In 654 AD, the Persian Sassanid prince Belus traveled thousands of miles and finally reached the city of Chang'an. Entering the magnificent Daming Palace, Belusi, who was a prince, puffed up and knelt down to Emperor Gaozong of Tang:
"Ask the Heavenly Khan to save my mother country!"
In fact, this is not the first time that Persia has asked for help from the Tang Dynasty, as early as the Tang Taizong Zhenguan period, Persia had asked for help from the Tang Dynasty four times in a row in 638, 639, and 647 and 648.
Everyone knows how troublesome it is for Persia (today's Iran) to be thousands of miles away from China, across the towering Pamir Plateau, and to use troops in the direction of Persia. Therefore, the first four requests for help, Tang Taizong all took the name of Lu Yuan and did not answer. This time, the Persians were completely out of the way, and they even used the Persian prince as an envoy, and they vowed not to give up without inviting reinforcements. After all, if the Tang Dynasty did not send reinforcements, the Persian Empire would really perish.
The Persian Sassanid Empire, originally the hegemon of Western Asia in the classical period, fought a tug-of-war with the Eastern Roman Empire in the west for hundreds of years. In the war, the Persians gained the upper hand, beating the Romans to surrender many times, and even twice to the enemy's capital, Constantinople. However, the Roman Empire was deeply rooted, and they stubbornly resisted the Persians, and even pushed back to the capital of the Persian Empire, so that their previous achievements were abandoned.
Centuries of war had exhausted the Romans and Persians. In the west of Persia, a powerful nomadic people took the opportunity to suddenly rise up: the Arabs led by the Prophet Muhammad. In the name of Allah, the Arabs rode camels and used the desert as a cover to simultaneously wage war against Rome and Persia, and won repeated victories.
Under the Arab offensive, most of the Territory of Eastern Rome in Asia and Africa was lost. And the Persians? It's even more pathetic. Under the blows of the Arabs, the Western invaders, the country was already about to be destroyed.
In 637 AD, the ancient Persian capital of Ctesiphon was breached, and the Persian king Yazdegeld III was forced to flee to Central Asia, and 40,000 princes and nobles were captured. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had already destroyed the Eastern Turks and extended its tentacles into the Western Regions. Therefore, Yazdegard III urgently asked Tang Taizong for help, hoping to get the assistance of the Heavenly Khan.
However, Tang reinforcements did not arrive, and Yazdegard III died at the hands of the Arabs. Faced with the danger of extinction, Yazdegelde III's son Belus led his Persian remnants and stationed themselves on the border between the Tang Dynasty and Persia, hoping to seek refuge in the Tang Dynasty. Later, he personally went out to ask the Tang Dynasty for help.
However, the Persian prince's personal request for help did not impress Emperor Gaozong of Tang, and Persia was too far away. But in order to appease Belus, Tang Gaozong gave him a large amount of money and asked him to find a way out for himself.
However, Belus was still not dead-hearted, and in 661 AD, in the first year of the Yuan Shuo, Belus re-entered the dynasty and told Emperor Gaozong of Tang about the Arab invasion of them. This time, Tang Gaozong moved his heart of compassion. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had already pacified the Western Turks, extended the territory to the Aral Sea, and had the spare power to help Persia. Therefore, Emperor Gaozong of Tang set up the Persian Governor's Palace and made Belus the Governor. At least nominally, Persia became a protectorate of the Tang Dynasty.
But after all, the Tang Dynasty was high in mountains and rivers, and it could not scare the greedy Arabs at all. In the end, the Arabs conquered the persian governor's seat, the city of Jieling, and Belus had to flee to Chang'an in a daze, where he was given the false title of General of the Right Guard by Emperor Gaozong of Tang. Following Belus, a large number of Persians settled in Chang'an, forming a huge Persian square.
After the death of Beluske in Chang'an, his son Mud Kneader took his place. Like his father, the mud kneader constantly lobbied Tang Gaozong, hoping that he could help him pay for it. By 677 A.D., things had finally turned around. Emperor Gaozong of Tang issued a decree to the mud kneader:
"Datang is willing to send troops to help you restore your country, so you should follow General Pei Xingjian and set off together!"
