Victoria (northeast of present-day Lixian County, Sichuan) was the most important strategic node in western Sichuan, where Tang Had repeatedly competed, which led to the abolition of Victoria in the seventh year of Wude (624) and the abolition of The Eight Degrees in 225 years, until the collapse of the Tubo Dynasty in the third year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign (849), and the Victorian chieftain Xianzhou was annexed. The Old Book of Tang and Geographical Records records that "Victoria was annexed by Bai Gou Qiang in the seventh year of The Tang Dynasty's Gaozu Wude, and was placed in Weizhou in Jiang Wei's hometown, leading jinchuan and Dinglian counties. ”
After the establishment of the city in Victoria, because it is located in the valley of northwest Sichuan, it is the main transportation route in northern Sichuan, and immediately became an important town in Xichuan. After the zhenguan and tianbao generations, QiangRong repeatedly rebelled, and Victoria was also abandoned several times. In the first year of Emperor Suzong's reign (758), the Tang Dynasty was restored to Victoria. After the Anshi Rebellion, Hexi and Longyou Prefectures were all trapped in Tubo. Chisong Dezan made good progress in the Helong region, and he wanted to enter the land of Shuchuan in the east, and repeatedly sent troops to besiege Victoria. However, trapped in the harsh terrain, it was impossible to attack repeatedly.
In order to plot to seize Victoria, Tubo can be described as well-intentioned, sending women to marry into Victoria as undercover. Twenty years later, he gave birth to a son, Tubo Neiying. When the Tubo soldiers attacked the city again, Neiying opened the city gates, and Tubo captured the city of Victoria.
After Tubo obtained the city of Victoria, it was renamed Sanssouci City, which means "Chuanxi has no worries from now on".
The Tang Dynasty also never gave up its attack on Victoria, and the famous Tang general Wei Gao plotted many times, but never succeeded.
In the eighteenth year of Emperor Dezong of Tang's reign (802), the two countries fought a bloody war around the city of Victoria. Wei Gao besieged the city to help, defeated 100,000 Tubo reinforcements, killed most of them, and captured them in a reckless manner. Chide Songzan was forced to implement the "Big Material Collection" in Kang, Jiarong, and Shannan, and every three households sent one pawn to aid Victoria.
Even if the Tang army took advantage of this great victory, it failed to capture the dangerous city of Victoria, which became a regret in Wei Gao's life. "Wei Gao didn't hate the one who couldn't cause it."
After the Battle of Victoria in the seventeenth year of zhenyuan (794), both the Tang and Bo empires were tired and bored. Faced with the withering livelihood of their respective countries, the intensity of the war between the two countries has dropped sharply, and it has gradually moved towards the strategy of exchanging negotiations for respite. In the first year of Changqing (821), Tang Fan held the seventh and final alliance, known in history as the "Changqing Huimeng", also known as the "Nephew and The League".
The two countries, in their respective capitals and borders, built a platform to worship the heavenly alliance and swore peace. At this point, the Tang and The Tang Dynasties began with the Battle of Songzhou in the twelfth year of Zhenguan (638), and the 183-year-long National War came to an end. Peace finally came upon the altar where the two sides fought more than 190 times and killed and wounded millions of people.
The reason why the two countries suddenly began to cherish peace was not because the war mongers were dead, but because the nearly two-hundred-year tug-of-war had caused Tang Andbo to run out of oil. The Yuangui of the Book of Records and the Old Book of Tang record that "the state exterminated the bandits from the Xianzong Dynasty and exhausted the treasures; Muzong ascended the throne and rewarded them excessively; and the towns and the towns rose up together, requisitioned hundreds of ends, and exhausted their financial resources."
As a result of the large number of troops, the people were overwhelmed by heavy taxation and hard labor, and their lives were extremely miserable. The "Tang Huijiao" vividly describes the dilemma at that time, "In recent days, the people have fled, and as for the hukou, there is not one in ten. Nowadays, the service is arduous, and the old number is not reduced, and there is no right body to send, but also the neighbors are guaranteed to meet the promises, and the exile is increasingly difficult. In order to raise money, Tang Ting even explicitly stated that "people are forbidden to drink alcohol, and lawsuits are set up to buy shops to help military expenses", but it is still a cup of water.
