In the late Tang Dynasty, the tang dynasty's military forces, which suffered from the defeat of The Rus and the Anshi Rebellion, implemented a contraction strategy in the western region were soon attacked by the Tubo forces, and the entire western region of Hexi was quickly reduced to tubo territory, and tubo's backward political skills caused the tang dynasty people in the occupied areas to suffer greatly, and the Zhang Yichao uprising in 848 revolted again to strengthen the control of the forces supporting the Tang dynasty over the western regions.
In his heyday, Zhang Yichao controlled the eleven prefectures in the Western Regions, and in the form of complex struggle without foreign aid, he worked hard to maintain the Tang people's control over the Western Regions and Hexi, and the complex political situation of the late Tang Dynasty also made the attitude of the Tang rulers towards Zhang Yichao and the Gui rebels sway left and right, at this time, the Tang already lacked the strength to forge ahead, and the Gui rebels alone faced the invasion of Uighurs, Tuguhun, Tubo and other forces, maintaining the Dreams of the Tang people in the Western Regions.
The Gui rebels' dedication to Tang stemmed from the strong sense of honor and cultural superiority of the ancient Chinese nation, and although the Tang people in the western enclave did not receive any assistance from the interior, they almost restored the western region situation of the early Tang Dynasty with their arrogance, and such behavior was highly similar to the heroic military activities of Ban Chao, Wang Xuance, and so on, and was the most magnificent poem left by the ancients to the Chinese nation, and the most exciting commentary on the Han people's thousands of years of running the promised land of the western region.
One. What is the origin of the rise of the Rebel Army?
1． Tubo ruled the Western Regions
Although after 755 AD, a large number of elites from the Western Regions were transferred back to the Eastern Front, tubo's military operations to take advantage of the danger of the people still encountered great resistance under such circumstances, and the last fortress of the Tang Dynasty, Shazhou, lasted for twenty-three years before it fell, and the heroic act of the city's chief official out of the Aya end and collecting wheat must have left a deep impression on the young Zhang Yichao.
Shazhou eventually fell due to the exhaustion of food, but the performance of the military commander Yan Dynasty left him with a chance to survive for the Tang dynasty people in Shazhou City, although such an opportunity was also a slave who was better off dead than alive.
Like the early Germanic people before civilization, the Tubo rulers only valued the practical value of young and middle-aged men of foreign races, and their extreme hatred and oppression of the elderly, which was very different from the remnants of the Tang Dynasty who grew up under the influence of Confucian culture, and made people nostalgic for the past.
The civil unrest in Tubo and the attitude towards Zampu after Tang began to recover, allowing Zhang Yichao to see the opportunity, and the uprising of the large clans in the city led by him overthrew the rule of the Tubo nobles, and after more than sixty years, the Tang regained control of Shazhou, and Zhang Yichao began to recover the entire western region.
2． The rebels only recaptured Hexi, and they still had a crush on their hometown
Zhang Yichao and his brothers were swift in recovering the eleven prefectures in the Western Regions, based on the background that the local Tang people were all nostalgic for their homeland, and the brutal rule of Tubo also made the Uighurs, The Dragon Family and other ethnic groups side with the rebels.
When Zhang Yichao,who was holding a map of the eleven states in the Western Regions, could only rely on the identity of a monk to break through the blockade of Tubo and come to Chang'an, he must have been full of emotions, this great city obviously did not issue any instructions, thousands of miles away in the grasslands, deserts, and compatriots who spoke the same language died silently under the poplars for the dignity of Tang and the greatness of Chang'an. They had little hope of promotion, because the court didn't even know about the existence of these people.
Nor were they covetous of the court's rewards, because the Western Regions always gave countless tributes to Chang'an. They just stood under that magnificent land, feeling that they should do something, feeling that they wanted to go to Chang'an and Luoyang, which had appeared countless times in the stories told by their ancestors.
3． Properly arranged, the leaves fall back to the roots
After a long period of consideration, the imperial court detained Zhang Yichao's brother, but gave Zhang Yichao the honor of the emissary of the Rebel Army and the Eleven Prefectures Observation Envoy, and the late Tang Dynasty gave the Gui rebel army an arrangement that conformed to the characteristics of the times after a long period of confrontation between the feudal towns and the central government.
We don't know what Zhang Yichao, a sixty-nine-year-old man, thought when he walked into the haunted Chang'an City, and the author does not believe in the statement that he was willing to be a hostage in exchange for the Identity of the Zhang Family's emissaries in Shazhou, this heroic, brave soldier would not have the courage to cause trouble if he thought so deeply, and if he coveted power, he would not let himself be trapped in Chang'an.
Four years later, Zhang Yichao, who had been honored, died in Chang'an, a city he had never seen since his childhood in the Western Regions, but he never forgot, when he died, he must have been facing the West, his descendants, his family was still helping the imperial town to guard the western frontier, he and Ban Gu, experienced countless adventures, died in the heart of the empire.
Two. The chaotic post-rebel era
1． Infighting, hero chills
Under the leadership of Zhang Huaishen, although the motivation to forge ahead was insufficient, the Gui rebel army could barely hold Zhang Yichao's foundation, but the imperial court was vague about the rationality of the Zhang family's overall situation in Shazhou.
