In the recent screen-brushing short film "The Last Transfer of Datang Mobei", Lei Jiayin fired another fire with a small comment, this time the protagonist is still a soldier of Datang, but he is not guarding Chang'an, it is a few bags of copper money for military expenses.
The protagonist Lu XIV once gave up his identity as a soldier, and once fantasized about the field and women, and sometimes chose to give up when a large amount of money could be appropriated for himself, and finally achieved the feat of "climbing, but also climbing to Xizhou City", and this sentence is actually just the words of the white-haired veteran, not Lu XIV's promise.
The dead have gone, and the living should carry their own burdens forward.
This history is not unfamiliar to the author, but I just can't bear to mention it.
Qinghai Changyun Dark Snow Mountain, isolated city looking at Yumen Pass. Huangsha wears golden armor in hundreds of battles, and does not break the Loulan and will not return it. --Seven songs from the army. Fourth. Wang Changling
In the third year of Tang Xianzong's reign, on a winter day in Guizi City, heavy snow flew, and it was a white-haired army on the city wall. This is the last remnant of the Tang Anxi Capital Protectorate, and only the lonely city of Guizi is still flying the banner of the Tang Dynasty on the territory of the Western Regions, and their leader is General Guo Xin, who is respected by posterity as the King of the Iron-Blooded County, who has held the enclave for 53 years, and the song is about to sound at this moment.
The strange knife was crippled, the armor was dim, the grain and grass were exhausted, the support was lost, and the only constant was the resolute look, they fought a final bloody battle with the ferocious Tubo army under the leadership of The Dadu Protector of Anxi and Guo Xin, the King of Wuwei County, and none of them survived.
Time went back 53 years (755 AD), when the Tang Dynasty was in full swing, and the Anxi army was preparing to find the Arabs to avenge the Battle of Rus, but received orders to return to Chang'an, leaving only more than 10,000 defenders.
In 763, the Tubo people who took advantage of the fire and robbery successively occupied the prefectures of Longyou and Hexi, cutting off the connection between the four towns of Anxi and the imperial court. The lone army that held the towns was isolated for fifteen years until tang dezong jianzhong in the second year (781) began to contact the imperial court. By the third year of Emperor Dezong of Tang's reign (787 AD), the Tubo army had captured Beiting, and Anxi had once again lost contact with the interior.
Therefore, the eleventh year of Jianzhong in the short film is a non-existent era name, which should be the sixth year of Zhenyuan (790 AD), and the film may have done some artistic treatment, but it is not controversial that Anxi Jun was in a state of complete loss of contact with the imperial court at that time.
This detail also has a prototype, in the "Yang Sanniang Loan Contract" unearthed in Kuqa County, the date of payment is "the sixteenth year of the Great Calendar" (781 AD), while the historical Calendar year number was only fourteen years.
In real history, the last military payment received was received by Yang Xigu, the envoy of beiting jiedushi, who in the autumn of 790 AD contacted Hui Da xiangjie to counterattack Beiting. The Tang army that appears at the end of the film should be the troops assembled by Yang Xianggu.
▲ The Beiting Tang Army
However, the combined forces of the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs were eventually defeated by Tubo, and only 160 remnants of the Northern Court remained, and Yang Xianggu was also killed by his ally Hui Hui Da xiangjie Yugas.
The history of the Xizhou Army is not over, and later generations have found documents from Xizhou in dunhuang archaeology, including the words "Zhenyuan Nineteenth Year" (803 AD), which shows that these hundred or so people have persisted in Xizhou for at least thirteen years.
Coincidentally, in the Western Regions 700 years ago, the Eastern Han Dynasty also had a garrison that staged the same legend.
In March of the eighteenth year of Yongping (75), the Northern Xiongnu secretly attacked the Cheshi, and the 300 reinforcements of the Han army were buried, and the entire army was destroyed, and the Xiongnu army attacked Jinpu City after defeating the Cheshi.
▲ Stills: Blood Battle Shule City
After holding on to Jinpu and forcing the Xiongnu to retreat, the Han army retreated to the more strategically important Shule, and was immediately besieged by the Northern Xiongnu.
