Chapter 443
Another Dynasty Destroyed
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The Song Dynasty's reconquest of the Western Regions went more smoothly than initially expected, at least in the early stages.
It could even be said that the matter was settled by issuing a proclamation.
The smoothness of the process was so remarkable that many ministers in the court could hardly believe it.
These people even thought, 'If I had known it would be so easy to recover the Western Regions, why did I stop Zhao Yu from doing so? Would I have been a petty person?'
Zhao Yu and Zhang Chun, who were familiar with this history, knew very well that Yelü Dashi's western expedition was very successful at the beginning. So successful that he only led two hundred cavalrymen to escape from Jiashan at night. This small team, which could be described as "exile", was not only not robbed by tribes when crossing the Gobi Desert, but also had scattered former Khitan tribesmen come to join them. By the time they arrived at Qatun City, the number of people in the group had quietly doubled.
Khatun City was originally an important town in the northwest of the Liao Dynasty, and a natural source of soldiers and provisions. More than 20,000 Khitan soldiers were stationed in the city, and hundreds of thousands of imperial horses were grazed outside the city. The surrounding seven prefectures and eighteen tribes were all former vassal tribes of the Liao Dynasty.
Yelü Dashi convened a tribal assembly here, and with the wolf-head banner and the Tang court's tally as tokens, he swore to restore Liaodong. His call was met with overwhelming support, and various tribes sent their sons to join the army. In just a few months, more than 10,000 elite soldiers were recruited, and more than 200,000 warhorses and countless cattle and sheep were obtained from Qatun City.
After that, Yelü Dashi's westward advance was even more successful.
At that time, Bilege, the king of Gaochang Uyghur, one of the hegemons of the Western Regions, also opened the gates to Yelü Dashi, surrendered the city, and became his vassal.
From fleeing westward with two hundred horsemen to controlling the northern desert and intimidating the western regions within a few years, Yelü Dashi's western expedition was so smooth in the early stages that it seemed as if he were protected by the gods. Just like the beginning of the Song Dynasty's reconquest of the western regions, it seemed effortless, but in fact, it all had a deep foundation.
Yelü Dashi's successful reconquest of the Western Regions in the early stages was mainly due to the deep foundation laid by the Khitan's more than two hundred years of management of the northern deserts and the Western Regions.
Since its founding, the Liao Dynasty had formed alliances and marriages with various tribes in the northern deserts and the Western Regions. It established the Northwest Route Pacification Commission to govern the area around Qatun City. The widespread use of official documents and the light taxes and corvée labor had long been deeply ingrained in the people's minds.
The seven prefectures and eighteen tribes remembered the kindness of past protection, and the former garrison troops cherished the glory of their homeland. This is why Yelü Dashi was able to command a hundred responses to his call in Qatun City.
In reality, this was based on the prestige accumulated by the Khitans over two hundred years.
The reason why the Song Dynasty's early recovery of the Western Regions was so smooth was because the Song Dynasty swept across Northeast Asia, destroying the Tibetan Empire, the Western Xia, the Liao, the Jin, Goryeo, Japan, and crushing a number of grassland tribes on the Mongolian Plateau. This was a real military deterrent.
This kind of "prestige earned through battle" carries an undeniable foundation of hard power.
Moreover, the Western Regions have been plagued by constant warfare for years, with everyone vying for resources and the people suffering greatly from the ravages of war.
Furthermore, recently, many grassland tribes have come from the Mongolian Plateau and have been plundering resources, making survival increasingly difficult for people in the Western Regions.
The various states, tribes, and powers, having long suffered from war, yearned to attach themselves to a powerful central dynasty to gain peace and the benefits of trade.
Moreover, the Central Plains civilization has always been a leading civilization of its time, and the people of the Western Regions longed to embrace it.
This allowed the Song Dynasty to pacify the Western Regions with a single proclamation at the beginning of its reconquest.
In short, the reason why the Song Dynasty's initial recovery of the Western Regions was so smooth was due to the prestige of the strong, the submission of various countries to absolute power after weighing the pros and cons, and, more importantly, their proactive approach to advanced civilizations.