Pei Xingjian was a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty and a disciple of Su Dingfang, the "God of War in the Western Regions". Under the professor su Dingfang, Pei Xingjian knew the Western Regions very well.
At that time, the Tang Dynasty was surrounding the Western Regions and engaged in a fierce competition with Tubo. At that time, Tubo was ruled by the famous general and powerful minister Yan Qinling, and the Tang army suffered repeated defeats under him, and the Western Regions also lost most of them under the offensive of Qinling.
The chiefs of the Western Turks saw the Tubo people marching forward, so they saw the wind and turned the rudder and betrayed the Tang Dynasty, especially the chieftains, Ashinadu and Li Zaizai. They colluded with the Tubo people and marched into Anxi City. If the Western City of An was lost, the Tang Dynasty would no longer have the Western Regions.
At this critical moment, Pei Xingjian wrote to Emperor Gaozong of Tang and offered a subtle plan of "hiding the sky and crossing the sea". First of all, Pei Xingjian believes that it is difficult to defeat Tibet now that it is ruled by Theory Qinling. Therefore, the target must be on the two traitors of Ashinaduchi and Li Shaozao. Without these two people, the QinLing would have no foothold in the Western Regions and would not be able to turn over the wind and waves.
Second, if you directly lead the troops to put down the rebellion, Zhu Hu along the way will inevitably leak information to Li Shaozao and others. If Li Shao heard the news and fled, it was really you who threw you into the sea and there was no trace of it.
Therefore, Pei Xingjian believed that the Tang Dynasty could use the mud kneading division living in the Tang Dynasty to raid Li Chazao in the name of helping him restore the country, so as to recover the Western Regions.
Hearing Pei Xingjian's strategy, Tang Gaozong greatly appreciated it, and immediately allocated tens of thousands of troops to him, and traveled with a mud kneading division. The Tang army traveled majestically through the western regions, but under the guise of "restoring the country for Persia", Li Zhaozai and others were indeed deceived and did not guard it.
Later, in the name of hunting, Pei Xingjian gathered together the kings of the four western city states of Guizi, Khotan, Shule, and Shanye and secretly recruited troops from them. Under the summons of Pei Xingjian, tens of thousands of young people from the Western Regions joined the Tang Army, and Pei Xingjian's strength increased greatly for a time.
After that, the Tang army marched rapidly to the garrisons of Ashinadu and Li Zhaozai. Since the two men were defenseless at all, they could only surrender to the Tang Dynasty without resistance. In this way, the Tang Dynasty easily recovered the Western Regions and foiled the Tubo people's plot. From Yumen Pass to Shanye City, millions of square kilometers of territory were thus recovered by Pei Xingjian.
Later, Pei Xingjian also erected a monument to Shanye City (present-day Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan). In 1997, russian archaeologist Ziyabulin found a Chinese fragment at the site of the ancient city of Shanye. According to Mr. Zhou Weizhou's "Examination of The Remains of the Akbehim Site in Kyrgyzstan", this stele is Pei Xingjian's monument.
And the mud kneader? However, it was only a chess piece for Pei Xingjian to recover the Western Regions. After arriving at Shanye City, Pei Xingjian threw it in Shanye City in the name of Shangao Road Yuan, and let him lead people to recover the lost land. After more than 20 years, the mud kneaders who could not defeat the Arabs and were cornered could only return to Chang'an and continue to work as Yugong.
There is an old saying: "Two yi attack each other, China's interests." In dealing with foreign disputes, the Tang Dynasty did not want to be angry, did not make a false name, and would not help the Persians to restore the country for the sake of the face of the so-called "Heavenly Khan". After all, Persia is too far away, even if they help them restore their country, how much benefit can the Tang Dynasty gain?
However, when the western states betrayed the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty took advantage of the mud master prince who lived in China and used it as a cover to easily recover the land. Therefore, when there is a war in a foreign country, the state should act on the basis of profit and see if there is an opportunity to profit from it. On the one hand, we must erect the archway of "helping Persia to support the waist", on the other hand, we must also accept it when we see it, and don't really be dragged into the quagmire.