February**Dynamic Incentive Plan Whoever stands in the way, will marry whomever he wants: peaceful diplomacy under the dangerous situation of Cao's Guiyi Army.
In 914 A.D., Shi Cao Yijin, the governor of Shazhou, replaced the rule of the Zhang family in the Guasha region, and immediately canceled the national title of Dunhuang State in the Western Han Dynasty, restored the establishment of the Guiyi Army, and led the affairs of Guasha Prefecture as the official name of the Guiyi Army (official name of the Tang Dynasty). At that time, Dunhuang was trapped in a dilemma of "surrounded by six sides and looking at the dragon", whether it was to open the way or to hold on to the infant city, it did not seem to be a good strategy.
At this time, the Guiyi Army has to take a unique path.
Surrounded by six sides and six sides, the eyes are cut off and the dragon pier is seen.
According to the mural painting in Cave 98 of the Mogao Grottoes built by Cao Yijin, the portrait of the members of the Zhang family has the largest number of all surnames, and it can be inferred that this power exchange between the Cao family and the Zhang family should be relatively peaceful.
The interior of the 98th cave of Mogao Grottoes, the south mural Cao Yijin father and son offering statue of eight bodies and two attendants, and the north mural Zhang Yichao, Suo Xun and other offering statues. ** Dunhuang Academy.
It is worth mentioning here that Cao Yijin's original name was Cao Rengui, and after Quan knew the soldiers, he changed his name to Cao Yijin. On the issue of the Cao family's affiliation, there are different views in the historical circles. In "Cao Liangcai Miao Zhenzan and Preface", it is stated that Cao Yijin is the queen of Cao Shi in Qian County, Bozhou. The Cao clan of Qiaojun is the surname of the Central Plains, that is, the Cao Wei royal family at the end of the Three Kingdoms. However, some historians believe that the theory of the descendants of the Cao family in Qiaojun may have appeared in order to elevate the status of the Cao family, and it is also possible that they came from the Cao family in the nine surnames of Sogdian Zhaowu in the Western Regions (including Cao, An, Shi, Kang, Shi, Luo, Bai, Mi, and He), that is, the descendants of the Sogdians (that is, the Hu people known to them, who were good at business and had long traveled on the Silk Road between Central Asia and China). The well-known An Lushan, Shi Siming, Mi Fu, etc., are all Sogdians. ）
Sogdian frescoes from the 6th-8th centuries A.D. at the ruins of the city of Pianji Kent (the ruins of an ancient Sogdian city in Central Asia, now located in Tajikistan), which reflect the hedonistic life of the Sogdian aristocracy.
After Cao Yijin took over Guasha, after careful consideration, he made the following judgment: Although the Dunhuang State of the Western Han Dynasty was named a country, it could only govern the land of two states, and it could not lead more than 10,000 people, and it was difficult to survive between the Datan, Tubo, and Uighurs.
Regimes such as Datan and Tubo have a very broad geographical depth, and they can advance when they win, and they also have a place to retreat when they lose, and behind them are either the sparsely populated ** plateau, or the vast and boundless Mobei grassland. On the other hand, Dunhuang is trapped in a corner, and there is no way to retreat. As for the war against the Uighurs, the reason for the success and failure was that the Uighurs had the Central Plains Dynasty as their backers. Therefore, the most rational way to do it is to reopen the Silk Road, gain contact with the Central Plains Dynasty, obtain canonization, and hug the thighs. Although the Tang Dynasty has died, and the spiritual pillar of the former powerful "People's Heart Tang" has collapsed, relatively speaking, the hearts of the people in Hexi still follow the Central Plains Dynasty as the right one. 
Regimes such as Da Tan and Tubo can advance when they win, and there is a place to retreat when they are defeated, and the picture above is a map of Da Tan and Tubo of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. ** Tan Qixiang, Historical Atlas of China
Cao Yijin's idea of connecting the Central Plains inherited Zhang Yichao's strategy, but the way to reconnect the Silk Road was very different from Zhang Yichao and others. With the experience of Zhang Chengfeng's reckless use of force and the destruction of his ideals, Cao Yijin believed that it was not a good strategy to open the way by war. Therefore, he decided to find a new way and take a new path - in-laws.