However, the Song Dynasty's success came to an end.
After establishing Suyab, the Song Dynasty encountered its true rival in the Western Regions—the Karakhanid Dynasty.
The Karakhanid dynasty can be traced back to the Khazar Empire.
The Khazars Empire, also known as the Khazars Khanate, was a nomadic regime established between the 7th and 9th centuries by Turkicized tribes who migrated westward to the Caucasus region. Its territory encompassed the middle and lower Volga River, the Crimean Peninsula, and the North Caucasus steppe, with its capitals successively located in Barengar, Samandal, and Adil.
As a trade hub on the northern route of the Silk Road, the Khazars, by controlling the Black Sea and Caspian Sea passages, became an important transit point for trade routes connecting the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Empire, and Northern Europe, and their economy prospered.
The Khazars originally practiced shamanism, but in the mid-8th century, in order to balance the surrounding Christian and Islamic forces, the ruling class converted to Judaism, becoming a rare Jewish regime in history.
Politically, the Khazars had a long-standing alliance with the Byzantine Empire through marriage and had repeatedly joined forces to resist the expansion of the Arab Empire. At the same time, they had frequent interactions with Slavic groups such as the Rus'.
As the core controller of the northern route of the Silk Road, the Khazars Khanate relied on transit trade as its foundation. Its gold coins circulated between the East and the West, becoming a hard currency in Eurasian trade.
However, the Khazars Empire and the Arab Empire waged a century-long war for dominance over the Caucasus region and trade routes, which greatly depleted their national strength. At the same time, the rise and incursions of the Rus' tribes in the north, as well as the internal conflicts of interest between nomadic tribes and settled trading classes, further shook the foundation of their rule.
Later, after Svyatoslav, the Grand Prince of Rus', captured the capital of the Khazar Empire, the Khazar Empire disintegrated. Some of the Turkic tribes that had been subordinate to the Khazar Khanate, unable to bear the burden of war and religious oppression, migrated eastward along the Syr Darya River. They eventually settled in the Central Asian steppes and the western part of the Tarim Basin, merging with the culture and bloodlines of the local Sogdian, Uyghur, and Karluk peoples, and gradually developed into the Karakhanid Dynasty.
This dynasty inherited the military organization traditions and trade genes of the Khazars, while absorbing the achievements of Central Asian agricultural civilization. By the mid-10th century, it had become a powerful regime covering Central Asia and western regions of the Western Regions, with its capitals in Kashgar and Samarkand, controlling key nodes in the middle section of the Silk Road.
However, the eastern part of the Karakhanid Dynasty, centered on Kashgar, was adjacent to the various tribes of the Western Regions and the Central Plains Dynasty. It controlled the tribute trade and private trade routes with the East. Economically, it relied on a diversified trade system, and culturally, it preserved the diverse traditions of the Uyghurs and Sogdians, maintaining relative independence from external powers.
The western region, centered on Samarkand and adjacent to the sphere of influence of the Arab Empire, had closer economic ties with the Islamic world in Central Asia and was deeply influenced by Islamic civilization. The aristocratic class tended to integrate into the Islamic political system.
In summary, on the religious front, although the Karakhanid Dynasty adopted Islam as its state religion, there were still a large number of Buddhists, Manichaeists, and Nestorians in the east. This pluralistic religious landscape made it difficult to unify religious policies, while the west was committed to promoting pure Islamization. Religious differences further exacerbated the divide between the east and west.
Decades ago, the death of Arslan, the Great Khan of the Karakhanid Dynasty, sparked a direct conflict over the succession to the throne, which became the immediate trigger for the division.
Arslan's son, Bora Khan, and his brother, Ibrahim, fell out over the issue of succession. The eastern nobles, out of consideration for maintaining multiculturalism and trade interests, supported Bora Khan.
The western tribes, under the influence of the Islamic upper class, supported Ibrahim.
The two sides engaged in a three-year civil war, which ultimately ended in a stalemate, with the Syr Darya River serving as the boundary between them.