In the autumn, in July, the Xiongnu attacked again, and they embraced the stream, and gongyu dug a well for fifteen years in the city, and there was no water, and the officials were thirsty and thirsty, and drank it from the horse's dung juice. Gong Himself led the cage, there was a spring, and everyone called long live. --Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 45
Even with water, the defenders soon fell into a situation of running out of grain and grass and running out of food, and the Book of the Later Han Dynasty says, "For several months, when they are exhausted, they boil crossbows and eat their tendons." ", all that can be eaten is eaten, and what can be beaten is "the remaining dozens of people", relying on Geng Gong's "pushing sincerity and death and life", the Han army is united in will, "no two hearts", the thin Shule City is like a lonely boat in the big waves, although it is fluttering, it has never overturned.
Knowing that Gong gong is trapped, he will come down. The messenger of the restoration beckoned: "If he surrenders, he shall be crowned the king of the white house, and his wife shall be a woman." "Gong Nai lured him to the city, killed him with his hands, and burned the cities." When the officials saw it, they cried and went away. --Book of the Later Han Dynasty
The Xiongnu king's means of surrender became a move to send people's heads, Geng Gong took the messenger's hand blade and roasted it on the city wall, and yue Fei's "Man Jiang Hong" allusion to "the strong man hungry eats hu yu meat" comes from this. The Huns, who were known for their barbarism, were also frightened and weeping, and the Xiongnu were also angry and corrupt, but no matter how they attacked, Shule City could not be taken down, but waited for reinforcements from the Han Dynasty.
At this time, the emperor was the Han Ming Emperor, one of the "Seven Systems of Han", and as one of the few Ming Emperors in the Eastern Han Dynasty, he ignored the suggestion that Sikong Fifth Lun "thought it was not appropriate to save".
Situ Bao Yu said: "Now let people in a place of danger, and abandon them in a hurry, while the outside is a violent and violent, and the inside is wounded and killed." If the Xiongnu re-offend Sai Wei Kou, what will His Majesty do? --Book of the Later Han Dynasty
This is a resounding statement, the new monarch has just been established, the state affairs are undecided is not a reason to give up, a dynasty that is determined to expand its territory will give up the imperial soldiers who are in danger for what "objective" reasons?
▲Ruins of Shule City
The Han court gathered the three counties of Zhangye, Jiuquan, Dunhuang and the army of Shanshan, totaling 7,000 people, and began a rescue operation, and in the spring of the following year (76 AD), the large army broke the front army of the Che division and forced the Cheshi state again, and the Northern Xiongnu saw that the Han army was mighty and strong, did not dare to fight, and fled far away.
The moon rises from the heavenly mountains, between the vast clouds and the sea. The long wind is tens of thousands of miles, blowing the jade gate off. --Li Bai,"Guan Shanyue"
At this time, geng gong and Shule city were not heard from, and the rescue was destined to be an operation that could not be worth the loss, so the main general Wang Meng was ready to return to the division, but at the insistence of the partial general Fan Qiang, two thousand soldiers chose to continue the rescue, and they were about to cross the dangerous Tianshan Mountain and continue this risky rescue operation.
In the middle of the night, I heard the sound of soldiers and horses, thinking that I was coming, and I was horrified. Qiang Nai yao exclaimed, "I Fan Qiangye." The Han army greeted the lieutenant's ear. "The city is called Long Live." --Book of the Later Han Dynasty
▲ Oil painting: Yumen Guan Thirteen Warriors
At this time, there were only 26 soldiers left in Shule City, and Geng Gong opened the city gate, and everyone hugged each other and wept bitterly. The next day, they returned with the rescuers. The Northern Xiongnu sent troops in pursuit, and the Han army walked while fighting. The officers and men had been hungry for a long time, and when they set out from Shule City, there were still twenty-six people, and they continued to die along the way, and by the time they arrived at Yumen in March, only thirteen were left.
Dressed in a broken suit, described as withered. Zhonglang will wash Zheng Zhong's clothes for Gong. ---- Book of the Later Han Dynasty
Zhonglang personally bathed and rubbed the backs of Geng Gong and his subordinates, changing their clothes and hats, which was a silent tribute to the hero, and Situ Bao Yu also praised him for "saving Su Wu", and for a time received the highest courtesy from the imperial court.
Of course, they deserve it.
Even if the situation has been deteriorating, the frontier legend of the Han and Tang Dynasties continues.
Since the fall of Anxi to Nuogan, another Shazhou hero Zhang Yichao came out of nowhere, he scattered his family wealth, led the people of all ethnic groups in Shazhou to revolt, expelled the Tubo who occupied the Hexi region, and opened up more than 4,000 miles of territory in the name of the rebel army, such as Kefugua, Sha, and Liang, which was also the last time the Han Dynasty extended its rule to the western region.