Cao Yijin's network of in-laws spread throughout Hexi. Before he ascended to the throne, he married Suo Xun's daughter and had a relationship with Suo and Zhang. Later, he married the daughter of the Song family in Guangping, and the family's status rose steadily. After taking office, he used the in-law policy to a great effect, pursuing the strategy of "whoever stands in the way, I will marry whomever I want".
He canceled the Western Han Dynasty Dunhuang State, which was a big country, and restored the original Guiyi Army system, like Zhang Huaishen and others, first claimed that the Guiyi Army was left behind, and then asked the imperial court to officially canonize it.
But at this time, the question arises, who is the imperial court?
If the previous Zhang family's Guiyi army family was dedicated to the Tang Dynasty, the Later Liang, who was in charge of the Central Plains at this time, would be a thief who usurped the Tang Dynasty. But the fact that the Tang Dynasty is dead is irreversible, and the Guiyi Army itself is in internal and external difficulties. Therefore, under the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Cao Yijin decided to abandon the Zhang family's inherent obsession with the Tang Dynasty, and in the identification of the Central Plains Dynasty, it became who ruled the Central Plains, who was the imperial court, and who was the Central Plains Dynasty.
After determining this concept, the survival strategy will be supported, and it is imperative to penetrate the Central Plains. In order to prevent the Ganzhou Uighurs from plundering the missions and blocking the Guiyi army's contacts with the Central Plains Dynasty, Cao Yijin took the initiative to propose to the Ganzhou Uighurs and married the daughter of the Tianmu Khan. After the Uighur princess entered Shazhou, Cao Yijin honored her status above the second lady Suo and Song, and the people of Shazhou respected her as the "princess of heaven".
The female donor of the Cao family in the south of the east wall gate of Cave 61 of Mogao Grottoes. At the top is the Uighur princess. ** Dunhuang Academy.
After coaxing the Uighur princess, the road between the Cao clan and the Central Plains was mostly unblocked. Cao Yijin immediately sent envoys to pay tribute in the second year of Liang Zhenming (916), but he was plundered when he passed through Gan and Su Prefectures and arrived in Liangzhou. In the same year, the Khitan Khan Yelu Abaoji was called the emperor, the country name was Khitan, and the people of Jianyuan called him the Emperor of Heaven, that is, the Liao Taizu of the day after tomorrow.
The first envoys sent by Cao Yijin were blocked, so they had to send envoys to take a detour the following year, and with the help of Shuofang Jiedu envoys, the Guiyi army mission arrived in Kaifeng, the capital of Liang. This is similar to the situation when Zhang Yichao sent envoys to express his letters and communicate with the Tang Dynasty in the middle of the year, and in the past 70 years, Hexi has become an enclave again.
In July of the fourth year of Zhenming Dynasty (918), Cao Yijin was crowned by Hou Liang with official positions such as Jin Ziguanglu Doctor and Inspector Shangshu Zuo Servant.
But the situation in the Central Plains is uncertain, a few years after Cao Yijin accepted the canonization of the Later Liang, the Jin King Li Cunqiao was proclaimed emperor in Weizhou in 923 AD, and the Later Liang was destroyed in the same year, the capital was Luoyang, and the Yuan was changed to Tongguang, which was known as the Later Tang Dynasty in history.
The portrait of Li Cunqiao in the engraved version of Wanli's "Three Talents Picture Meeting" in the Ming Dynasty. ** Portraits of Chinese Celebrities in Past Dynasties, edited by the Conservation Department of the Chinese History Museum, Strait Literature and Art Publishing House, 2003.
After Cao Yijin learned the news of the Central Plains Revolution, he did not mourn for the Later Liang, and did not even hesitate at all, and immediately sent an envoy to the Later Tang Dynasty to congratulate him, and at the same time asked the imperial court to celebrate the festival. When Li Cunmiao first ascended to the treasure, he saw the envoys of the Guiyi Army who were far away from the border and came to join him, and he immediately issued an edict to grant Cao Yijin the envoy of the festival, the general consul of Guasha and other state affairs.
