Chapter 2144: Taizong Chronicles 12: The Storm over Central Asia (Part One)

Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, a group of travelers arrived from the west, not many in number—around thirty—with a haggard air. The one receiving core escort treatment was a youth, finely dressed but with an obvious barbarian flavor. Of course, barbarian clothing and customs were hardly uncommon in the great Han Empire these days; even the capital region, the very heart of imperial rule, had seen its own craze for barbarian styles.

The towering, magnificent silhouette of Luoyang came into view from afar, the awe too great for words. The youth's weary face was full of hesitation and timidity. After gazing for a long while, he finally asked a middle-aged man beside him, "Uncle, is that Luoyang?"

The middle-aged man analyzed in a somewhat uncertain tone, "If what is recorded is correct, after passing Chang'an and heading east, the first great city of the Han must be Luoyang, no doubt!"

Hearing this, a trace of melancholy appeared on the youth's face. "Now that we have reached Luoyang, will the court accept us? Will they seek justice for us?"

To this question, after a brief silence, the middle-aged man said through gritted teeth, "Khotan, small as it is, has always served the great, been perpetually respectful to the court, offering tribute without cease, never once negligent. The state of Kang has bullied the weak and ridden roughshod over us, destroyed our ancestral temples, slain our subjects—an unjust war if ever there was one, and moreover a violation of Emperor Taizong's policies.

If the court, as the suzerain of all vassal states under heaven, cannot arbitrate for Khotan, cannot seek justice, cannot restore order, then how can it face the vassal lords of the realm, and how can it restrain the subordinate states within and beyond the seas?"

As he spoke, an excited gleam danced in the middle-aged man's eyes, as if he had convinced himself with his own reasoning.

After listening, the youth mused for a moment, then said with melancholy, "But the state of Kang shares blood with the Great Han—the King of Kang is the son of the Sage Emperor himself. How could the current court ignore its own kin and support us, mere outer vassals?"

At this, the middle-aged man's expression shifted several times before he said with utmost gravity, "Your Majesty should know that though the world is vast, of Khotan's four directions, three sides are Han territory. To the west, high mountains block the way, and there are hereditary enemies. The only path lies with the Great Han; the only hope lies with the court.

The past twenty years have been a period of violent upheaval and great transformation for the Central Asian region—everything unfolded with the great western expedition of the three Anxi states, under the invasion and conquest of Han civilization over the civilization of Islam.

In the end, it was only through the coordination of the belatedly arrived greeter-envoys of the Court of Dependencies that they managed to enter the city smoothly. Yuchi Jue and Yuchi Guanglin were even arranged to lodge at the guesthouse for envoys. As for the attendants, they had to find their own lodgings—the rental market in Luoyang was vast enough; as long as one had money, finding a house was no worry.

As for territory, the Northern Court, not sharing a border, only had demands regarding wealth and population, taking a large share of the spoils as well as over thirty thousand captives and slaves. However, after deliberation, the King of Anxi, Liu Min, still decided to grant them a piece of land—the Akhal region (central-western Turkmenistan) east of the Caspian Sea, formerly part of the southwestern Samanid realm, was given to the Northern Court. It was a place of strategic transit.

However, the Dingding Gate was the checkpoint connecting the Grand Avenue straight to the imperial city—the main southern gate of the capital. Its gate officer was not a position just anyone could hold. At the very least, he was a man of no small experience and insight. Hearing their words, he let out a sneer, and with a single phrase—"A doomed state's lord and minister, how dare you act as envoys"—he tore the faces off this lord-and-minister party and ground them underfoot.

From their exchange, one could discern their identities: the King of Khotan, Yuchi Jue, and his royal uncle, Yuchi Guanglin, both descendants of the former King of Khotan, Yuchi Baoxiang. And the reason the two had come to the Western Capital was certainly not to offer tribute.

Though the outer walls of the Western Capital could be seen from afar, it still took over an hour to reach the city, as they had to circle around the outside and enter from the southern side. Then they were stopped by the guards at the Dingding Gate, given a hard time, and of course, not without some argument.

"At court, perhaps there is still hope of restoration. Anywhere else, it would be either living under another's roof or dying without a place to be buried."

On that occasion, the three-state expeditionary force pushed all the way to the shores of the Caspian Sea before withdrawing. The weakened Samanid dynasty became nourishment for the expansion of the three Anxi states, and its remaining legacy was divided among them.