▲ Dunhuang mural: Jiedu makes Zhang Yichao travel map
And in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty. Volume 19. In the Ninth Biography of Geng Yi, the Geng family is full of loyal martyrs, passed down from generation to generation, from the repeated Jian Qigong of Geng Yi (Geng Gong's uncle) in the era of the Guangwu Emperor, to his grandson Geng Ye as a lieutenant of Wuhuan, many times breaking the Xianbei, Wei Zhen Saibei, the Geng family accumulated "two great generals, nine generals, thirteen Qing people, three princesses of Shang, nineteen marquises, zhonglang generals, Qiang lieutenants and assassins, and dozens of hundreds of people in two thousand stones", realizing the glory of "rising and falling with the Han Dynasty".
History has been annihilated, and the only thing that is immortal is the spirit.
Well, it's time to go back and talk about the short film.
Even if you can change one more cart of grain and grass, a knife, and an arrow, you can let one more enemy know that this is my Datang! What they recognize is not this money, these are the two words on the money - Datang!
This is the line of Guo Yuanzheng, the veteran of the play, guo Yuanzheng of the Ninth Cavalry Team of the Xuange Battalion of the Wuwei Army of the Tang Dynasty, which expounds the two special meanings carried by the copper coins in the Tang Dynasty.
On the one hand, he actually knew that the entire Anxi Army also knew that their perseverance would eventually fail without foreign aid, and the miracle was far away, but this was not a reason to give up. The equipment or grain and grass brought by coins is an extension of the will to fight, even if it is dying tomorrow, it is necessary to shoot the last bullet, which is the unique spiritual trait of the Chinese nation that prefers to shed the last drop of blood rather than choose to seek perfection.
On the other hand, there was no national flag or national emblem at that time, and the four words "Datang Jianzhong" on the coin were a kind of spiritual sustenance for the lone army and the people of datang in the western region, although the country suffered hardships, the people were still there, the glory of datang was still there, and the day of the unscheduled return was also the source of courage for the lone army and the lonely city to resist to the end.
The biggest shock of the short film comes from the footage of the Xizhou defenders sending Lu XIV out of the city, when a group of fading veterans take off their helmets to reveal their pale hair, they are no longer young, but their eyes are still firm.
"Chinese, never changed his insistence on faith!"
This is the narration at the end of the short film, so what exactly is our persistence?
Is it the glory of "Sealing the Wolf Juxu" and "Yanran Legong"? Or is it the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians committing suicide in the sea on the cliffs, or the intransigence of "leaving their hair without leaving their heads"? Are the names engraved on the Monument to heroes that cannot be forgotten? Or are they the scientists who have been incognito for decades to build two bombs and one star?
▲Yanran Le Gong Monument
The author believes that the reason why China has become China lies in the national spirit and character that is different from the West or other civilizations, and no civilization has ever had the confidence that chinese civilization has the confidence to "win" any challenge, let alone such a persistence of never giving up.
Because of this, we can go from being poor and white to being rich and the people strong, from a hundred years of weakness to the rejuvenation of a big country, and when we look back a few years later, the current achievements may only be the foothold of the Chinese nation towards the peak.
The author is reminded of an online novel I read more than ten years ago, "Shuo Feng Fei Fei" (by Ah Gong), different from the current dog blood or pale bridge sections, this is a military history masterpiece based on the story of Anxi's lone army, the entanglement of national hatred and family hatred, the collision of love and blood, which can make readers fall into it and reminisce for a long time, which is very worth reading (readable on the Internet).
However, what I prefer is the "Shuo Feng Fei Yang Qu" at the end of the article, which is adapted by the author from the Qi family army song, and the fake Tozen is composed by the author.
All people are united, and the mountains can be shaken. But loyalty and righteousness, anger and bullfighting. The wind is blowing, and the sky is snowing. Jingjia covered the sun, laughing and deciding. The Lord will kiss me as much as a parent. Violating military law and not being free. Orders are clear, rewards and punishments are letters. Go to the water and fire, dare to stay late! Report to Tianzi Xi and rescue Qianshou. Kill all the thieves and find a marquis!
Folks, can you feel the distant sound of the horn from the Han and Tang Dynasties?