The common people really can't get money out of them, and the army doesn't dare not keep it. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, due to insufficient military expenditure, there was a major turmoil such as the "Jingshi Change", and the Tang Emperor could only bear to pay money from his pocket to raise the army. The "Yuangui of the Book of Fortune" records: "Yuan He ten years of edict within the treasury silk 500,000 horses to the left Tibetan treasury for the army, within eleven years of the treasury money 5,000 to pay for the army." In the twelfth year, he issued a total of 900,000 pieces of fine silk cloth from the inner treasury, and paid 5,000 taels of money to support the salaries of the soldiers, and also ordered the payment of the inner kuro, the valley and the rhinoceros gold belt and the women's jewelry to be sent to the direct. In thirteen years, 400 tortoiseshells and 500 rhinoceros belts were paid out of the inner library, and the expenditure of the degree was sold straight. ”
From the above records, it can be seen that the gap in military expenditure of the Tang Dynasty even needed the emperor to use the silk satin and precious jade in the private treasury to make up for it. When the country's economy reached such a field, if any minister dared to take the initiative to attack Tibet, he would certainly be reprimanded. After all, the total economic volume and population base of the Tang Dynasty far exceeded that of Tubo by several times, coupled with the relatively superior natural environment, labor productivity was also greatly better than that of Tubo.
Therefore, from the very beginning of the Tang Dynasty War, Tubo adopted the strategy of feeding the war with war, supplementing the war consumption by constantly plundering the population on the tang border. The Zizhi Tongjian records: "In the third year of Zhenyuan's reign, Tubo plundered Jiyang, Wushan, and Huating, and the old and weak killed them, or cut off their hands and chiseled their eyes, abandoned them, and drove Ding Zhuang and more than ten thousand people to the west of Anhua Gorge, and divided them into Qiang and Hun, and told them: 'Listen to Erdong and weep and resign from the country. The crowd wept and went to the cliff valley to kill and injure more than a thousand people. "It is estimated that during the Tang Dynasty War, Tubo plundered millions of people from the Tang Dynasty's Helong region. But the problem is that the Tang-Bo War has been fought for more than a hundred years, and where it is easy to be broken by Tubo, even the stupid Tang general can remember.
At the end of the war, the Tang Dynasty gradually eased up, adopted the method of encroachment step by step, pushed forward in small steps, encountered dangerous points, and immediately mobilized a large number of farmers to build a city.
Although the Tang army was trapped by insufficient mobility and could not defeat Tubo in field battles, it was necessary to talk about civil engineering and city wall defense, which was the innate instinct of the Han people, and Tubo really couldn't bite down on the fortified city.
In this way, the battlefield benefits of Tubo are getting smaller and smaller, but the consumption has not decreased at all. In addition, several Zampu in the late Tubo Dynasty have been promoting the Buddha's rejuvenation method and spending a lot of national resources on building temples and sticking gold, and the national economy is even more stretched. Tubo's continuous conscription and grain collection of neighboring forces, not to mention that foreign races like Nanzhao could not stand it, and chose to abandon the Tang Dynasty, even the same ethnic group of Chuanxi Zhuqiang, who had always been interested in Tubo, could not stand it, and during Wei Gao's reign in Jiannan, there were tens of thousands of Qiang tribes attached to the Tang Dynasty. The Old Book of Tang and the Biography of Wei Gao records: "Gao also recruited the chiefs of the eight kingdoms, such as the Qiangnu of the Western Mountains, the Haoling, the White Dog, the Rent, the Weak Water, and the Southern King, to pay tribute to the Que Court." ”
In the ravine and western Sichuan landscape of western Sichuan, the Tang army was able to play a wide range of tactics interspersed in depth, which completely depended on the cooperation of the Zhuqiang tribes, which was precisely the advantage of Tubo before.
Jiannan Tubo was frightened by the Tang army's interspersed tactics, and the Helong army did not go there, and the Tang Dynasty notebook novel "Record of Words" wrote such a passage: In the fifteenth year of Yuan He (820), "The Huainan general Tan Keze was plundered by Tubo because of the border defense." When they first arrived in The Middle Of the Year, the unknown Xianzong abandoned the world, fearing Wang Shifu River Huang day and night, and uneasy about sleeping and eating. However, even if the weapons are placed in the dungeon, they will not eat or drink, and the examination will be tired. However, it is said that the people have not yet been believed. Those who have knowledge of the book, but because of the slight record of the edict, they believe it. ”
During the fifteen years of the reign of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, Li Chun achieved great results in cutting the domain, reviving the prestige of the central government, known in history as "Yuan and Zhongxing". In terms of military affairs, the Tang army also gradually reversed its decline during the Yuan and He years, and the Battle of Yanzhou and the Battle of Wonju both took place during this period.
