Wen | Little Bear
Forty years of lonely defense, the young man's white hair has not been returned; the heroic soul has returned for a thousand years, and who knows about the outer field tomb?
I don't know how many people remember that under the premise of the fall of the Hexi Corridor and the isolation from the Central Plains as a lone army, in the face of the continuous attack of Tubo, weeping blood insisted for 42 years, the black-haired teenager boiled into a white-haired veteran, and finally the whole army was destroyed, and no one surrendered.
In 790 AD, during the reign of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty, the Western Regions.
At this time, the two major capitals of Anxi and Beiting had been isolated from the interior for 25 years, and only the two isolated cities of Guizi and Xizhou remained.
Guo Yuanzheng of the Ninth Cavalry Regiment of the Xuange Battalion of the Wuwei Army in Guizi City led his troops to Xizhou City to deliver military expenses to the Tang army here, but encountered enemies on the way, except for Guo Yuanzheng, all the rest of the soldiers were killed.
If I hadn't watched the tear-jerking commercial "The Last Transfer of data in the Desert North", I would never have thought that there was such a sad and tragic story behind it.
We have heard too many times about the Anshi Rebellion, and we probably think that this is a tragic tragedy of the Tang Dynasty and a touch of pain in history, but we have not delved into the story of this long period of time, and what happened to the group of warriors who were still waiting for the Chang'an Moon on the bloody battlefield.
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.
In the late Kaiyuan period, the days of stability and prosperity were too long, and Tang Xuanzong gradually lost the heart of the emperor.
After changing yuan tianbao, he indulged in pleasure and favored the eunuch Gao Lishi, and Yang Guozhong even rejected dissidents and embezzled bribes, making politics more and more corrupt. Coupled with the fierce land annexation at that time, the huge disparity between the rich and the poor, and the appearance of prosperity of the Sheng Tang faction, the forces of all sides were eager to move.
In 755 AD, the Anshi Rebellion broke out. After the fall of Chang'an, the crown prince fled, in order to quell the rebellion, Most of the garrisons of Anxi, Beiting, Hexi and Longyou were transferred internally, and the elite went to the Central Plains, leaving only more than 10,000 soldiers to defend the town.
In 766, Tubo took the opportunity to invade and occupy the Hexi Corridor, and since then the connection between the Anxi Capital Protectorate and the Tang Dynasty has been severed, and the soldiers left behind in the four towns of Anxi have become a veritable lone army.
The lone army in the Western Regions had less than 30,000 people to face ten times the strength of its own, and even after 25 years of bitter fighting, it still insisted on not retreating.
Messengers were sent again and again, and again and again there was no news.
The Anxi army stationed in the western region did not even know about the Tang Dynasty's change of yuan. In the later archaeological process, the cultural relics unearthed in Turpan in the last century had the words "Guangde Four Years", while the real Guangde was only two years old.
In 768, the Anxi army squad broke through the siege to reach Chang'an, and everyone thought that the western region had long been lost, but they told it that the Anxi generals were still struggling to hold on and be loyal to the country! The Manchu Dynasty Wenwu was in tears.
But the brief contact was then interrupted, and the Tang army in the Western Regions could not even figure out the change in the era name in the interior.
After another 13 years, the emissaries of the Anxi Army came to Chang'an again after a long journey of thousands of years, and the loyal Andi Army, which did not retreat to the death, caused a huge sensation in the imperial court, and Tang Dezong, who was shocked, dictated a reward: All officers and soldiers are generals, and they have been promoted to the seventh level in a row!
In the seventh year of the Gregorian calendar (772), Emperor Tang Dynasty's "Edict to the Generals of Anxi and Beiting" said that it "does not move China, does not work hard to help the teachers, crosses thousands of miles, and has the response of the head and tail of the auxiliary car." Yi Wei Yi Huai, Zhang I right tucked, Ling Zhen in the Absolute Domain, Lie Cut in Xi Xian.
However, although the touch was moved, in the end, "ten moves refused", Datang did not send a reinforcement. Soldiers far away in Ansi could not enjoy this honor, but only a euphemism for them to fend for themselves.
At that time, the town guarding the Guizi area was Guo Xin, the nephew of the famous Tang Dynasty general Guo Ziyi.
At this time, the Anxi Army learned that the year number had been changed, and in order to boost morale, General Guo Xin used the new year number "Tang Jianzhong" to mint coins.