The eastern Karakhanid dynasty established its capital in Kashgar, maintaining diverse connections with the east and preserving some nomadic tribal traditions and a policy of religious tolerance.
The Western Karakhanid Dynasty, with Samarkand as its capital, formally became a vassal state of the Abbasid Caliphate in Central Asia, implementing comprehensive Islamization. After the split, the Eastern and Western Karakhanid Dynasties followed drastically different paths. The eastern dynasty maintained a delicate balance with the various tribes of the Western Regions and the Central Plains dynasties, while the western dynasty became a forward outpost for the Arab Empire's eastward expansion.
Today, both Karakhanid dynasties are the dominant powers in the Western Regions, especially the Eastern Karakhanid dynasty, which borders the Gaochang Uyghurs and is an enemy that the Song Dynasty had to face when it tried to recover the Western Regions.
Because of the precedent of the Gaochang Uyghurs voluntarily surrendering to the Song Dynasty, after Tong Guan arrived in Suyab, he sent out proclamations everywhere and also sent people to deliver a letter of surrender to Ahmad Khan of the Karakhanid Dynasty in the east.
To Tong Guan's surprise, Ahmad Khan not only refused to surrender to the Song Dynasty, but also strictly prohibited the small countries, tribes, and forces under his jurisdiction from surrendering to the Song Dynasty, clearly indicating that he did not want to cede the Western Regions to the Song Dynasty.
Faced with this situation, Tong Guan adopted a strategy of "combining attack and appeasement." On the one hand, he dispatched the main force of the Song army to the front line in the Western Regions, and on the other hand, he ordered the surrendered kingdoms of Gaochang Uyghur, Khotan, and Kucha along the way to provide troops, food supplies, and guides, thus forming a strategic encirclement of the eastern Karakhanid Dynasty.
First, General Wang Bing led 30,000 elite Song infantry and cavalry, along with more than 30,000 Western Region cavalry, straight toward Kashgar.
They advanced along the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, and wherever they went, they first sent envoys to inform the local tribes: "The Great Song Dynasty will pacify and appease those who wish to submit. Those who submit will be treated well, and merchants will be allowed to trade freely and will be exempt from taxes for three years. If you help the tyrant, you will not be forgiven after the city falls."
Seeing the mighty Song army and remembering the suffering of years of war, the small countries along the way opened their cities and surrendered. In just half a month, they gathered more than 10,000 people, which strengthened the Song army's logistics and reconnaissance capabilities.
Long before the Song Dynasty's westward expedition, 16,000 tents of Khitans from the Liao Dynasty already lived on the border of the Karakhanid Dynasty. The eastern Karakhanid Dynasty appointed them to guard the frontier and granted them land and rewards.
Not long ago, however, a serious conflict arose between the eastern Karakhanid dynasty and these Khitans. Fearing this Khitan group, Ahmad Khan forced them to separate from their wives, hoping to wipe out their lineage.
These Khitans were naturally unwilling, and the two sides clashed many times.
Later, this group of Khitans also took the initiative to come and join Wang Bing.
As a result, by the time they arrived in Kashgar, Wang Bing had nearly 80,000 troops under his command, making him a formidable force.
Kashgar, as the capital of the eastern Karakhanid Khanate, was fortified. Ahmad Khan mobilized 50,000 elite troops to garrison it and conscripted able-bodied men from within the city to reinforce the defenses and assist in the city's defense, intending to hold it firmly.
After Wang Bing arrived at the city, he did not rush to attack the city. Instead, he first sent engineers to cut off the water supply outside the city, and then ordered craftsmen to set up catapults and crossbows, as well as the light Li Lin cannons they brought, to bombard the weak points of the city wall day and night.
At the same time, Wang Bing took advantage of the Western Region tribes he had previously recruited and the Khitan people's familiarity with the terrain, and sent light cavalry to outflank the upper reaches of the Yarkand River south of Kashgar to cut off the enemy's supply lines.
The city's defenders held out for just over half a month before their food supplies dwindled and water became scarce, causing morale to plummet. Seeing this, many nobles secretly contacted the Song army, offering to act as inside agents.