Where the blood goes, the in-laws open the way.
During his tenure, Cao Yijin's use of the marriage policy can be described as superb. In the 98th cave of the Mogao Caves he built, there are more than 200 portraits of monks and laymen in the same row, men and women coexist. Among them, after the nomination of the female dependents of Cao Yijin's family, the words "out of a certain family" are marked in small characters to indicate the family where the female dependents are married. 
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Cave 98 Cao Yijin family female offering portrait. ** Dunhuang Academy.
In the two states of Guasha, in addition to Cao Yijin himself marrying Suo and Song, the two ladies of the Cao family, the daughters of the Cao family also went into battle: Cao Yijin's sister Eleventh Lady married Murong Guiying, the Assassin of Guazhou, the seventeenth lady of the younger sister married Luo Yingda, the commander of Ma Bujun, and the tenth little lady of the daughter married Yin Zisheng, the general of Jiedu Charge Yachong. Cao Yijin's son married the daughter of the Yan family. The rest of the women and men intermarried with the Li, Suo, Song, Zhai, Chen, Zhang, Deng and other ethnic groups.
It can be said that among the Dunhuang clans, there is no place that the Cao bloodline cannot reach, which makes the withered Zhang family have no hope of returning, and at the same time stabilizes the Cao family's long-term rule over the Guiyi army.
Outside the two states of Guasha, Cao Yijin's in-laws are also widely spread, Zhang Chengfeng only married the princess of Khotan, so he wrote the deeds in the song and sang it, especially noting that "marrying is only for the sake of the country", which emphasizes the meaning of sacrificing his life to go to the country. The Cao clan not only married Khotan (the daughter of Cao Yijin married Li Shengtian, the male lord of Khotan), but also married the Uighurs of Ganzhou. In Cave 100 of the Mogao Grottoes, Cao Yijin not only drew a map of his own army, but also drew a map of the travel of the Uighur princess Li of Ganzhou, coaxing his wife, and the relationship between Cao's Guiyi army and the Ganzhou Uighurs entered the honeymoon period. At this time, although the relationship between Cao Yijin and the Uighur Yingyi Khan was still referred to as father and son (the alliance under the city of the "land of father and son"), in practice, the humiliating unequal relationship had been gradually diluted. At the same time, the two were canonized by the Later Tang Zhuangzong, and they were divided into Sha and Gan, and they did not invade each other.
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Cave 98 murals of the five dynasties in Khotan king Li Shengtian offering statue. ** Dunhuang Academy.
However, a war is needed to completely reverse the "father-son" relationship.
Who is the Father, and who is the Son.
Not long after, the Yingyi Khan Renmei, who had been friendly with the Guiyi army, died and was succeeded as the new khan by his brother Di Yin, the Uighur commander who had attacked the Jinshan Kingdom of the Western Han Dynasty and forced Zhang Chengfeng to sign a humiliating alliance under the city. After he ascended to the throne, he immediately changed the peaceful relationship with the Guiyi military regime and began to loot the missions between the Guiyi army and the Central Plains. Faced with this situation, Cao Yijin did not hesitate and immediately reacted, and in November of that year, he personally put on his army and marched eastward to the Uighurs. 
Map of the Uighurs of Ganzhou. ** Tan Qixiang, Historical Atlas of China
In this battle, the Guiyi army, which Taoguang had been raising for ten years, fought all the way to Zhangye, the capital of the Uighurs, and won a great victory.
Returning to the righteous army, everyone used their lives to avenge the revenge of the city. For example, the generals who participated in the defense of Dunhuang under Zhang Chengfeng were the first to participate in the battle of Zhangye, the battle of Yumen, and the battle of Suzhou, and finally died in front of the battle in front of the battle in Suzhou to repay the deep favor of the monarch.
According to historical sources, the Guiyi Army's crusade against the Uighurs was divided into two phases.
