Chapter 2147: Taizong Chronicles 15: Central Asian Storm—The Battle of Ming City

What Liu Min awaited was, naturally, the most suitable opportunity to strike, and what he observed was, naturally, the main force of the Eastern Expeditionary Army trailing behind Marvell's forces—that vast army built around the elite core of the Ghaznavid Sultanate.

As the leader of the Han people in Central Asia, as the leader of the Anxi State, and also as a battle-hardened commander who had spent years in the saddle, compared to twenty or thirty years ago, Liu Min's strategic vision had already undergone an evolution. His perspective and foresight, his breadth of mind and magnanimity, were all immense, all built upon a foundation that transcended ordinary military considerations.

When it came to finding opportunities and seizing vital points, Liu Min was also highly skilled, and from the very beginning, he had locked onto Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud and the nearly one hundred thousand Ghaznavid troops.

To thwart the Islamic coalition's second eastern expedition, the first step was to crush the most fundamental pillar supporting this enemy invasion—the Ghaznavid army. Liu Min understood this very clearly.

Therefore, from the very start of mobilizing troops, his objective was clear and unambiguous: Mahmud and the Ghaznavid army were his hunting targets. By comparison, that vanguard Islamic force led by Marvell, the great general of the Ziyarid state—no matter how fanatical it was or how many holy warriors it had—did not even register in Liu Min's eyes.

However, finding an opportunity to defeat the enemy in a single strike and accomplish the entire objective in one battle was indeed not so easy. This required exceptional patience, keen judgment, strong resistance to pressure, and perhaps a measure of luck as well.

But regardless, what Liu Min did at that time was to act like a veteran hunter with astonishing patience, quietly lying in wait, biding his time for an opportunity to strike. And that opportunity, clearly, would have to be created through the sacrifice of the Ming City garrison.

As for the safety of all the officers and soldiers defending Ming City, from Maritime Eastern Commissioner Liu Wentao on down, within the grand scheme of the "Great Han-Islamic War," it seemed somewhat insignificant.

In this regard, Liu Min's heart was hard, even utterly cold-blooded. Back then, why was he willing to entrust vast territories in the Maritime East to the Northern Court's administration? How much benefit had the Northern Court's upper echelons extracted from the Maritime East region over the years? These were not without cost, nor were they purely for maintaining the deep friendship between brother states—they came with corresponding responsibilities and missions. Holding firm, or more precisely, defending Ming City to the death, was the necessary duty and repayment.

And as for this point, Maritime Eastern Commissioner Liu Wentao actually knew it full well in his heart, which is why from the very beginning he left himself no retreat in defensive matters. Liu Wengong also understood this clearly, naturally, but understanding was one thing; truly accepting it was another matter entirely.

After all, Liu Wengong was not only Liu Wentao's elder brother but also the king of the Northern Court State, and he had to view this matter from the standpoint of the Northern Court's interests. Over the past few years, the Northern Court had indeed gained considerable benefits through the Maritime East region, but they had also paid with painstaking "stewardship" and had substantively helped Anxi consolidate its territory in Transoxiana. What they had gained was deserved—they owed the Anxi State nothing.

As a result, Liu Jikun not only cultivated deep feelings for the Northern Court State but also, through constant exposure and influence, developed exceptionally outstanding military-political vision. Especially during the years he accompanied his father in defending Ming City and administering the Maritime East, his practical military-political abilities made tremendous progress.

In contrast, the Ming City garrison suffered enormous casualties—more than half dead, and every survivor wounded. The heaviest loss was the death in battle of Maritime Eastern Commissioner Liu Wentao. As the son of Prince Zhao, Liu Fang, his military talent naturally could not compare with his father's, but he still won widespread support from the troops through his resilience and fortitude.

In one month's time, the Islamic coalition suffered over ten thousand casualties against the iron-wall defense of the Ming City garrison, losing more than two-tenths of their strength. Had it not been for the support of a host of fanatical holy warriors, relying solely on the feeble so-called Ziyarid elite, they would have collapsed on their own long ago.

As for Liu Jikun, he had started taking on responsibilities even earlier—at the age of eleven he was formally accompanying campaigns, participating in staff work, and handling governance. His position as Circuit Inspector was no empty title given to sons of the nobility.

At the same time, the six thousand-plus Han troops in the Maritime East region (grown from an initial three thousand year by year to six thousand) were all elite soldiers and core strength of the Northern Court State. One should know that the entire Northern Court could barely mobilize twenty thousand Han infantry and cavalry.

After all, even the Han people wished they could split one person into two for use. As scions bearing imperial blood, they too had to shoulder corresponding responsibilities and missions, undergoing trials from a young age. Those who couldn't withstand it could only end up as eliminated parasites.

During the defense, he remained composed and unhurried, commanding from the front lines for extended periods, even leading by example and personally engaging in combat, not leaving the walls for days and nights on end, going without sleep for consecutive days. In the end, after holding out for twenty-five days, he died of his wounds, at just thirty years of age.

