In 640, Emperor Taizong of Tang sent the general Hou Junji to lead a large army to attack Gaochangguo, and set up the Anxi Capital Protectorate in Gaochangguo, setting up a capital protector and stationing thousands of standing troops, marking the official entry of tang dynasty forces into the western region and beginning the expansion and control of nearly three million square kilometers of land in the western region. In 657 AD, Su Dingfang quelled the Rebellion of the Western Turks, and the Anxi Capital Protectorate was upgraded to the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, which ruled the four important military towns of Guizi, Shule, Khotan, and Shanye, which is now known as the military base, known in history as the "Four Towns of Anxi".
It is under the jurisdiction of the Protectorate of Ansai
Due to the vast area of the entire western region and the complexity of the ethnic groups, tubo, food and Tang dynasty forces were intertwined, making the four towns of Anxi very unstable, often oscillating between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo. In order to maintain its rule in the western regions, the Tang Dynasty would recruit a large number of soldiers from the interior to Anxi every year, and the conditions given were very favorable, and if they made military merit, they could be promoted and wealthy, so the people in Helong and Kansai were very keen to join the army to Anxi, hoping to achieve a leap in class through their own military merits, and indeed many people became famous generals of the Tang Dynasty through military Anxi, of which the strange knife general Li Siye was one of them.
First, from the army of Anxi, the prestige began to appear
In the early years of Tianbao, the four towns of Anxi Festival once again recruited soldiers in Guanzhong, and a tall young man from Jingzhao Gaoling enlisted and became an ordinary soldier in the four towns of Anxi, and this young man was Li Siye. The "Old Book of Tang Er Li Ma Road Biography" records that Li Siye is seven feet long, has great strength, that is, his figure is very tall, one foot in the Tang Dynasty is about 30 centimeters, and seven feet is about two meters, which shows how tall and strong he is. Such physical conditions, even in the current crowd is also a standout-like existence, not to mention that in the Tang Dynasty, where the average height is far inferior to that of modern times, it must have attracted much attention in the army that advocates strength, and naturally becomes the focus of the army. Moreover, Li Siye encountered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that is, in order to gain an advantage in the military battle against Tubo Dashi and so on, Tianbao began to equip the army with a super large knife in the early years - the Mo Dao.
Strange knife will be the image
According to the "Six Classics of Tang", the mo knife was seven feet long, the same height as Li Siye, of which the blade was three feet long and weighed fifteen pounds, which was a heavy slashing weapon specially used against heavy cavalry. The size and heaviness of the strange knife determined that the person who used the strange knife must be a tall and powerful soldier, and ordinary soldiers could not control such a super weapon at all, which gave Li Siye a very good opportunity to become a strange knife hand. The tall and strong Li Siye soon became familiar with the use of the strange knife, stood out among many strange knife hands, and became the best strange knife hand used in the Anxi garrison, almost every time he went to battle, he charged forward as a vanguard, and every time he was able to attack the enemy's front line, the history recorded that "every battle must be the vanguard, and the direction will be north." No matter what era, the most admired thing in the army is the value of force, especially in the era of frequent wars, a soldier who fights bravely will be used by the army for a long time, and Li Siye, who has a burst of force value, is no exception, and directly got the favor of Ma Lingcha, the highest governor of the four towns of Anxi, so that he can be his personal bodyguard, and every time he goes to war, he will be at the same time." In this way, Li Siye's fame suddenly opened up in the four towns of Anxi, and no one did not know his reputation for fighting bravery.
Strange Knife Team
Second, go out to Buru and make military merits
Xiao Bolu is located in today's Kashmir region, located between the Tang Dynasty, Tibet, Arabia, is an important area of the three-way power competition, in the early years of the new century Xiao Bolu became a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Xuanzong treated Xiao Bolu as a son, gave high treatment. But Xiao Bolu was indeed too far away from the Tang Dynasty, a distance of nearly nine thousand miles, but it was very close to Tubo, so it was always threatened by Tubo. In 736, Tubo sent a large army to attack Xiao Bolu, and although Tang Xuanzong made moral support, he did not send troops to rescue him, and finally Tubo attacked Xiao Bolu, dealing a heavy blow to the influence of the Tang Dynasty in Xiao Bolu. In 740, Tubo Zampu married his sister Chimalu to King Xiaobolu, and garrisoned a large number of troops in Xiaobolu, who became a vassal state of Tubo and no longer paid tribute to the Tang Dynasty. Tang Xuanzong was very angry, and ordered the four towns of Anxi to attack Xiao Bolu several times without success, which greatly reduced the prestige of the Tang Dynasty in the Kashmir region, resulting in more than two dozen countries around Xiao Bolu breaking away from the Tang Dynasty, and if Xiao Bolu was not solved, it was bound to further threaten the Tang Dynasty's rule in the entire western region.
Takasen Shiba Images
In 747, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang led an expedition of 10,000 cavalry on an expedition to Xiao Bolu, with Gao Xianzhi, the deputy envoy of Anxi Jiedushi, as the envoy of the Anxi Jiedushi camp. Gao Xianzhi had long heard of Li Siye's reputation, and went out on a campaign against Xiao Bolu to specifically ask Li Siye to serve as a strange sword general and use it as the front line of the army. The army set out from Anxi and marched west for more than a hundred days, reaching Tubo Lianyun Fort near XiaoBolu. Lianyun Fort is built on the mountain, three sides are cliffs, one side is slightly flat to attack, but there is also a large river Xintu River to block, the fort garrison more than 10,000 Tubo soldiers, prepared a large number of rolling wood thunder stone to block the Tang army, can be described as easy to defend and difficult to attack. Gao Xianzhi quietly crossed the Xintu River in the night, came to the front of Lianyun Fort, and gave a death order to Li Siye and the siege army: "If Lianyun Fort cannot be attacked at noon, all of them will be executed." Li Siye personally took a large banner and led the strange knifemen to climb the mountain to attack Lianyun Fort, and without waiting for noon, he contributed to Lianyun Fort, beheading more than 5,000 people and capturing more than 1,000 people, and the rest fled to the depths of the mountain. The Tang army won the initial battle, and its morale was greatly improved, and it soon captured Xiao Bolu, captured Xiao Bolu Andi Wang and Princess Tubo, and revived the prestige of The Tang Dynasty. After the conquest of Xiao Bolu, Gao Xianzhi was appointed as the emissary of the four towns of Anxi, became the highest governor of the four towns of Anxi, and protected Li Siye as a general of the Right Wei Wei. Li Siye went from an ordinary soldier to a general.
Map of Little Bolu