The Battle of Zhangye was the first stage, and the Guiyi Army fought relatively easily. This may be because Di Yin took the defeat of his former subordinates lightly, so he was defeated by the Guiyi army who hated the same enemy.
It was thought that the road to the Central Plains Dynasty would be open again, but the Uighurs of Ganzhou were not willing to be defeated and made a comeback, uniting with the Da Tan people to counterattack the Guiyi army. The Guiyi army also generously greeted the enemy and launched a second war against the Uighurs. The battles of the two battlefields of Yumen and Suzhou took place in the second stage.
The second phase of the battle was quite tragic, and with the support of the Datans, the Ganzhou Uighurs were bound to win, and the army took Yumen under the rule of the Guiyi army. However, the Guiyi army resisted valiantly, and after a bloody battle, the Uighur army was again defeated. The Guiyi army then took advantage of the situation to advance eastward and defeated the Uighur Khan Diyin at Jiuquan.
Five dynasties and ten kingdoms pottery warrior figurines. ** Yongchun County Museum.
Di Yin panicked, sent the prince to surrender and ask for a truce. The Guiyi Army finally got disgraced, abandoned the humiliating covenant of the year, and opened the Hexi Passage in a bright light.
Di Yin died of depression after the defeat, and Cao Yijin supported the Uighur Azhu as the new Uighur Khan, and later used his usual in-law strategy to marry the daughter born to the princess Lee.
In this way, Cao Yijin became the father-in-law of the Uighur Khan, reversing the shameful situation of "the khan is the father and the son of heaven" 14 years ago, and reversing the position of father and son.
Multilateral diplomacy, good-neighborliness and friendship.
Cao Yijin's military victory over the Uighurs in Ganzhou gave the Guiyi army the opportunity for decades of steady development. In order to prevent itself from falling into isolation again, the Cao family expanded the channels of foreign exchange, adopted multilateral diplomacy strategies, and repaired relations with neighboring countries. First of all, in Khotan, the Cao family followed the in-laws of Zhang Chengfeng and Khotan, and normalized it into a tradition of intermarriage between generations. As mentioned above, Cao Yijin married his daughter in 934 A.D. to Li Shengtian, the lord of Khotan, and was awarded the title of "Emperor Tianeman of Great Politics and Great Tomorrow of Khotan", with a respected status. This move also indirectly contributed to the diplomatic relations between Khotan and the Central Plains Dynasty. For example, in 938 A.D., Li Shengtian, the lord of Khotan, sent an envoy to the Later Jin Dynasty in the Central Plains to worship red salt, tulip, yak tail, jade and other things. The envoys of both sides had to pass through Dunhuang, and the Cao's Guiyi army was in the center to greet and see them off, becoming a bridge between the imperial court and the Khotanese state. For example, Cao Yuanzhong and Cao Yanlu both married the princess of Khotan, and the king of Khotan, Chi Damo, also sent a delegation to Dunhuang to ask to marry the princess of the Guiyi Army.
Statue of Cao Yuanzhong. ** Dunhuang Academy.
The second was the Western Uighurs, who recognized the main contradiction and did not direct the war to the west after concentrating their firepower on the Ganzhou Uighurs, who were holding the host province. On the contrary, the Guiyi Army eased the long-tense diplomatic relations with the Xizhou Uighurs, and exchanged information on the basis of mutual exchange, cultural exchanges, and religious exchanges.
The merchants of Gua and Shazhou were encouraged to actively carry out with Xizhou, they trafficked silk from Dunhuang and the Central Plains to Xizhou, and brought back official cloth and other goods from Xizhou to the Western Regions, and sold them in Dunhuang, and the old city of Dunhuang glowed with the glory of the past. At the same time, the monks of Xizhou and Dunhuang went back and forth to spread the Dharma, and according to records, the monks of Xizhou would receive financial support from the Guiyi military government when they passed through Dunhuang. The painted sculptures and murals in the Mogao Grottoes, as well as the inscriptions of the donors, all record the economy and people's livelihood of Dunhuang during this period. Buddhism, as a special form of communication. The friendship between Cao's Guiyi army and the Xizhou Uighurs ensured the smooth flow of the western route of the Silk Road.
