Chapter 789: Talas

Talas — this city has had many names in later ages: Taraz, Jambyl, Mirzoyan, and so on. But in the hearts of the Chinese people, it will forever be called Talas.

The reason the impression is so deep, apart from the Battle of Talas being barely worthy of the name as a direct clash between the Great Tang and the Arab Empire at their heights, is that after the Battle of Talas, the Anxi Army never again took a single step westward.

And that single step marked the end of all of classical China's westward expansion. Later generations could barely even hold the Hexi Corridor. Don't even mention the Manchu Qing — by the Qing period, the Islamic faith had already spread throughout Guanzhong.

In reality, though, the Battle of Talas was somewhat different from what later generations imagined.

In that battle, if one says the Tang army's losses were heavy, they truly were — at least three or four thousand armored soldiers were killed or captured.

For the Anxi Army, which had so often defeated larger forces with smaller ones and produced utterly crushing victories in Anxi, this should have been its most bitter defeat.

But moved to any other place, losing a few thousand men would have been no more than the losses of a middling battle.

It was only because of various factors that the Tang army never again advanced westward after the Battle of Talas.

That was indeed disheartening, but no one imagined that the later Northern and Southern Song would turn that disappointment into despair.

Today, however, that disappointment will be soothed away by the fifteen-thousand-strong army commanded by Hu Guang.

Of course, this is not to say that Hu Guang is far more capable than Gao Xianzhi. On the contrary, in every respect, Hu Guang is still slightly inferior to the Gao Xianzhi of old.

But Hu Guang is destined not to break his spear at Talas, because his present circumstances are far, far better than those of Gao Xianzhi's time.

In the old days of the Great Tang, although the Anxi Army awed the four directions and was invincible, its relations with the various peoples of Anxi and Transoxiana were actually not very good.

The Tang Empire treated Anxi as a latrine pit — no matter what sort of character a man had, they threw him into Anxi. Once these fellows arrived, they were naturally no easy customers, and the things they did could rival the evils the Americans committed in Afghanistan.

It's not that squeezing them was impossible — in places like Transoxiana and Persia, you have to squeeze them hard, so they know who their daddy is.

But squeezing is one thing; you can't actually treat them like cattle and beasts of burden. In certain respects, a gentler touch is still necessary.

On this point, the Zhang-Zhou dynasty does very well. The Li Tang arose from Hedong and laid its foundation in Guanzhong, and so it valued Anxi. But I, Sage Zhang, simply rose from Anxi itself — strictly speaking, he fought his way from Anxi back to the Central Plains.

Do not underestimate such a factor. Go ask any man of Anxi, especially a man of the Golden Kingdom of Khotan — even a foolish lad herding sheep by the roadside, even one with golden hair and blue eyes — and he will tell you he is a fellow native of Sage Zhang's home. In his heart, he might even add: the Great Zhou is a great dynasty founded by us men of Anxi.

Even now, many civil officials, meritorious nobles, and soldiers of the Golden Kingdom of Khotan once served under Sage Zhang's command.

With this bond of old friendship, Anxi can be said to be closer in feeling to the Central Plains than at any time in history — far beyond what the Han and Tang could achieve by tossing out a few colonels, Protector-Generals, and Military Governors.

With the Golden Kingdom of Khotan, a flourishing Anxi state of eight or nine hundred thousand people, as its foundation, the support the Great Zhou's soldiers receive in Anxi is beyond anything the Han or Tang could have imagined.

In the old days, Gao Xianzhi in Anxi could at most mobilize thirty percent of all Anxi's manpower. But Hu Guang, having received Li Shengtian's authorization, can draw on at least seventy percent.

Although he must likewise cross the Tianshan and the Congling Mountains, marching westward from Suyab for months on end, Hu Guang has no worries about his rear.

Behind him, supplies stream continuously from Shule to Suyab, supporting his great army as it opens its campaign of conquest — and he need not fear anyone turning traitor.

Suyab, in fact, has an old name: the Suyab River Valley. Those three words perfectly capture the terrain of this region.

The entire Suyab region is, in essence, a valley some twenty or thirty li wide and about six hundred li long, hemmed in by the Tianshan mountain range.

Within this valley, the terrain is relatively flat, irrigated by meltwater from the Tianshan, and shielded from cold winds by the high mountains — thus it is a fine land for farming.

The city of Suyab lies at the eastern end of this valley, and the city of Talas lies at its western end.

Between the two cities live several hundred thousand people of various peoples. Historically, the Western Karakhanids and Yelu Dashi of the Western Liao made this place their base.

And as the western terminus of the Suyab River Valley, Talas holds an extremely critical position, one that can also be called easy to defend and hard to attack.

For not only is it sheltered by the Tianshan range, but to the northwest lies the vast Moyinkum Desert, which directly screens off enemies coming from the northwest.

