Chapter 1883: The Great Victory at Yang City

When Emperor Liu said this, Liu Wenhuan naturally developed some different thoughts upon hearing it. Being in the imperial court, especially as the eldest son of the Crown Prince, some competitions had already begun from the moment of birth. Coupled with the indoctrination from his mother, Consort Zhao, since childhood, he naturally harbored aspirations for the position of heir apparent—indeed, in his heart, he already regarded it as something within his grasp.

Now that Emperor Liu had said this, if it were spread abroad, it would mean that his imperial grandfather recognized him. This meant he had already taken the lead—no, a huge lead. How could that ignorant, clueless Khitan bastard compete with him?

At such a young age, his heart was already roaring with tigers and soaring with dragons—the precociousness of imperial children was fully displayed in Liu Wenhuan. Of course, these inner thoughts could not be shown, especially in front of Emperor Liu. In the imperial household, one still had to observe brotherly respect and harmonious coexistence...

Soon, Crown Prince Liu Yang walked in. He glanced at the scene of grandfather and grandson sitting face to face, said nothing more, and stepped forward to pay his respects. Seeing his father arrive, Liu Wenhuan also rose and bowed.

Giving this son a brief once-over, Liu Yang only nodded slightly without paying him much attention, then turned respectfully toward Emperor Liu. Seeing this, Emperor Liu asked: "Speak—what has happened that you came personally to report?"

Upon the question, a smile appeared on Liu Yang's face, and he said with joy: "Good news! Just now the Bureau of Military Affairs received a victory report from Sixth Brother—a great victory at Yang City. The bulk of the Kara-Khanid army was annihilated, their Khagan Harun fell on the battlefield, and the northeastern region of Anxi has been recovered once again!"

"Truly good news indeed!" Hearing Liu Yang's report, Emperor Liu immediately perked up, his cloudy eyes clearing considerably and regaining their sharp gleam: "This Liu Min, he just couldn't hold back! Didn't I tell him to focus on defense and advance when the opportunity arose? How did he go and destroy that Harun outright?"

There was only surprise and delight in these words, with not a trace of reproach. Seeing Emperor Liu's reaction, the smile on Liu Yang's face grew even wider—wasn't the reason he came personally to report precisely to make Emperor Liu happy? After all, the perpetually gloomy Emperor Liu was truly terrifying.

"Sit down and tell me!" Emperor Liu patted the cushion beside the small table and said to Liu Yang: "Tell me in detail how this battle in Anxi was fought!"

"Yes!" Liu Yang bowed respectfully, lifted his robe to take a seat, and after briefly organizing his words, slowly began recounting the Anxi report to Emperor Liu.

Over the past nearly two years, the only place in the Great Han that remained in a state of war was undoubtedly Anxi. The struggle between the Great Han and the Arab allied forces had never ceased—a collision between two regions, China and the Arabs, and two civilizations, fierce and prolonged. Even by this year, there was still no resolution.

The Great Han was constrained by the vast distance, difficult logistics, and high operational costs, making it hard to ever commit full strength. There were also internal constraints and considerable controversy at court. Unless the old emperor grew resolute and staked everything, pouring troops, money, and grain into Anxi without regard for consequences, the forces that could be directly committed to the Anxi battlefield would ultimately be limited. With insufficient strength, achieving rich results was clearly impossible.

As for the Arab allied forces, they too were riddled with problems—divided command, uncoordinated logistics, and all the various troubles of a distant expedition. In terms of marching distance, Baghdad to Talas was not much different from Chang'an to Suyab; the difference lay only in transportation conditions and the economic, demographic, and productive differences along the routes.

The greatest problem of the Arab allied forces lay precisely in this alliance itself. Although unified under the great call of "holy war," in reality they were allied without being united.

The allied forces mainly came from four sources: the Kara-Khanids, the Samanids, the Ghaznavids, and Baghdad. The Kara-Khanid army consisted merely of scattered remnants gathered by the new Khagan Harun after the great collapse of the Kara-Khanid state—insufficient in numbers, weak in power, hardly worth mentioning.

The troops from Baghdad actually came from its true power-holder, the Buyid dynasty. However, the Buyid dynasty had also been in rapid decline in recent years. After the death of its ruler Adud al-Dawla, who had brought the dynasty to its peak, the upper echelons became divided and locked in constant strife. The eastern expedition against the Great Han was merely one instrument in their political-religious power struggles.

The Samanid dynasty, being geographically closest, sent the most troops. But by this time the Samanids were already in decline, with clear internal fragmentation. The eastern expedition was precisely a means of diverting contradictions, and thus they were the most committed. On the other hand, the Samanids harbored certain designs on Talas, the last remaining possession of the Kara-Khanids. The two sides had once fought a seesaw war over this place, with it changing hands several times—the two states could be considered hereditary enemies. How could the Samanids genuinely aid the Kara-Khanids?

Therefore, once the eastern expedition entered Talas, this key city essentially fell into Samanid hands. The reason Khagan Harun chose to focus on "recovering" the northern territories after the eastern expedition, aside from the fact that those Turgesh tribes were easy to deal with, was also out of necessity—otherwise, regardless of how the holy war turned out, these seeds of Kara-Khanid restoration would likely have been swallowed up ahead of time.

As for the Ghaznavid dynasty, they had the most resolute mindset among the Arab allied forces, dispatching fully fifteen thousand troops, second only to the Samanids. The Ghaznavid dynasty was still very young, having been founded only a little over twenty years, occupying only Ghazni and part of the Khorasan region. Yet its national strength was steadily rising. Agriculture, industry, and commerce flourished under the support of its ruler, Sultan Sebuktigin. Compared to the Kara-Khanids who had been crushed by the Great Han and the declining Samanids and Buyids, it clearly possessed greater potential and vitality.