There are also the Da Tan tribes, the specific ** of the Hexi Da Tan is not clear, according to the historical data, the Da Tan was originally a subordinate department of the Mobei Uighur Khanate. After the demise of the Mobei Uighurs, the Tatan moved westward and became nomadic herders in the Hexi Corridor during the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, mainly in the Ejina region, which was connected with the Uighurs in Ganzhou. In the early days, it was a Uighur cattle herder, and later it gradually grew. As mentioned above, when Cao Yijin was on an expedition to the Uighurs, Da Tan helped the Ganzhou Uighurs to counterattack Yumen, but they were defeated by the Guiyi army.
For a period of time, the relationship between the Guiyi army and the Da Tan was either war or peace, and the influence of the Ganzhou Uighurs was behind it. After Cao Yijin defeated the Uighurs in Ganzhou, relations with the Da Tan were also eased accordingly, and Cao Yuanzhong, the Cao clan's return to the Yi army, may have married his sister to the Da Tan royal family, known as the "Guoqin Lianye". In the later period of Cao's Guiyi Army, Da Tan and Gui Yi Army envoys were quite frequent, communicating with each other, and the Da Tan people went to Dunhuang ** wild horse leather, arrows ** and other things, and the envoys who went to Da Tan in Khotan also had to go through Dunhuang to repair and replenish.
Five dynasties and ten kingdoms bronze arrowheads. ** Lin'an Digital Museum, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
As for the Nanshan tribes in the west of Dunhuang, the Guiyi army fought or made peace with them, and when they were peaceful, they exchanged envoys and exchanged economic and trade exchanges. When the Nanshan Department plundered the people and livestock of Hexi Road, the Guiyi Army sent troops to exterminate it.
This flexible multilateral foreign policy has allowed the Cao Guiyi Army, which was caught in the cracks, to regain its vitality and gradually move towards prosperity. In 935 AD, Cao Yijin died, and Cao Yuande, the eldest son of Cao Yijin and the Uighur princess Li of Ganzhou, succeeded to the throne and served as the deputy envoy of the Guiyi Army.
But at this time, the post-Tang Dynasty was in jeopardy.
The clouds are falling, and the five generations are over.
In the following year (936), the Later Tang Hedong Jiedu made Shi Jingjiao oppose the Tang Dynasty and become independent, and in order to obtain Khitan support, he promised to cede the sixteen states of Youyun to the Khitan, and recognized the Khitan Emperor Yelu Deguang, who was ten years younger than himself, as his father emperor, and he was called the "son emperor". With the assistance of the Khitan troops, Shi Jingjiao went south to destroy the Later Tang Dynasty, established the Later Jin Dynasty, set the capital Bianliang, and changed the Yuan Tianfu. In the third year of Tianfu (938), Shi Jingjiao ceded the sixteen states of Yanyun to the Khitan according to his previous promise, which had a far-reaching impact on later generations. The Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun are the natural barrier of northern China, including the most important pass fortresses in the Central Plains, once lost, the defense system dominated by the Great Wall will be destroyed, the territory of the Khitan goes straight to the Great Wall, and the North China Plain is no longer in danger to defend. Since then, the door of the Central Plains region has been wide open, and the Central Plains Dynasty, which is dominated by agricultural civilization, has no advantage in dealing with the northern peoples dominated by nomadic civilization, not only the Khitan, but also the later Jurchen and Mongolian tribes to create conditions for the south.
Sixteen states of Youyun. ** Guo Moruo, Editor-in-Chief, Atlas of Chinese Historical Manuscripts, China Map Publishing House, 1990.
After occupying the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun, the Khitan's power expanded dramatically, becoming the only regime that could compete with the entire Central Plains Dynasty at that time, and even pressed the Central Plains at one end, like a sharp sword hanging in the north, ready to invade the south at any time. In the face of the Central Plains Dynasty, which was constantly changing its regime, and the Khitan, which was becoming increasingly powerful and powerful in the north, the diplomatic strategy of the Guiyi Army was adjusted again, and Cao Yuande decided to send envoys to pay tribute to the Khitan.
