land west of the river to recover the Western Regions. At this time, less than 40 years were left before the fall of the Tang Dynasty, uprisings continued to break out in various places, and the next era of disintegration - five dynasties and ten kingdoms was quietly kicking off.
The Guiyi Army, which Zhang Yichao was concerned about during his lifetime, was gradually forgotten in the war, and it was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that the states of Hexi were annexed by the Western Xia regime. The history of a hundred years of sinking and heroic rise has long been engraved on this land of yellow sand.
Zhang Yichao's story tells us that no matter what the environment is, we must stick to our beliefs and give everything we have for the benefit of the country and the people.
His spirit will always inspire us to move forward.