Section 88 determines the direction of the expedition to the west

The moon black geese flew high, and fled in the night. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info wants to chase the light horseman, and the snow is full of bows and knives. - Lu Lun

After enduring the harassment of the Western Turks for a long time, the Tang Dynasty finally decided to replace the defense with offense and clean up the Western Turks.

In the spring of the second year of Xianqing (657 AD), the Tang Dynasty appointed Su Dingfang, the general of the right guard, as the general of the Yili Dao march to conquer the Western Turks. Po Run) and others as deputy generals, and sent Bu Zhen and Mi She, who had been attached to the Tang Dynasty, as ambassadors to pacify the quicksand, and recruited old people from Nandao.

Su Dingfang sent troops from the north of Jinshan (now Altai Mountains in western Mongolia), broke the Mukun Department of the Western Turks, and led more than 10,000 soldiers to surrender. Su Dingfang appeased them, sent 1,000 cavalry from them, and marched together to the Zaoyu River (present-day Irtysh River in northern Xinjiang).

When the Western Turkic Shabala Khan Ashina Helu heard the news, he led an army of 100,000 to meet the battle. Su Dingfang led more than 10,000 Tang troops and Hui soldiers to fight against the Western Turks. Among them, the two thousand elite infantry selected by Liu Renliang also participated in the battle with Lao Su.

Shabala Khan despised Su Dingfang because he had too few men and horses, and the left and right flanks of the army spread out to surround Su Dingfang.

Su Dingfang ordered the infantry to occupy the commanding heights and concentrate their spears facing outward.

Dingfang to Ren Track: "The commanding heights will be guarded by General Liu, as long as the general can resist the three-wheel charge of the enemy's iron cavalry, then I will lead the cavalry to outflank the enemy, and the enemy will be defeated!" ”

Ren Orbit: "I would like to lead General Su Jun's life, and the last general will block the thief's three attacks." ”

"Okay, good, ha, ha, ha, the destruction of the Turks is today." Dingfang personally led a strong cavalry to set up a position on the flat ground to the north.

The Western Turkic Army launched a charge at the infantry positions.

The whole troop of Turkic cavalry, with their long swords held high, accompanied by the impassioned sound of war drums and bull's horns, fluttering in the wind, acting in unison, as one man, as accurate as the indestructible sword, rushed down the slope, and then appeared again on the other side of the valley, always dense, close to each other, back and forth, rushing to the steep and muddy slope on the edge of the high ground. They galloped from bottom to top, neat, brave, and composed, and they could hear the sound of the iron cavalry stomping on the ground.

Ren Liang had already commanded 5,000 infantry to form a circular battle formation with chariots to defend themselves. The rain of arrows consumed some of the Turkic cavalry, and the spiky spears on the outside of the chariot skewered the Turkic cavalry, who had not slowed down, into skewers with men and horses. The subsequent Turkic cavalry stepped on the corpses of men and horses and tried to overturn the chariot and attack it, but they were killed by spears that kept piercing out of the gaps.

The first round of the attack was repulsed, and the second round of the Turkic cavalry began to charge again.

The Turkic soldiers began to shoot rockets, but the Tang chariot was wrapped in raw cowhide, and the Tang soldiers not only wore cotton clothes soaked in water, but also had a water dragon cart that could spray water in the car array, and the rockets had no effect at all.

The third round of Turkic cavalry came again, and they began to throw bags of earth explosives made of gunpowder bought from the Tang Dynasty outside the chariot and spear arrays.

At the beginning, dozens of earth explosives exploded, causing some casualties to the Tang soldiers. Later, the explosive packets that were thrown out did not blow up.

On the contrary, it was the explosives package thrown by the Tang soldiers that blew up the Turkic soldiers on their backs. It turned out that the gunpowder used by the Turks later was changed in the ratio of sulfur and nitrate, and it did not explode at all.

Three charges, none of which can be attacked.

Su Dingfang took advantage of the enemy's confusion to attack them in a roundabout way, launched a fierce battle on a thirty-mile front, killed tens of thousands of people and horses, and killed 200 people including his chief Du Dagan, and the thieves fled in a big way.

The next day, the army was reorganized and continued to march, Hu Luwu and other five crossbows were lost, and the crowd came to surrender, and Ashina Helu alone fled with hundreds of horsemen with Chu Mu Kun Qu Lu. When the remaining five land divisions heard that the Shabala Khan had been defeated, they also rushed to the south and surrendered to Buzhen. Su Dingfang ordered the deputy generals Xiao Siye and Hui Porun to lead the captives to rush to the Evil Ross River (now west of the Ili River) to chase the defeated soldiers, and he and Ren Yaxiang led the newly attached people to intercept the back of the thief army.