The most dangerous moment of the Ming City siege was clearly the few days after Liu Wentao's death. In the wars of any era, the fall of a commander-in-chief could spell the defeat of the entire campaign.

Unlike the step-by-step cultivation of the imperial princes and grandsons in the Central Empire, in the Three States of Anxi—or rather, in most vassal states—forcing growth before its time was a very common thing for all members of the royal clan.

One can well imagine what kind of feelings Northern Court King Liu Wengong had when Liu Wentao and his elite Northern Court troops were placed as sacrificial pawns to hold Ming City in bitter defense. Under such circumstances, asking him to consider the greater good was clearly asking too much—especially when Liu Min hadn't made even a token gesture of sending reinforcements or any move to relieve pressure on the Ming City garrison. This further stoked Liu Wengong's resentment.

Therefore, when Liu Wentao perished, Liu Jikun resolutely carried out his father's dying command, shouldering the heavy responsibility of defending the city. Taking up the blood-stained Han saber his father had left behind, he stood atop the city walls, exposed to arrows and stones, commanding with calm composure, cold and resolute.

Liu Jikun was Liu Wentao's eldest son, born in the twenty-eighth year of Kaibao (990 CE), just fourteen years old at the time. Though young in age, he had grown up by his father's and uncle's side, and from the moment he gained awareness, he had experienced the tempering of the Northern Court's relatively desolate and barren environment, witnessing the Northern Court State's journey from nothing to something, from its founding to its gradual perfection.

With Liu Wentao's death, Liu Wengong lost a full brother, and the Northern Court State lost a pillar. The blow could not be called anything but profound. Even more, this matter was the beginning of the rift between Anxi and the Northern Court—though that was a matter for later.

Two reasons allowed Ming City to continue holding out: one was that instinctive resistance that had become second nature, and the other was the emergence of a figure who rose to save the crisis—Liu Wentao's son, Circuit Inspector Liu Jikun.

However, even with Liu Jikun assuming command in the crisis, it only bought a few more days. On the twenty-ninth day of the siege, the Ming City garrison was already at the end of its strength, teetering on the brink of collapse. Of course, the Islamic coalition outside the walls was no better off—their morale and fighting spirit had been exhausted by the prolonged bloody struggle and enormous casualties.

In the end, the Ming City siege had become a battle of endurance, willpower, and a race for reinforcements. Direct combat scenes actually decreased, and the intensity dropped significantly—this was also an important reason Liu Jikun could hold on.

It was only when things reached this level that the old hunter Liu Min could no longer sit still. After all, he couldn't truly watch Ming City fall—especially when the city had clearly reached a point where it could no longer be defended, he certainly couldn't allow this strategic strongpoint to fall. He immediately ordered Northern Court King Liu Wengong and Prince Kang Liu Ye to each lead sixty thousand troops of their own states, advancing in two routes to relieve Ming City, while Liu Min himself led the main army following behind. When the Han army made its move, the Islamic coalition's headquarters almost simultaneously sprang into action—Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud urgently dispatched troops to reinforce Marvell while also raising his main army to march north toward Ming City.

For the same reason, he also could not sit by and watch Marvell's army be annihilated. After all, Marvell's forces, having besieged Ming City for a month without taking it, were actually in a dangerous position after their bloody struggle. It wouldn't take much—just a fresh force of a few thousand men could rout them. This was something Mahmud, seasoned in warfare, could not possibly fail to perceive.

Clearly, while Liu Min was hunting, Mahmud was also fishing, and his target was naturally the main elite forces of the Three States of Anxi, likewise dreaming of deciding everything in a single battle. Only, Liu Min had held steady for a month, still unmovable as a mountain, which left Mahmud extremely frustrated.

Of course, his eventual decision to mobilize in force was not only due to Marvell's incessant urgings for reinforcements, but also because Ming City's defensive posture had indeed become so fragile that a single finger could poke through it. If he couldn't catch the big fish, then he would take the strategic strongpoint of Ming City first, and plan from there.

Both sides were willing to cast heavy bait, yet neither was willing to let their decoy actually be swallowed by the opponent. In the end, it came down to a battle of hard strength. First, Northern Court King Liu Wengong personally led ten thousand cavalry, sparing neither horseflesh nor stamina, arriving at Ming City first, directly striking the enemy and easily lifting the siege of Ming City. Then he launched a fierce assault on Marvell's forces, and as follow-up troops continuously joined the fray, Marvell's army rapidly collapsed.

Then the Islamic reinforcements arrived, immediately throwing themselves into a counterattack against the Northern Court forces, suppressing them with numerical superiority. Following that, Prince Kangju Liu Ye's cavalry arrived under his royal banner and likewise joined the battle.

Add to that Marvell's gathering of some defeated troops, reorganizing them and rejoining the fight, as well as both sides' follow-up infantry arriving in succession—in the autumn-winter period of the eleventh year of Yongxi, beneath Ming City, erupted the first battle of the Han-Islamic War involving more than one hundred thousand troops on each side: a massive melee of infantry and cavalry.

