Text/Kaidi Wang
In the 7th-8th centuries AD, the Arabs rose from the peninsula, and the Muslim conquerors armed with machetes soon spread the teachings of Islam over a vast area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Hindu Kush Mountains. In distant Central Asia, however, they encountered a strong interception by a group of Turks.
This powerful Western Turkic tribe, known as the Turkishi, was once known as a loyal ally of the Tang Empire in the Western Regions, delayed the Arab attack on the East, and won many great victories. Unfortunately, this powerful tribe came and went in a hurry, and gradually dissipated into history in the middle of the 8th century AD, which also made the Tang Dynasty lose an arm, laying the groundwork for the subsequent fiasco of Theros.
The early Turks were originally not brilliant, and were only one of the five major land tribes under the account of the Western Turk Khaganate. After the Tang dynasty general Su Dingfang and others pacified Ashina Helu (658), the Tang government set up the Governor's Mansion of The Governor of Zhaolu Prefecture and the Governor's Mansion of Mount Xuanshan (present-day Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the area around Ili in Xinjiang, China), a Western Turk tribe in the Ili River Valley that had long been subordinate to the Tang Dynasty's Anxi Prefecture Protectorate, which was very mediocre in the late 7th century AD and did not become the dominant force in determining the regional situation.
Photo/Ili River Basin
At the end of the seventh century AD, due to the misuse of Wu Zetian in the process of restraining the Turkic tribes, the Tuqishi tribe, which was in a secondary position at that time, found an opportunity to turn around.
The Ili River Basin has always been a thoroughfare and a land of abundant water and soil in northern Xinjiang, so the development potential of the Tuqishi tribe is obviously stronger than that of other Western Turk tribes. In the third year of Chang'an (703), the leader of the Tuqi Shibu, Wu Zhile, led an army to attack Ashina Husseluo, with the Broken Leaf City in the Chu River Basin as the big tooth and the Bow Moon City in the Ili River Basin (northwest of present-day Huocheng, Xinjiang) as the small tooth, basically controlling the entire Western Turk homeland, thus beginning the strong stage of the Tuqishi tribe.
The golden age of Turkishi was during the time of the Khan of Sulu. In 713, Sulu, after his predecessor Khan was beheaded by the Later Turks, led the tujue, and he used his military and political skills to quickly bring the Ten Tribes of the Western Turks to him. Sulu revived the power of the Western Turks and regained control of 200,000 Turkic warable troops, which was basically equivalent to the strength of the Western Turks at its peak.
Three years later, the Later Turkic Mesa Khan was defeated, and the Khan of Sulu officially proclaimed himself Khan. In the following years, the status of Sulu Khan was officially recognized by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, and the Tang government successively appointed Sulu as the Grand General of the Zuo Yulin Army, the Ambassador of Jin Fang Dao Jingluo, and the title of Zhongshun Khan. At this time, Turkishi had actually become the master of the Western Turks.
Photo/Arab cavalry
At this time, however, the Arabs, who had already crossed the Uhu River (the Amu Darya River), were tired from their own infighting. As the new master of the Western Turks, the Sulu Khan intended to re-establish the turkic authority in the oasis of Central Asia, when the Arabs had forced a large number of city-states throughout the river region to submit to themselves and ruled them under Sharia law, causing revolt among the countries of the river.
Around 720 AD, Kang Guo, JuMi, An Guo and others jointly played the "Please Ask for a Big Meal Table". In the Battle of Thirsty Water Day in 724 AD, the Turk forces crushed the allied Arab forces that had come to attack Bahanna (Dawan), and then again defeated the main forces of the Arab Empire at the Battle of Tashta Karacha Pass in 731 AD, wiping out the Arab forces in the river region. Powerful Turkic cavalry galloped between the oasis and the desert in the river, and the great cannibals were called "the top".
The peak of the Sudden Riders came and went quickly.
While fighting the Arabs in the West, the Khan of Sulu did not forget to show his strong military strength in the four towns of Anxi in the east, and could simultaneously fight against the Tang Dynasty and the Arab Empire on the two major battlefields in the east and the west.
The strength of the Sulu Khan is strong, but there is also a huge crisis lurking. In 736 AD, the Tang Dynasty's Northern Court Capital, Gai Jiayun, defeated the Sulu Khan in the Ili River Valley, and the Arab Empire simultaneously launched a counterattack, and a power struggle was also set off within Turkishi. In 738, Sulu Khan, who had been severely damaged on the eastern and western battlefields, was beheaded by his subordinate leader Mohen nagan, and his son Tuhuoxian Khan set up another mountain, and the two sides split into yellow and black surnames attacking each other, and the entire khanate quickly fell apart, no longer able to move west to contain the Muslims.
At this time, the Tang Dynasty, which was planning to overthrow Tuqishi, suddenly found that it could not fill the power vacuum that existed in the western region after the fall of the Tuqishi Empire, and with the fragmentation and accelerated decline of the Turkic tribes, it eventually led to the complete victory of the Arabs in Central Asia. The rise of the Turks was swift and violent, but their strategic intent to kill the four sides eventually led to their rapid decline, eventually becoming a vassal of Gelug and disappearing into history.
bibliography:
1. General History of Central Asia
2. 100 volumes of the Full History of China