As the exiled Khotan lord and minister plunged headfirst into the "dragon's pool and tiger's den" of the Han imperial capital, the high officials at the empire's center were likewise racking their brains over these western visitors. Clearly, the mere state of Khotan was beneath notice, but the Anxi situation and the vassal-state question it raised forced the empire's power-holders to think carefully.

Facing the unreasonable Luoyang city guards, the Khotan lord and minister felt deeply humiliated, but when under someone's roof, one must bow one's head. Yuchi Jue stammered and dared not speak, while Yuchi Guanglin, suppressing his fury, loudly declared their identity as the "Khotan envoy mission."

Seizing wealth and population through war and plunder to boost national strength was the most important reason Liu Wengong was willing to follow his two royal uncles on the western expedition. Returning directly to his fief with the spoils was one option, but such a one-shot deal—how could it compare to staying and reaping benefits over the long term?

And so Liu Wengong was tempted. He made his second brother Liu Wentao the Pacification Commissioner of the Eastern Sea, established an administrative military centered on Mingcheng (roughly Ashgabat in Turkmenistan), and led three thousand troops to garrison the area and establish rule.

But after deliberation, he agreed anyway. At the time, the Northern Court's territory was not large; only by expanding northward had it barely brought the Balkhash Lake region under nominal control. Its population was even scarcer—a considerable gap compared to the Transoxiana region.

Of course, there were conditions: the Northern Court had to leave a military force behind for garrison, security, and defense duties, with taxation naturally being its prerogative as well. As for why the royal uncle Liu Min was being so generous, the King of the Northern Court, Liu Wengong, knew full well in his heart.

In the seventh year of Yongxi (999), the three states of Anxi, Kangju, and the Northern Court swore a blood oath of alliance and jointly dispatched forces on a great western expedition. That very year, they destroyed the Samanid dynasty—the Central Asian realm that had once dominated the choicest lands of Transoxiana and been powerful for a time.

This was no easy, effortless choice of reaping benefits while lying down. The Northern Court's garrison forces had to face a protracted counterinsurgency war—endless uprisings of the populace, religious attacks, and rebellions by old nobles and tribes.

But when one civilization conquers and assimilates another through violent action, such situations are all too common.

The same challenges faced the states of Anxi and Kangju as well. In terms of the distribution of spoils, Anxi gained the most, for it occupied the choicest region of the former Samanid realm—the vast lands of the Jihun River (Amu Darya) basin, including great cities like Puhualuo (Bukhara) and Samojian (Samarkand). The better the territory one held, the harder it was to rule, for the traditional powers were stronger and the entrenched interest groups denser. One must remember that by the late Samanid period, Bukhara had long since lost its grip on the local nobles, generals, and other powers. Under external pressure and internal centrifugal forces, it had long been a shell of its former self.

The invasion from the Han Empire destroyed the Samanid dynasty, but what it actually infringed upon were the local power-holders. The Anxi system constructed by Liu Min was itself a system brimming with desires for expansion and plunder. The interests of those power-holders and old nobles were bound to suffer, and they could never submit easily. The process of security struggle was destined to be long and brutal.

By comparison, the Northern Court and Kangju bore far lighter burdens—especially the Northern Court, which was merely an exclave. Even if it lost its managed territory, it was of little consequence; the tangible benefits already secured were what mattered most. This was determined by the fundamentally different interests of the three Anxi states.

Kangju sat between the two. King of Kang Liu Ye received the southern region of the Samanid realm (including parts of Tajikistan and Afghanistan). Compared to those great cities and fertile plains, the resistance forces there were relatively weaker, but also more stubborn.

On the other hand, the area along the upper reaches of the Jihun River directly bordered the Ghaznavid dynasty to the southwest. The terrain between them was jagged and interlocking, the situation complex. With the Samanid dynasty—that obstacle, or first target—gone, a direct confrontation was only to be expected.

In fact, when the three states launched their western expedition in the seventh year of Yongxi, the Ghaznavid dynasty, under its third monarch Mahmud, was in a period of strength—politically, militarily, economically, and culturally developing toward what a great power should look like.

Mahmud was also a wise ruler, outstanding in both civil governance and military achievement. He plundered the Samanids to the north, destroyed the Saffarids to the west, and campaigned south into India. This rising new Islamic dynasty was destined to be the greatest stumbling block and roadblock for the three Anxi states in Central Asia—and as later developments would show, that day was not too far off.