At that time, the Khitan (later renamed the country "Da Liao") still regarded the Guiyi Army as the "Dunhuang State", rather than a vassal town of the Central Plains Dynasty, so Cao Yuande decided to let the Guiyi Army be a vassal on both sides. On the one hand, when connecting the Central Plains and the Later Jin Dynasty, it still regarded itself as a vassal town of the Guiyi Army, and regarded the imperial court as the Zhengshuo, and during this period, it repeatedly facilitated tributary exchanges between the Khotanese State and the Later Jin Dynasty (as mentioned above). On the other hand, when connecting the Khitan, it paid tribute to the Khitan as the sovereign state of Dunhuang, and the sovereign status was tied with that of the Western Jin Dynasty.
Such a diplomatic strategy and painstaking management of "tossing and turning" have enabled the Guiyi Army to develop steadily for decades. In the Cao Yuanzhong period, the two towns of Huiji and Xinxiang were newly established, expanding the original six towns to eight towns, and slightly expanding the sphere of influence in the internal defense stage.
During the period when Cao's Guiyi Army was steadily operating Guasha, the masters of the Central Plains changed and changed. The cession of the sixteen states of Yanyun did not bring long-term stability to the "child emperor" Shi Jingjiao, but instead inflated the ambitions of the Khitan and accelerated the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty.
The Qing people painted stone statues. ** Portraits of Chinese Celebrities in Past Dynasties, edited by the Conservation Department of the Chinese History Museum, Strait Literature and Art Publishing House, 2003.
After Shi Jingjiao succeeded to the throne, he trembled, and externally, Shi Jingjiao was humble and courteous, and he served the Khitan. In addition to paying 300,000 cloth to the Khitan every year, he also presented "curious things" to the "father emperor" Yelu Deguang from time to time to show favor, which caused the Later Jin Dynasty to accumulate poverty and weakness, and the people were dissatisfied. Internally, the feudal towns thought that Shi Jingjiao begged for foreigners, and was especially ashamed of his practice of subordinating the Son of Heaven to the Khitan and serving the kings of other countries with his father's courtesy. The distant feudal towns, such as the Guiyi Army, served the two lords together, and the feudal towns that were close to them rebelled repeatedly. Although Shi Jingjiao was committed to active reform, he had little success. In 942, Shi Jingjiao died depressed, and his adopted son Shi Chonggui succeeded to the throne, and then said that he would no longer be a vassal to the Khitan, and issued an edict claiming to "take Yingmo first, stabilize Guannan, and then restore Youyan and Pingbei". Yelu Deguang was furious when he heard this, and the Khitan iron hooves drove straight down, destroying the Later Jin Dynasty, and the Later Jin Dynasty enjoyed the country for only 12 years. Yelu Deguang also proclaimed himself emperor in the Later Jin palace in Bianliang in 947, and changed the name of the country to Khitan to Daliao.
After the fall of the Later Jin Dynasty, Hedong Jiedu made Liu Zhiyuan, the king of Beiping, proclaim himself emperor in Taiyuan and establish the Later Han Dynasty, which recovered the Central Plains after the Liao army returned to the north. Within a few years, Guo Wei rebelled, seized the throne, and established Hou Zhou. In the seventh year of Zhou Xiande (960), Zhao Kuangyin launched the Chenqiao Mutiny, and the yellow robe was added, and the Northern Song Dynasty was finally established, and the five dynasties ended.
From the fourth year of Tang Tianyou (907) when Zhu Wen usurped the Tang Dynasty to establish the Later Liang, the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han and the Later Zhou experienced five generations, but 53 years. In the past 53 years, the Guiyi Army has experienced a smooth transition from the Zhang clan to the Cao clan, and the society in the Kua Sha area has become more and more stable, from turmoil to prosperity. But this situation did not last long, and a contingent called the Determination Army gradually rose, and a new crisis was quietly brewing.