Afghanistan has many mountainous areas, which are particularly suitable for guerrilla warfare. Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States all invaded the country, but all ended in failure. However, many people do not know that the Chinese Tang Dynasty once ruled Afghanistan for more than 200 years!
Map of the Tang Dynasty
Let's look at the map of the Tang Dynasty. You will find that Afghanistan is within the territory of the Tang Dynasty. Let's look first at the history of Afghanistan.
Ancient Afghanistan was once the territory of many countries. For example, in the 6th century BC, Afghanistan was the territory of the Persian Empire. In 329 BC, Afghanistan became the territory of Alexander's Empire. Since then, Afghanistan has become the territory of the Seleucid Dynasty and the Kushan Kingdom. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, Afghanistan had become Chinese territory.
So, which institution was Attached to the Tang Dynasty?
Afghan beauty
The body that governs the territory of present-day Afghanistan is called the Northern Imperial Protectorate.
Previously, in order to strengthen the administration of the Western Turkic region, Emperor Taizong of Tang established the Anxi Capital Protectorate in Gaochang after attacking Gaochang in 640. The Protectorate of Anxi administered a vast area south of the Tianshan Mountains to the west of the Onion Ridge and the Amu Darya River Valley. The largest jurisdiction once completely included the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and from the west of the Onion Ridge to Dapos.
When Wu Zetian was in charge of the Tang Dynasty, he felt that the jurisdiction of the Anxi Du Protectorate was too large, so he established the Beiting Du Protectorate, which governed the vast area north of the Tianshan Mountains, including the Altai Mountains and west of Lake Balkhash.
After the establishment of beiting capital protection, it has carried thousands of miles, and social stability, agriculture, animal husbandry, commerce, and handicrafts have all developed unprecedentedly, becoming the center of the northwest region. In the second year of Jingyun (711), the Beiting Capital Protectorate was elevated to the Status of the Metropolitan Protectorate, and the Anxi Capital Protectorate was divided into the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
In the first year of the new century (713 AD), after the second capital protector Guo Qianjin entered the Northern Garden, he organized his army into field pawns, cultivated land, and reclaimed the border. In order to ensure the safety and territorial integrity of this Central and Western Avenue, Tang Xuanzong also set up a Jiedu envoy in Beiting to command the three armies of Hanhai, Tianshan, and Yiwu, with more than 10,000 soldiers, of which 12,000 people of the Han Navy were tuned in Beiting. Today's Afghan territory belongs to the Beiting Capital Protectorate, and in this way, the Tang Dynasty ruled Afghanistan for more than 200 years.
Due to the special geography of Central Asia, the competition for Central Asia in the country has never been interrupted.
In the middle of the 8th century, the emerging Abbasid dynasty began to rise and challenge the authority of the Tang in Central Asia, so Tang Xuanzong sent the general Gao Xianzhi to the Western Regions to conquer the Abbas, and after the Abbas was defeated, Gao Xianzhi remained in the Western Regions to defend.
The turning point in history occurred in 751 AD, when Gao Xianzhi led the Tang army to a battle with the Muslim and small Central Asian countries from the Arab Empire, known in history as the "Battle of The Rus", which resulted in the victory of the Arab Empire and the reduction of the Chinese army.
After that, the "Anshi Rebellion" broke out, causing the Tang Dynasty's power to fade from Central Asia. By 792, Xizhou, the last base of the Tang Dynasty in the western region, had fallen, and Afghanistan had officially left China's embrace. 【Author:Daily Kanji】