Or to say that the rebel army was self-funded, and the army was highly loyal to the individual army, which made the late Tang government have some unnecessary memories. The successive infighting between the Suo family and the Zhang family transferred the power of the Gui rebel army to the hands of the young Zhang Chengfeng, who was seriously injured after infighting, and what was even more frightening was that the imperial court recognized Suo Xun's status as a thrifty envoy.
Chang'an's behavior of abandoning the Zhang family like waste paper at will, such a clumsy political means, inevitably made the heroes of the Western Regions chill. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the policy began to tend to be conservative, and I illuminated the moon with my heart, but the bright moon illuminated the ditch. The dynasty lost that self-confidence, that kind of arrogance, and began to be adept at calculation.
2． The form of the struggle was complex and the identity of Tang was weakened
The enemy of the rebel army in the western region, Tubo is eternal. Uighurs are indeed a unique existence, the decline of the late Gui rebel army, and his Uighurization is inseparable, the author believes that the proportion of the population here, the Tang people are already at a disadvantage compared to the Uighurs.
At the same time, the local Yang fengyin and yin of the Longjia family in Suzhou were violated, and Ganzhou was occupied by the Uighurs, so that the connection between the Gui rebel army and the Tang Dynasty mainland, which only occupied the two prefectures at this time, was once again cut off, and from this stage onwards, the Gui rebel army slowly declined. The encirclement and infiltration of the Uighurs by many Uighur states made the people of Guasha greatly weaken their sense of identification with the Tang Dynasty.
When the Uighurs in Ganzhou besieged Shazhou, the people who insisted on defending the city for more than 20 years during the Tubo period actually demanded that Zhang Chengfeng surrender, which shows that at this time, the melon, sand, and Uighurization were serious, and the people no longer had a sense of belonging as the people of the Tang Dynasty.
3 The Jinshan Kingdom was established, and the rebel army could not survive
Although the Gui rebels' sense of belonging to Tang gradually decreased, The two states of Guasha, which had been forgotten for decades and had never received the slightest assistance, did not remember to start a new stove until Zhu Wen destroyed Tang. In 910, Zhang Chengfeng proclaimed himself king of the Jinshan state of the Western Han Dynasty and fought against the Uighurs, however, the two states in the western region had suffered too much war, the people were tired of attacking each other, and the Western Han Jinshan state was repeatedly defeated by the Uighurs of Ganzhou and had to condescend to the title of vassal.
By the time the Cao family was in charge of the Gui rebel army, the Shazhou Uighurs and the Gui rebel army had become an iron alliance. Even in the eyes of the rising regime Liao, the Gui rebel army was part of the Shazhou Uighurs, and the existence of the Gui rebel army as a national armed force was no longer possible. His power continued to decline until more than two hundred years after its establishment, it was annexed by the Western Xia.
Three. The Tang Dynasty was strong in the Western Regions
1． Zhang Yichao is a strange man also
According to the current statement, Zhang Yichao is really a person who pursues feelings. He grew up in Shazhou, the enclave of the Tang Dynasty, and became a vassal of the Tubo people at a very young age, never witnessing the majesty of the Tang people, but with a deep yearning for Tang from the bottom of his heart, which is a deep sense of cultural pride in the education of the Hao people in Shazhou.
Without any external force, he single-handedly recaptured the lost land of the Tang Dynasty, Hexi and the Western Regions, and there were tens of thousands of armored men under his command, but he never had the intention of supporting the army and respecting himself, and he deliberately opened up the connection with the Tang Dynasty, and mortgaged himself and his brother as protons in Chang'an.
Zhang Yichao's freedom to seek benevolence and benevolence, and this kind of national righteousness of romantic feelings, all come from his pride in being a Tang, which reflects from the side the vigorous vitality of the early Tang Dynasty and the arrogance of giving up others.
2． Returning to the rebels is actually the ultimate song of romanticism
The rebel army persisted to the Song Dynasty, and finally destroyed at the hands of the Western Xia, hundreds of thousands of Chinese boys did not have any support from high-ranking people, and they laid down a great family business with affection and flesh, which is also rare in the history of the world.
This heroic temperament among the high-ranking people in China has slowly disappeared since the Beginning of the Song Dynasty, and we will never see Ban Chao and Zhang Yichao-like Hanzi in the future dynasty, who helped China run the Western Region thousands of years ago, and when we walk in the streets of Urumqi and the alleys of Kashgar, we should stop and think about the footprints of the heroes.
epilogue:
Returning to the rebel army, the heroic boys who completely spontaneously recovered the lost land, is a rare and blood-colored stroke in the dull political environment of the late Tang Dynasty, from the perspective of the nation, the significance of cohesion and cultural identity in political life is clearly and thoroughly seen from the late Tang Dynasty.
The old man who gave up his great authority and was willing to spend his or her life in the courtyard of Chang'an was fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunately, this romantic man Zhang Yichao, who did not speak well, carried out his own wishes all his life and died in the heart of the empire he loved, which can be described as no regrets in this life.
Unfortunately, at this time, the Tang Dynasty was no longer worthy of this bloody atmosphere, the Tang Dynasty was no longer so unrestrained, no longer confident, he gritted his teeth and regarded all the knots as An Lushan, but he smiled and issued the next big seal of the knots, he began to be good at calculation but could no longer get out of the cage of fate. Thirty years after Zhang Yichao's death, the dynasty he loved eventually went to ruin, and it was only after a long time that Huaxia regained its rule in the Western Regions.
Resources:
Old Book of Tang
Quan Tang Wen
History of the Five Dynasties of Sui and Tang Dynasties