This great battle lasted three days and nights, until both sides were utterly exhausted and finally disengaged from each other. Of course, this was also related to the fact that the central armies of both sides, led by Liu Min and Mahmud respectively, had arrived at Ming City one after another.

Thus, as one might expect, the true climax of the "Battle of Ming City" had arrived. After each side regrouped and reorganized, the Three-State Coalition Army of one hundred ten thousand and the Islamic Eastern Expeditionary Army of one hundred sixty thousand—nearly three hundred thousand men in total—deployed in formation on an open plain twenty li south of Ming City, face to face, drum to drum, and commenced the decisive battle.

This campaign, composed of a series of engagements, lasted even longer—a full seven days and six nights—and for a considerable portion of that time, the two sides were evenly matched.

The Three-State Coalition Army, especially the high organizational discipline of its Han troops and their superiority in equipment and machinery, was something the motley Islamic coalition could never match. But the Islamic coalition had its own advantages as well—the vast numbers of fearless holy warriors were an unavoidable topic, and one also could not discount the outstanding command of Mahmud and his cadre of Ghaznavid generals.

Outstanding leaders are often surrounded by a gathering of elite talents. Just as the upper echelons of the Three States of Anxi were filled with capable men—where even a fourteen-year-old youth under the Northern Court State could stand out and excel—the Ghaznavid Sultanate likewise produced a generation of battle-tested generals.

On the other hand, the decades of the Han army's western expeditions had not only brought about great transformations in the political, cultural, and religious landscape of the Arab regions, but their military impact was also particularly pronounced.

Take, for example, the use of gunpowder and firearms. By the eleventh year of Yongxi, cannons, rockets, and thunder-shaking artillery were no longer the exclusive patent of the Han army. The Ghaznavid Sultanate, for instance, was vigorously developing gunpowder weapons—they even had some crudely copied cannons and had begun applying gunpowder in various combat scenarios, with extensive experimentation during their southern campaigns into the Indus River valley.

And the Battle of Ming City was an unprecedented "gunpowder great battle." Both sides employed gunpowder weapons on a massive, concentrated scale. To be frank, even the Great Han Empire, the birthplace of gunpowder, had never experienced such a battle—even though the gunpowder and weapons produced domestically in the empire were sufficient to plow through all surrounding nations. That was probably the sorrow of having no worthy opponent.

Therefore, describing the battlefield outside Ming City as shrouded in gunsmoke and thunderous with explosions was quite apt. Of course, given the limited quality and power of gunpowder at the time, relying on it to completely dictate the course of battle was unrealistic. This was, after all, nothing new—to those who were prepared, it was merely a killing weapon like the swords and sabers in their hands.

Of course, different killing weapons had different efficiencies, and in the hands of different users, the effects were completely different as well. And clearly, it was the Three States' cannons and firearms that inflicted heavier casualties on the Islamic forces.

But ultimately, what decided the outcome of the battle was still the close-quarters combat, cavalry clashes, and infantry engagements that unfolded amid the sounds of explosions. The appearance of cannons and the large-scale application of gunpowder on the battlefield only signified progress and innovation in military technology, but the era of cold weapons was far from over. Therefore, whether in process or result, the war was rich in "traditional" elements.

The outcome of the Battle of Ming City ultimately ended in victory for the Three-State Coalition Army. If the highly organized, well-trained, and superbly equipped Han troops of the Three States were the foundation of victory, then two other factors dominated the final result of the campaign.

One was the three thousand elite iron cavalry guards that Liu Min never deployed no matter how urgent the situation on various fronts or fortresses—they were the last fresh force of the entire army. The other was the garrison that went unnoticed, quietly resting and regrouping within Ming City for several days. While the great battle raged outside the walls, Liu Jikun secretly assembled fewer than two thousand battle-ready soldiers.

The target of both these forces was the Islamic army's commander-in-chief—the central army where Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud was located. These five thousand men did not succeed in crushing Mahmud's guard troops, but when the commander came under attack and the towering battle standard began to waver, the shaking of five thousand troops shook the morale and fighting spirit of an army of over one hundred thousand.

The stalemated battle situation changed from that point. As Mahmud was forced to flee, the Islamic Eastern Expeditionary Army collapsed in retreat—and retreated a hundred li in one rout.

PS: The "Great Han-Islamic War" of Yongxi years 11-12 was the fifth large-scale war between the two civilizations.

First: Liu Min's western expedition, recovering Suyab and destroying the Kara-Khanids;

Second: The Islamic world's first coalition eastern expedition, intending to restore the Kara-Khanids, repelled with the strong support of the Central Empire;

Third: The Anxi Protectorate's western expedition, taking Taraz, routing the Islamic Eastern Expeditionary Army, and seizing the eastern towns of the Samanid Dynasty;

Fourth: The Three States of Anxi coalition's western expedition, destroying the Samanid Dynasty and taking the land of Transoxiana;

Fifth: The second Islamic eastern expedition in Yongxi year 11, led by the Ghaznavid Sultanate.