Before that, the three Anxi states spent over three years—until the eleventh year of Yongxi—before they could initially stabilize the situation in Transoxiana. Of course, that "stabilization" had to be put in quotation marks.

The three states had only achieved occupation of the large and small towns in their newly conquered lands, establishing a barely functional new Sinicized population management and taxation system (the garrison-post system). As for public security, its level was hardly high—they relied on overwhelming military force to ensure order within the towns and the absence of large-scale rebellion under their rule. As for minor disturbances, those were the most normal thing in the world.

In the process of pacification, bloodshed and death were inevitable. Conquest between civilizations and conflict over faith could never be tender or gentle. Only at the end of slaughter and death did stability and prosperity begin.

Over the past twenty-odd years, what had been happening on the Transoxiana land—and continued into the first year of Jianlong of the Great Han—was the barbaric rule and frenzied plunder by "Han" civilization, whose moral foundation was "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, and righteousness," over another powerful civilization.

Much of the bloodshed and cruelty was beyond the imagination of those refined gentlemen of letters within the empire who had long known peace and talked endlessly of morality. And from the destruction of the Samanid dynasty onward, although the three Anxi states still shared deep-rooted blood ties with the empire, the two had in fact already set off on different paths.

To be fair, for the Transoxiana region, the invasion by the Han was not entirely unacceptable in itself. Over the past thousand years, all manner of foreign tribes and powers had seized and ruled this land, and states great and small had been established upon it. Now, another batch of Chinese arriving seemed hardly a big deal.

The greatest contradiction between the vassal states of the eastern Han Empire and the Transoxiana region—indeed, all of Central Asia, all of Persia, all of the Arab lands—lay in faith.

After all, Islam had long since taken root in this land, deep and widespread, while the civilization of the eastern Han Empire regarded it with the deepest loathing. This had been the established tone and direction since the era of Shizu, and after more than half a century of development, entanglement, and conflict, the room for compromise had grown very small indeed.

Races were diverse, peoples could merge, cultures could interflow—but faith was singular. And it was because of faith that those devout believers dared to draw their blades in resistance even when facing the sharp steel swords and cannons of the Han.

The comprehensive "de-Islamization" policy Liu Min had implemented in Anxi in his early years was pushed forward in Transoxiana with the same firmness, comprehensiveness, and thoroughness. Take Bukhara, for example—as the former capital of the Samanid dynasty, it was a city of brilliant Islamic culture. Yet shortly after the allied western expeditionary forces entered the city, all the mosques, seminaries, and related sacrificial sites within and without the city walls were ordered demolished.

In the early stages, the western expedition soldiers still had the desire to plunder treasures and valuables, but there were simply too many religious sites, and too many believers who opposed, resisted, and attacked. In the end, losing patience, the Han soldiers began setting fires everywhere.

To extinguish the faith, Bukhara—this famed city of Transoxiana—was ultimately nearly half burned down. To defend the faith, tens of thousands died within and without the city walls. The King of Anxi, Liu Min, had forged with blood and fire a "pure" city under Han rule.

The "Tragedy of Bukhara" was a devastating blow to the Islamic culture of Transoxiana. Elsewhere, even if not as thorough and brutal, bloodshed was unavoidable. And precisely because of the lesson of Bukhara, subsequent resistance was comparatively weaker.

But across the entire Islamic world, upon learning of the Han's "atrocities" in Transoxiana, fury boiled over once more. At the call of the Caliph of Baghdad, the cry for a crusade eastward rang throughout the Arab lands. By around the twelfth year of Yongxi, thirty years later, an Islamic allied army was once again assembled.

Only this time, the Buyid dynasty was no longer of any use, and most other Islamic states were weak—many had already perished in the great upheavals. Thus, the main force was the increasingly prosperous Ghaznavid dynasty.

Before the allied army was assembled, its monarch Mahmud had just won a victory in his expansion into India and returned triumphant. Mahmud was also extremely enthusiastic about the eastern expedition against the three Anxi states. The faith issue was one thing, but the fundamental reason was that the three Anxi states—especially Anxi and Kangju—were too aggressive and posed too great a threat to his dynasty.

In fact, they had already seriously infringed upon the Buyid dynasty's interests. Originally, he could have extracted more benefits from the Samanid dynasty, but the lion's share had all been taken by the Han.

At the same time, as the three Anxi states continued their expansion, the next to face their aggression directly would be the Ghaznavid dynasty. Therefore, an Islamic eastern expedition led by the Ghaznavid dynasty was all but inevitable.