Datang Jianzhong is also the only coin in Chinese history with a national name and an era name.
Its birth was mainly to declare that the rule of the Tang Dynasty is still there and the Tang army is still there!
In the CCTV program "Guizi Guizi", it was introduced that in the face of the siege of Tibet for many years, Guo Xin and his defenders have not given up, and they are united with the local people of Guizi, while preparing for war, while cultivating and supporting themselves, they not only achieve self-sufficiency in grain, but also in terms of war horses, weapons, coins and other materials can also try to solve themselves.
Later, Guo Xin never left here.
In 790, the Capital Protectorate of Northwest An was attacked by Tubo, and Most of the Protectors Li Yuanzhong fought to the death, and all 7,000 Tang troops of the Capital Protectorate were killed.
Previously, everyone believed that after 790 AD, the Tang army in the Western Regions was completely gone.
The last record of Anxi in the historical records is also in 790 AD (the sixth year of the Tang Dynasty): Tubo launched a large-scale attack on the Beiting area, the Uighurs led troops to help, the Beiting fell, and the only passage between Anxi and the central government was cut off.
Zizhi Tongjian: "And the Three Gelu and the White-clothed Turks were attached to the Uighurs, and the Uighurs invaded them." Tubo attacked the Northern Court in order to attack the Northern Court in Gelu and the white-clothed people... The sixth year of Zhenyuan (庚午, 790 AD)... The Uighurs fought unfavorably with Tubo, and Tubo rushed to attack Beiting. The Beiting people suffered from uighur demands, and all their loyalties with the Shatuo chief Zhu Xie were surrendered to Tubo. ...... Anxi yu is extinguished, and does not know whether it will survive, while Xizhou is still stubbornly defended by Tang. ”
Since then, only the Western Regions have been left with the Anxi Capital Protectorate.
The time of the final fall of Anxi is not accurately recorded in the historical records, which may not only be caused by the lack of intelligence, but also the insolvent Tang Dynasty has given up control of Anxi.
In fact, although the Beiting court fell at that time, General Guo Xin still insisted on staying in Guizi.
A Chinese inscription of the tenth year of Tang Zhenyuan (794) was found in Cave 223 of the Kyzyl Caves in Xinjiang, which is the last remain of the last surviving Anxi defenders, but after this, the Tang army still held out.
In 796, the Tubo army laid siege to Guizi in an attempt to remove the Tang army's last stronghold in the western region, and the Tang Dynasty's Anxi army fought the city.
Nine Uighur Khan Steles
The Tubo army attacked Guizi, the Heavenly Khan led the army to rescue, and for a while it was extinguished, the corpse was smelly and inhuman, so it built the Jingguan, and there were no embers.
In 808, the last base of the four towns of Anxi, Guizi. Outside the city, there is a sky full of yellow sand, and there is no end in sight.
At this time, 53 years had passed since the Anshi Rebellion, and the Anxi Iron Army, which had once threatened the western region, had long been white-haired.
The last capital, Guo Xin, led a group of soldiers with white hair to fight until the last soldier, and the whole army was martyred.
Perhaps, the belief of those brave and loyal soldiers in Anxi for 42 years was to one day take another look at Chang'an.
No one could know how unwilling Guo Xin, who was already dying of old age, was unwilling at the moment when the Tubo army suppressed the situation, and how the soldiers who had fought all their lives on the battlefield were in a moment of exhaustion.
"Chief, do you say Chang'an is far away, or is the sun far away?"
"Nonsense, of course the sun is far away. I've only heard anyone coming from Chang'an, I've never heard anyone coming from the sun."
"Then why, look up at the sun, but don't see Chang'an?"
As the UnionPay advertisement ended up saying, what is it that makes the Zhengzheng teenager a white-haired veteran? Why, a few bags of copper coins need to be guarded with life? All the answers are in the military song, floating in the desert and the starry sky.
The white-headed soldiers were trapped in the isolated city, and they would rather die than defend the last piece of Tang land in Anxi. This is probably not only a miracle in the history of world wars, but also one of the most tragic defensive battles in history.
Guarding the most distant dignity for the Tang Empire, it is also this dignity that makes them pay a lifetime of fate for it,
Chinese, never changed his belief in the mission.
bibliography:
1. Zizhi Tongjian
2. "Datang's Last Transfer"