The Ghaznavid army was also quite capable in combat, performing outstandingly in the First Battle of Suyab. But precisely because of this, they incurred the Samanids' suspicion. One must know that the Ghaznavids themselves had broken away from the Samanid dynasty—they were rebels. Although they still nominally acknowledged Samanid suzerainty, their independence had exacerbated the Samanid dynasty's fragmentation, especially among those Turkic military aristocrats of considerable power, who practically regarded the founding of the Ghaznavid dynasty as a revolutionary path.

With numerous problems of their own and each harboring their own schemes, had it not been for the great banner of "Islamic holy war," this first allied force would have collapsed long ago. But even from a religious perspective, the various states were riddled with contradictions. The most obvious were the Samanid and Buyid dynasties—one in the east, one in the west, together occupying most of the Abbasid Empire's territory. But one was Sunni and the other Shia. Due to doctrinal conflicts, they had fought multiple wars in the past. Indeed, heretics are often more hateful than infidels...

As for ordinary Muslim believers, the fervor of holy war could last for a time, but sustaining it for a lifetime was not so easy.

Especially after the First Battle of Suyab, when the allied forces retreated several hundred li in defeat, morale began to waver. During the subsequent year-plus of seesaw fighting, many gradually grew weary and disgusted. Allah, though sublime, could not completely and comprehensively control human nature. Moreover, among the many who eagerly participated in the eastern holy war, quite a number had been seduced by the propaganda of past East-West trade, lured by the prosperity of the Great Han, and came east with thoughts of getting rich—only to face a pack of wolf-like Han nobles and soldiers equally eager to push westward.

Such was the situation of the Arab allied forces. Had the Han army in Anxi not been short on manpower, with the Han army's high level of organization, they would have driven them all the way back to Talas long ago.

Of course, judging from this victory report from Anxi, that was indeed the case. During the Islamic allied forces' first approach to Suyab last year, Anxi had suffered considerable damage. Moreover, due to the court's "conservative" support, after daringly repelling the allied forces, they had been forced to continue a strategy of contraction to accumulate and recover strength—they had not even taken the nearby Harun's forces at the time.

For nearly a year, the two sides, east and west, on the former territory of the Kara-Khanid state, using Suyab and Talas as their respective bases, engaged in a grinding seesaw war of long contacts and short battles.

However, this was also the first time the Muslims had organized a holy war alliance of this nature. Everything was in chaos—besides command and logistics, follow-up reinforcements were also limited. Even with the backing of the prosperous Transoxiana region, the Samanid dynasty could not possibly provide full logistical support for the eastern expeditionary army.

The Great Han side was different. What limited them was only distance and transportation—a matter of more or less, with few other messy problems.

With the implementation of various deployments by the Bureau of Military Affairs and the Ministry of War, with the completion of the Anxi army's reorganization and rotation, and with all military supplies in place, in early summer of this year, Prince Wei Liu Min once again launched a large-scale offensive operation. The primary objective was to eliminate the Kara-Khanid forces entrenched at Yang City northeast of Suyab, resolving this threat at his elbow; the secondary objective was to continue striking the Islamic allied forces to the west, weakening their military strength in preparation for the subsequent push westward.

For this battle, the Han army was fully prepared. Though the enemy had made some responses, this time the balance of power had reversed, and the result manifested in a highly probable manner.

Yang City was originally the Kara-Khanid state's Yiji Wugu City, the political, military, and economic center of the Kara-Khanid northeast. To honor Yang Yanzhao's earlier feat of a two-thousand-li surprise raid on the enemy capital, Liu Min had renamed it Yang City. Its straight-line distance from Suyab was no more than five hundred li.

Back then, Harun had taken advantage of the allied forces' eastward advance to recover this territory, recruiting those Turgesh tribes with promises of official positions, titles, and wealth. After painstaking management for over a year, he had gathered more than twenty thousand people. Though most could only be called a motley crowd, in Anxi, this was still considerable strength.

In response, the Anxi Protectorate Government attached great importance to this matter and made thorough preparations before the battle. Liu Min did not choose to personally lead this campaign. The Yang City direction was entrusted to Yang Yanlang, while the Talas direction was handled by Deputy Protector Li Jilong.

The progress of the war was somewhat unexpected, especially in the Yang City direction. Those local Turgesh people ultimately displayed their presence in a not-at-all-surprising manner—turning their coats at the critical moment, causing the defense line that Khagan Harun had arranged along the Yinli River to collapse outright, allowing Yang Yanlang's army to break through to Yang City with ease.

In fact, as early as after the Islamic allied forces were repelled by the Anxi army last year, many of these northeastern Turgesh had already regretted their choice. Some tribal chieftains had even secretly sent envoys to make contact, offering explanations and pledges of loyalty. Having no principles was probably the way these people survived in the world.

With the army at the gates of Yang City, Khagan Harun this time showed no intention of retreating. He organized his troops and civilians, intending to hold the city and await reinforcements, to fight to the death, to preserve the last shred of dignity of the Kara-Khanid state.

However, this time, facing the stubborn defenders, the Han army did not again trade victory for heavy casualties among their soldiers. After years of exploration, those "crude" cannons had finally entered a relatively mature stage of usage, and they proved themselves thoroughly in siege warfare.

In Anxi, the Ministry of War had transferred over two hundred cannons of both old and new types over time. Even accounting for various previous losses, more than one hundred fifty remained, of which Liu Min allocated one hundred to Yang Yanlang.

When a hundred cannons bombarded the city walls with iron projectiles from every angle, all the defenders' resolve rapidly disintegrated. The Han army could be said to have removed this thorn that had lodged in their flank for over a year without expending the slightest effort.