This record in the "Record of Reasons" shows that after more than a hundred years of war, both Tang and Bo had long since lost the pride of vowing to knock down their opponents at the beginning. When the war is fought, it has degenerated into a game of fear at both ends of the wolf.
It was in this domestic context that both Tang and Bo began to express their "willingness to respect each other's borders" and "willingness to recognize each other's national status," and picked up the words of harmony that had been said in the previous six meetings and then thrown on the ground, and said them several times with enthusiasm. The Old Book of Tang and the Biography of Tubo records: "In the middle of the summer, the Wei Tang is the king." On the Hispanic side, the big man is the main one. From now on, ping went to the military revolution, sued the old evil, eliminated the old evil, pursued the uncle and nephew, and helped the past. The border area withdrew the police and smoked. Compassion for afflictions, and no plunder. The belt is critical, and it is the same as it is, and there is no deception, there is no danger. ”
In addition to the above-mentioned vows to pursue peace, the two countries also made a special agreement that neither country would accept the other's surrender, and that if there was a surrender that ran to the other side, it would be necessary to repatriate it. There will be this agreement, mainly because both parties have suffered from it.
In the sixteenth year (800) of the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang, Tubo launched the Battle of Yaozhou in western Sichuan, and during the preparation of the campaign, 80,000 troops were stationed in Kunming City (present-day Yanyuan, Sichuan), and in order to ensure the smooth implementation of the campaign, Tubo also hoarded military food in Kunming City for a year.
However, before the attack of the Tubo army could be launched, the rebel generals ran to Wei Gao's account one after another, and the Tubo city defender Yang Wanbo, the cage official Ma Dingde, and even Tubo Muni Zangpu's adopted son Ye DuoTuo (Saigon Jiedu Supervision Army) all surrendered to the Tang Dynasty.
These rebel generals not only laid out Tubo's battle plan and plan, resulting in heavy losses for the attacking Army, but also personally led the Tang Army to detour to the rear of the Fan Army, burning the grain and grass of the large army with one fire. After receiving the information from the Tang army, the Nanzhao state poisoned the river on the road that Tubo had to pass through in advance, causing the Tubo army to spit up and down, and collapsed into an army. In this way, Tubo planned for several years, consuming countless manpower and material resources to launch the Battle of Yaozhou, which was mixed up by several rebel generals. The Old Book of Tang Records of Wei Gao records: "So the Tubo chieftain and overseer Officiation Gong gong, Lacheng and other nine knots of infants, cage official Ma Dingde and his general Eighty-seven people raised a tribe to surrender. Dingde has a plan, babies learn to know the art of war and the terrain of mountains and rivers, Tubo uses every soldier, Dingde often takes advantage of the stagecoach to plan, and the generals will calculate it. Even if he thinks that he has not done anything on the side, he is afraid of sin and returns to his heart. ”
Tubo caused the attack to be frustrated, and the Tang rebel generals almost took the life of Emperor Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty.
In October of the first year of the Tang Dynasty (763), Ma Chongying (Enlan Dazha Lugong) led the Tubo army to break through the Great Earthquake Pass, and Jingzhou stabbed Shi Gaohui to surrender, acting as a guide for the Fan army and leading the army deeper.
On October 6, Tubo Lianke Prefecture, Fengtian, wugong, Tang Dynasty Emperor Li Yu panicked and fled east to Shaanzhou, and on October 9 Chang'an fell.
Tubo was in Chang'an City, and princess Lijincheng's cousin was a puppet emperor, changing his era name and setting up a hundred officials, and fifteen days later, under the military pressure of Guo Ziyi, he plundered away. It is precisely because they have suffered losses before that both sides are very resolute in their attitude towards the rebel generals, and they can reach an agreement smoothly.
However, at that time, the situation in Tang Andbo was in a reversal, and the Tang Dynasty did not have any rebel generals to defect to Tang, but the Tubo rebel generals defected to Tang one after another.
In April of the first year of the reign of Emperor Jingzong of Tang (825), the Tubo general Liu Shinu surrendered to Tang, and Emperor Jingzong ordered his repatriation. After Liu Shinu was repatriated, he was immediately beheaded by Tubo. The following year, Tang Lingwu Jiedushi took in Tubo Shi Jinshan and four other people, but Tang Ting still ordered the envoy to send someone to return Tubo, and these four people were also immediately executed by Tubo. In the fourth year of Emperor Wenzong of Tang (830), Li Deyu was appointed as an envoy to Nishikawa Jiedushi. He had just been in office for a year when a big pie smashed into his head.
In September of that year, the deputy envoy of Tubo-Weizhou, Xi Yimou, took the initiative to ask for the surrender of the city to Tang. Li Deyu was overjoyed to hear this news.