When it was snowing heavily, the snow was "two feet flat", the general asked for a little rest, Su Dingfang said: "The enemy relies on the heavy snow, thinking that our army can not advance, and must rest the soldiers and horses. So he led the troops to march through the snow, day and night, and when they arrived at Shuanghe, they met with Mi Shot and Buzhen, and the morale of the Tang army was full and high, and they drove straight in, and when they were a hundred miles away from the Helu garrison, they ordered to set up a position to advance, and the army approached the Golden Tooth Mountain (west of Tokmak in present-day Kyrgyzstan). At this time, Helu was preparing to hunt, and Su Dingfang took advantage of his unpreparedness to attack in columns, defeating tens of thousands of his subordinates, and all of them let the captives return to their own tribes.

He Lu led his remnants to flee, and the Tang army pursued him relentlessly, and pursued He Lu to Xiayeshui (Chu River in present-day Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), and captured all of them. Shabaluo Khan only led his son Yuyun and son-in-law Yan Si and more than ten horsemen to flee to the city of Sulu in the northwest of Shiguo (present-day Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan). The lord of the city, Ifuda, pretended to go out to greet him with wine and food, lured him into the city, closed the door and arrested him. Su Dingfang sent his deputy general Xiao Siye to pursue all the way to Shiguo, and the people of Shiguo handed over Sha Boluo to him.

After the Tang army conquered Helu and "collected more than 400,000 people and animals before and after", after the rest of the army, Su Dingfang ordered the Western Turkic tribes to return to their original places of residence, open roads, set up post posts, bury the bones, comfort the suffering, demarcate the boundaries of the tribes, resume production, and all the property and livestock captured by the Shabaluo Khan were all returned to their owners, and the ten tribes were as safe as before. The Anxi Protectorate moved back to Gaochang's hometown.

Su Dingfang, who returned triumphantly, held a grand ceremony of offering prisoners to Zhaoling and Taimiao in the capital city of Chang'an. Emperor Li Zhi came to the front of the palace, and Dingfang wore a general's uniform to escort He Lu to offer. After the fall of the Western Turks, the Tang Dynasty divided the land there into prefectures and counties, all the way to the West Sea (present-day Aral Sea, 60° east longitude, 45° north latitude). Su Dingfang was promoted to the general of Zuo Xiaowei for his merits, and was named the Duke of Xingguo, and his son Su Qingjie was named the Duke of Wuyi County. Renliang was promoted to one level, was named a powerful general, and moved to defend the northeastern frontier of the Tang Dynasty, defending the indigenous, Goguryeo, Baekje, etc.

On May 2, the third year of Xianqing (658 AD), the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate was moved to Qiuzi and upgraded to the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate. "When the Western Regions were peaceful, they sent envoys to Kang and Tocharo, visited their customs and products, and abandoned them in ancient and modern times, and tried their best to make progress, because they ordered the historian to write sixty volumes of the Western Regions Atlas." The Central Asian states that had been subject to the Western Turks surrendered one after another, and the entire Western Regions came under the control of the Tang Dynasty. According to the strategy of partition and rule, the Tang Dynasty set up the Mengchi Protectorate and the Kunling Protectorate respectively in the Western Turkic homeland. and put the Western Turks "in the state capital of all the countries they served, and as far west as Persia" (present-day Iran).

In September of the fourth year of Xianqing (659), "the edict was given to Shi, Mi, Shi, Da'an, Xiao'an, Cao, Bahanna, Beibahanna, Yudan, Shule, Zhujuban, and other states and county capitals of one hundred and twenty-seven", and was subordinate to the Anxi Dadu Protectorate.

The distribution of prefectures and prefectures in the central region of Central Asia: Kangguo Kangju Prefecture (now Samarkand, Uzbekistan), Shiguo Kanqian City (now Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Mi Guo Bo Xide City (now Juma Bazar, Uzbekistan), Shi Guo Qishi City Zhi Sha Prefecture (now Shahri Shabze, Uzbekistan), Anguo Ayu Mi City Zhi Anxi Prefecture (now Bukhara, Uzbekistan), Dong'an Kingdom (Xiao'an) Drinking Khan City Zhi Mulu Prefecture (now northeast Bukhara, Uzbekistan), The state of Bakhana was located in the city of Xiuxun Prefecture (southeast of present-day Tashkent, Uzbekistan) and the state of Kushan Prefecture (northwest of present-day Samarkand, Uzbekistan).

Su Dingfang implemented a strategy of combining division and key strikes against the Western Turks, attacking and defending at the same time, taking them by surprise, chasing and attacking fiercely, and finally won a great victory, and the power of the Tang Empire also extended to Central Asia. The scene of chasing Sha Boluo on a snowy night can be called a true portrayal of the famous Tang Dynasty poem "Stopper's Song": "The moon is black and the geese fly high, and they flee at night." If you want to chase away the light horsemen, the snow is full of bows and knives".