Zhou Tingyu led the Longyou Qingtang Army to Khotan and began to repair.

The arrival of the Tang army also made Li Shengtian, the lord of Khotan, finally breathe a sigh of relief.

After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty lost control of the Western Regions, and the Uighur tribes, which originally belonged to the Eastern Turks, gradually took control of the Western Regions and most of Central Asia. However, the Uighur tribes did not establish a unified dynasty, but established the kingdoms of Gaochang and Khotan, respectively. In Central Asia, the Turkic tribes that migrated here gradually annexed the Qarluq tribes, forming a unified khanate, the Qarakhanid, at the beginning of the Five Dynasties.

Kara means "great" in Turkic language, for example, Karakoram Mountain means majestic Kunlun Mountain, but Karakoram also means "black" in Turkic language, and Chinese history books sometimes call the Karakhanid Dynasty the Black Khanate.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Qarakhanid Dynasty, it still kept the traditions of the Turkic and Uighur peoples and believed in Buddhism, but during the period of Olguchak Khan, his nephew Satuk secretly took refuge in the Samanid Dynasty who believed in the Holy Religion in order to compete for the throne.

Subsequently, Satuk proclaimed himself sultan, declared the holy religion as the state religion, and established a **** dynasty.

The Qarakhanid dynasty began to expand abroad at the end of the fifth dynasty, first carving up the Samanid kingdom together with the Seljuks, and then, reinforced by 150,000 "jihadist volunteers" recruited from Baghdad, Persia and Damascus, gained the absolute upper hand in the war against the Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan and Gaochang.

This also forced Gaochang and Khotan to ask the imperial court for help.

The garrison and Tuntian were the conditions put forward by the imperial court, and the two countries naturally accepted them unconditionally.

"Commander, is the imperial court really ready to help the Hui people and destroy the Qarakhanid?"

Shi Kang, the division commander of the Qingtang Cavalry Division, was in his thirties, but he was also born in the pro-army of the Son of Heaven. led 1,500 forbidden troops to Longyou, and was the old man who founded this Longyou cavalry army. He has been partnered with Zhou Tingyu for many years, so it is more casual to talk to this commander. In the Qingtang cavalry, only half of the Han army, its men and horses mainly came from the Qiang and Tibetan tribes, and some Hui and Tatar tribes on the west side of Qilian Mountain joined in.

This army fought more brutally, but the officers were still mainly Han soldiers to maintain control over the entire army.

Zhou Tingyu shook his head: "The Khotanese are not qualified to sit on an equal footing with us, they are just our vassals. ”

Shi Dang was a little stunned: "This King of Khotan is now the ruler of the country?!" ”

Murong Yanchao stretched out his finger and tapped on the area of the Ya'er Qiang River on the map, sneered and said: "The people of Khotan are just an excuse, we are here to recover the lost territory of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty!" What about Guozhang? It's good that they can be obedient, if they dare to have a different heart......" He waved his left hand and made a slashing motion.

He was also promoted to the commander of the division, and the military rank finally reached the rank of high-ranking general.

Zhou Tingyu didn't pay attention to Murong Yanchao's words, but turned his head to look at Yang Chonggui who was standing on the side: "Where has the Qarakhanid's army gone?" ”

"General Qiyu, the enemy has just set out from Ya'er Qiang City (Yecheng), and it is more than five hundred miles away from us." Yang Chonggui replied.

"Zhente Niang, why don't we take the initiative to find the door!" After listening to this, Murong Yanchao threw a flag that he had been fiddling with on the table and said.

Zhou Tingyu turned his head to look at Yang Chonggui: "Why did you change your promotion order to Yang Jiye?" ”

Yang Chonggui nodded and said, "My father said that it was changed by the Son of Heaven." ”

"Stains." Zhou Tingyu smacked his lips, "If your face is big enough, you will call Yang Jiye in the future, and Dingxiang Camp will be upgraded to a regiment." ”

Yang Jiye said: "But the number of people under me has not increased, and it is not an empty shelf!" ”

"Idiot, aren't you going to recruit people back? The Hui people in Khotan have the advantage of speaking simple Chinese. Zhou Tingyu glared at him and said.

"But the young people of Khotan have all become captives of the Karakhans, where are there so many people?"

"When we start to march to Shule, Lao Tzu will come forward for you and break up their existing troops and bring them in, and then you will have to take care of it, focusing on unity and propaganda and education!" Zhou Tingyu said.

"Are we going to take the initiative, or are we going to wait here?" Murong Yanchao said.

"Of course...... It's to wait for work, and eat this part of them first! Shi Dang spoke in a long voice, and also squinted at Murong Yanchao.

……

While the Longyou Army was resting and waiting for battle in Khotan, the Beiting town guard envoy Zhi Congyuan had already joined up with more than 36,000 Hetao and Shuofang cavalry troops led by the Montenegrin defense envoy An Tingluan and the Shuofang defense envoy Song Yanwu, and then this army of more than 70,000 people marched west along the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, crossed the mountain pass in mid-June, and entered the Yili River valley area.

An Shouluan has spent the longest time in the Northland Grassland over the years, from Bashang, Shanbei, to Yunnei and Hetao, and finally became the commander of the army. And Song Yanwu is the emperor's nephew, although he graduated from Jinyang Academy three years younger than them, he also became a general.

There's no way, there is an emperor's uncle, and his father is one of the four phases of Tuntian Ling Song Tinghao, and his background is even deeper.

The origin of Song Yanwu's Shuofang cavalry was very complicated, including the original garrison, as well as part of the Yanmen army, plus locally recruited immigrants, Qiang tribes, and Hui youth. However, Shuofang is now considered inland, and the training intensity of the garrison is not high, so its combat effectiveness is slightly weaker than that of the Hexi Army and the Hetao Army in the north.

After a month's trek, the two troops went straight from Blackwater City to Beiting, but they did not take the route from Hexi to Yizhou, and finally arrived in Tingzhou. An Shouluan and Song Yanwu were extremely excited, this time has come to expand their territory and become famous!

The area around the valley of the Yili River has been occupied by the kingdom of Karakhan. However, since the main forces of the Karakhan army were currently south of the Tianshan Mountains, attacking Khotan and Gaochang, the Tang army did not encounter any resistance at all.

This way, the Tang Army was commanded by the Beiting Town Guard, but it was the most powerful one.

After the army entered the territory of Karahan, it was like a bamboo, and the weak soldiers of the tribes scattered in various places were the elite opponents of the Tang army, and as soon as the troops were engaged, they scattered and fled.

In late June, the Tang army arrived at the foot of Yili Mountain without hindrance, and was promoted from far to the general. With An Shouluan's headquarters as the vanguard and Song Yanwu's headquarters as the rear team, he led more than 30,000 cavalry troops of the Chinese army to march to the southwest of the Karahan royal city of Balashayan (now Tokmak).

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