Before Wei Gao had been unable to conquer the important town of Victoria for more than twenty years, it was actually within reach. This is a shocking joy for Li Deyu, but after all, he has been in the sea for many years, and he still has a cautious and wary heart. He ordered someone to send a pair of brocade robes to Xi Yimou to listen to the truth, but the Victorian deputy envoy, for some reason, was already impatient and directly led his men into Chengdu. Li Deyu then sent Tang Bingzhen to guard the city of Weizhou, and effortlessly, the city of Victoria returned to the hands of the Tang Dynasty.
After the change of hands in Victoria, Tang and Bo can be described as a double heaven of ice and fire. The Tang court was very happy and lively, while Tubo was so alarmed that he hurriedly dispatched troops to organize a defense around Victoria, and at the same time sent envoys into Tang to demand the return of Victoria according to the agreement of the "Changqing Hui Alliance".
After Li Deyu's soldiers took Victoria into his pocket without bloodshed, he was satisfied and showed a tendency to look forward to Shu. He played to the imperial court, from the city of Victoria, "two hundred miles down from the northeast of the Suisuo Ridge, the land is not dangerous, walking the Long River, not three thousand miles, straight to the teeth of Tubo." In order to realize this strategic plan, he proposed to send three thousand Qiang troops to burn the thirteen bridges of Tubo, directly pound Tubo's heart, and deliver a fatal blow to Tubo. There were also ministers in the DPRK who supported Li Deyu's proposition, believing that sending troops from Xichuan and directly penetrating the Tubo capital Lhasa would expand its territory and occupy a favorable position even if it could not destroy Tubo.
This kind of pioneering and expanding the territory also had an irrepressible temptation for Emperor Wenzong, who had the heart to exert himself to govern. At this time, Li Deyu died against a cow monk and child, but stood up against it.
The Niu and Li party rivalries have lasted for several emperors for decades, and if only the niu monks and children and Li Deyu brothers and sisters break each other, they will not be able to make much trouble, and the key is that these two brothers have some people behind them.
The cattle monks and children represent the landlords of the Shu ethnic group who were born in keju, the door is not high, and they are elected officials by studying hard through the cold window. Behind Li Deyu is the family family, an official who relies on the "door shade", "the old gate since the Northern Dynasty and the contemporary clan room". According to Mr. Chen Yinke, this is "a competition between two different social classes for political status", so they are leaning toward each other in the DPRK.
This time, Li Deyu had just gone to Sichuan, and there was such a good thing, the cattle monks and children were naturally unhappy, and Li Deyu's plan of "going straight into the teeth of Tubo" was really too much for Meng Lang, giving the cattle monks and children the excuse to attack. The Zizhi Tongjian records that in September of the fifth year (831) of Emperor Wenzong's reign, the cattle monks and children sang, "The realm of Tubo, the four dimensions of ten thousand miles, the loss of one Victoria, failed to damage its momentum." Than to repair well, about to strike the soldiers, the Chinese imperial rong, keep the faith first. He rebuked, 'What is the dishonesty?' 'Raise horses Wei Ru Chuan, Shangping Liangsaka, Wan Riding Back in the Middle, Angry Words, Not Three Days to Xianyang Bridge. At this time, thousands of miles to the southwest, what is the use of Baiwei State! Abandoning good faith in vain is harmful and unprofitable. What this piaf does not do, the heavens are damned! "As the Lord thought, Zhao Deyu returned his city to Tubo, and he was aware of the conspiracy and those who came with him. Tubo was extremely cruel to the situation. Deyu yu is a resentful monk and a child. ”
The so-called "loss of a Victorian state and failure to lose its momentum" can only be said in that era when there is no modern concept of territory, and if placed in the era of such a concept, this sentence is enough to be targeted at the column of shame of history. But it is fair to say that the cattle monks and children are not entirely because of party strife and oppose for the sake of opposition, and what some places say is not unreasonable.
Li Deyu's plan to invade Tubo Ya tent from western Sichuan was indeed a bit unreliable, and if the Tang Dynasty had the strength to build a Kangzhuang Avenue at that time, it would definitely not matter if tubo was captured. However, speaking of Tubo's ability to fight Xianyang in three days is obviously alarmist, and Tubo bian will run back one after another to surrender, which is enough to show that Tubo has been chaotic in the country. If Tubo could still enter Guanzhong at this time, then the Tang Dynasty would have been destroyed long ago during the period of Emperor Suzong and Emperor Dezong! Finally, credibility is indeed a kind of constraint, the ancient people do value this, not to mention that the Central Plains Dynasty has always had the concept of "the lord of the world", always feel obliged to set an example for the world, to set an example for siyi!