Seeing that the time was ripe, Wang Bing ordered a general attack late at night. Inside the city, the city gates were opened by collaborators, and the main force of the Song army swarmed in, engaging in street fighting with the defenders.
Ahmad Khan led his confidants in a breakout attempt, but was besieged by Song troops in a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of the city. After a fierce battle, he was captured, and Kashgar fell.
At the same time, General Liu Qi led 20,000 Song soldiers and 30,000 Western Region cavalry to attack the Qihe region.
The Seven Rivers region, as the western gateway of the Eastern Karakhanid Dynasty, is strategically located with rugged terrain. The defending forces built fortifications in the mountains, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack.
Liu Qi knew that a direct attack would result in heavy losses, so he adopted the strategy of "encircling the point and attacking reinforcements".
He first surrounded Qihe City with his main force, creating a false impression of an impending siege, and then sent his deputy general Wang Yan with 5,000 elite troops to ambush the city from the only road outside.
Ahmad Khan's general stationed in the Seven Rivers urgently sought help from the surrounding tribes, but when the reinforcements reached the ambush, they were suddenly attacked by the Song army and scattered and fled.
When the defenders of Qihe City saw that their external support had been cut off, their morale collapsed.
Taking advantage of the situation, Liu Qi sent someone into the city to persuade the surrendered soldiers to surrender, promising to treat them well. After weighing the pros and cons, the defending general opened the city gates and surrendered. The Song army captured the Qihe region at a very low cost, opening up the passage for westward expansion.
After capturing Kashgar and the Seven Rivers region, the core territory of the eastern Karakhanid Dynasty was divided into two parts, north and south, by the Song army.
Tong Guan ordered Wang Bing and Liu Qi to divide their forces and pursue the remaining forces.
Wang Bing led his troops south to suppress the rebellious tribes in the Yarkand River basin;
Liu Qi then marched westward and captured strategic locations such as Shache and Yingjisha.
Whenever the Song army recovered a territory, it immediately established an pacification commissioner's office, appointing Song officials and the surrendered tribal leaders to jointly govern the area, promote the household registration system and agricultural technology of the Central Plains, stabilize local order, and at the same time, use the captured money, land, and pastures to recruit local people to build railways and highways to the Song Dynasty.
Those tribes that originally relied on the Eastern Karakhanid Dynasty, seeing that the Eastern Karakhanid Dynasty was doomed, turned to the Song Dynasty and even took the initiative to send troops to assist the Song army in suppressing the remaining enemies.
After Ahmad Khan was captured, the remaining nobles of the eastern Karakhanid Khanate retreated to Puli, a city on the edge of the Pamir Plateau, attempting to hold out against the enemy by relying on the mountainous terrain.
Wang Bing and Liu Qi joined forces and led their troops across a branch of the Pamir Mountains, launching a three-pronged attack on Puli City.
The remaining defenders had lost their will to fight and, faced with the Song army's fierce attack, collapsed after only three days of holding out.
The Song army captured the last group of rebellious nobles, completely undermining the rule of the Eastern Karakhanid Dynasty.
After six months of fighting, the Song Dynasty completely pacified the entire territory of the Eastern Karakhanid Dynasty, incorporating important towns such as Kashgar, Qihe, and Shache into the Song Dynasty's territory.
In this battle, the Song Dynasty not only crushed the resistance forces with its overwhelming military force, but also appeased the people with its policy of appeasement, which quickly stabilized the situation in western China and laid a solid foundation for the Song Dynasty to further develop Central Asia and counter the Western Karakhanid Dynasty and Arab forces.
Upon receiving the report, Zhao Yu richly rewarded all those who had rendered meritorious service. At the same time, he dispatched a group of officials and three thousand students from the Imperial Academy to the Western Regions to govern the region and to cultivate talent for the campaign into Central Asia.
It is worth mentioning that Zhao Yu deliberately sent many of his sons to the Western Regions to help govern the region and familiarize them with Central Asia, in preparation for the later enfeoffment of Central Asia...
...(End of chapter)