In the end, Emperor Wenzong Li Ang ordered that Victoria be returned to Tubo in accordance with the agreement of the Changqing Hui League, and the deputy envoy of Victoria who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, Xi Yimou, was repatriated to Tubo. After being escorted to the Tubo border to return Tubo, Xi Yimou and others were killed by all the Tubo generals on the border.
In this Victorian change of hands incident, the Tang Dynasty was not able to get the coveted Western Sichuan Pass, which could be hated. The Tang Dynasty's handling of this matter has been evaluated by later historians.
Sima Guang once had a comment: "When Tang Xin and Tubo reconciled and Naqi Victoria, in other words, Victoria was small and believed in big; in other words, Victoria was slow and urgent." However, if it is a Tang plan, why should it be first? In Tang, Xi Yimou was Xianghua, and in Tubo, he was inevitably a traitor, and his condemnation was also very demure! And what Deyu said is liye, the monks and children are righteous, and the one who is profitable and forgets righteousness is shameful, and the son of heaven is in a state of heaven! ”
From this evaluation, it can be seen that "shame and profit" is the main idea of the ancient Chinese scholar class. Most of these scholars and masters served as officials in the dprk, and this idea of "shame and profit" naturally became the rule of state operation in ancient China. In China's thousands of years of political and diplomatic events, this situation is not uncommon. Even now, it still vaguely affects the operation of the country.
The Tang Dynasty's handling of the Victorian incident must also be considered in the context of the Tang and The Two Countries.
At this time, both Tang and Bo were already thin and dying, just like two strong men who had fought in the mire all their lives, at this time they were already dying old, and the rest was just supporting in the breathing and not falling, or holding on without falling down first. If anyone falls first, what awaits him is bound to be the wolf pack that has been watching for a long time. Therefore, it is necessary to hold the principle that more is better than less.
If this incident occurred during the years of Zhenguan and Tianbao, or even during the years of the Wuhou Emperor, with the vigorous momentum of the Tang Dynasty at that time, and with the strong and tyrannical personality of these emperors, no matter what agreement he had or did not agree on, he wanted to fight, he wanted to fight, he wanted to fight, he ate the fat in his mouth, swallowed it first, and then said, where is the reason for spitting it out? No matter how future generations evaluate the Victorian incident, the peaceful settlement of this matter has maintained the friendly situation between Tang and Bozhou. For more than twenty years, the envoys between Tibet and the Tang Dynasty were in constant exchanges, the border was full of wolves, and both sides followed the treaty set by the "Changqing Hui League", and the two countries maintained a rare tranquility.
In the third year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign (849), eighteen years after the Victorian Council. Du Wu, a member of the Niu Party, was sent to Sichuan as an official, and "he had no talent, often extended to receive Han Li, and was willing to steal the throne." But he couldn't stand the fate of others, and just as he was in office, Yan Wu, Wei Gao, and Li Deyu tried to find ways to get back to Victoria. The Old Book of Tang records that "out of the town of Xichuan, there was no Tubo Victoria first." The state is the ancient Xi Rongdi, its land is bounded by Jiangyang in the south, and the Min Mountains are connected to the mountains and the west, and do not know its extremes; looking north to the Longshan Mountains, the snow is like jade; looking east to Chengdu, if it is at the bottom of the well. Ground adjacent to Shi Niu Mountain, Xia Yu was born in Shi Niu Mountain is also. Its state is at the lone peak of Minshan Mountain, facing the river on three sides. After Tianbao, He and Long fell, but this state was in Yan. Tubo was dangerous, and in the past twenty years, the design was obtained, so according to its city, because it was called 'Worry-free City', Tubo was made up of soldiers of Yu Qiong and Shu. First, Li Deyu town of Xichuan, the Victorian Tubo chieftain Xi Yi plotted to surrender the city, Deyu played it; the ruler and Deyu did not cooperate, and The ruler did not cooperate with Deyu, and The city was returned. Even if it is recovered, it is not because of the blade of the army, but by human feelings. ”
At this time, the Tubo Dynasty's own country was in chaos, and the affairs of the frontier were not taken care of at all. The Victorian defenders will once again surrender the city, this time there is no so-called agreement and treaty, faith and righteousness are the first, and the Tang Dynasty will also take Victoria into its pocket. Victoria, a choke point where the two countries have been worried about for 225 years, ended in a return to Tang.