From this, one can also foresee how panicked Guo Guangyi must have been inside after retreating to Talas.

For Talas is entirely a fortress-like hub city of communications. It is the head of the Suyab River Valley; everything it possesses to the west is easily seized by outside enemies, and only the fertile lands in the valley to the east can receive its protection.

Therefore, if Talas is to hold, it must rely on the Suyab River Valley at its rear to provide grain and forage. If it truly lacks the Suyab River Valley, then the city of Shiguo (Tashkent) to the southwest must also be in hand — otherwise it will be very hard to hold out.

But the tragedy is that Guo Guangyi has neither.

Outside Talas, Li Jixun's prediction was extremely accurate. Guo Guangyi led forty thousand cavalry to besiege Suyab and fought for a month and a half. He did not take the city, and instead broke his army's morale. By the time he returned to Talas, he could no longer even muster twenty thousand men.

The reason is simple: although he could conscript forty thousand men, those forty thousand were not the sort who sincerely regarded him as their Great Khan.

When there was profit to be had, they could barely be kept in line. Once the profit was gone, the moment they retreated and a man slipped into the mountains, he vanished at once.

Still, he was an ambitious schemer after all, and could barely be counted a fierce hero. Guo Guangyi's mind was very clear, and he quickly devised a countermeasure.

Originally, there were more than seventy thousand people around Talas. The various tribes moved from Suyab numbered close to a hundred thousand, and the herders of various peoples subject to him numbered around a hundred thousand.

But of these two hundred seventy thousand people, only a little over forty thousand had truly gained benefits and were willing to follow him, Guo Guangyi.

As for the remaining tens of thousands originally from Talas — Li Guoshou had only handed them over to him less than a year ago, and his grip on them was not firm.

The hundred thousand moved from Suyab need even less mention. The reason Guo Guangyi moved them in the first place was precisely because these people were not of one heart with him, and merely cooperated with him out of fear of his might. Otherwise, it would have been far better to simply leave them in Suyab.

Moreover, Guo Guangyi could not possibly possess Zhang Zhao's merciful heart and foresight — when relocating commoners, he knew to arrange supply stations in advance and calculate grain and fodder. Guo Guangyi simply moved them by brute force with sword and blade.

A hundred thousand people over six hundred li, moved to completion in a few months — to say the road was strewn with corpses would be an exaggeration, but that there were many dead and wounded is a fact.

And after they arrived, the arrangements of pastures and farmsteads were also inadequate, deepening these people's resentment.

With so many unfavorable factors, and with the great army forced to retreat with unstable morale, Guo Guangyi reached a point less than twenty li from the city of Talas and stopped — or rather, dared not go on.

After simply pitching camp, Guo Guangyi summoned to his tent his trusted generals, the tribal chieftains he had to win over, and the leaders of the mercenaries recruited from as far as the Oghuz and Persia.

Once he saw these men had all entered, Guo Guangyi immediately produced a sheepskin letter covered in Chinese characters. His triangular eyes flashed with a savage light as he roared in a low growl.

"I have just received word: it was not two thousand Han who seized Suyab, but twenty thousand Han.

We have all been deceived. It was the Guo clan and the Pugu clan from Suyab who deceived us. These traitors want to put us to death!"

Though he brandished this so-called proof of guilt, Guo Guangyi did not actually show the "proof" to everyone present. In his words, he laid all the blame for the defeat on the people from Suyab, accusing them of selling them out.

Oh! I forgot to mention — Guo Guangyi no longer goes by the surname Guo. He changed his surname to Guoge, which is why he can curse the Guo family with no burden on his conscience.

The several tribal chieftains looked at one another, thinking: your blame-shifting is a bit too absurd.

With the fighting strength of those Han, if there really had been twenty thousand of them, their heads would have been chopped off and tossed into the Issyk-Kul long ago. How could they have retreated safely all the way here?

Amid the general bewilderment and Guo Guangyi's furious cursing, Guo Guangyi's trusted general Hulun Jian suddenly stood up and said loudly:

"These Suyab people betrayed the Khan. They have failed the Khan's mercy toward them. Now the time has come to make them pay the price."

Every man Guo Guangyi could still summon at this moment was a shrewd operator. Hearing Hulun Jian speak thus, they understood at once.

So the Guoge Khan was not merely looking for a scapegoat — this was an order for them to plunder, to carve up and divide those hundred thousand people from Suyab, and thereby steady the army's morale!

At once, the mood in the tent shifted from doubt and unease to delight and excitement. If even the Khan himself permits it, why should we hold back?

Within a few breaths, four or five tribal and mercenary chieftains rushed over one after another to pledge their loyalty to Guo Guangyi, vowing to follow the Khagan and fight the Han people to the end.

Guo Guangyi's heart was bleeding. Here in the river lands, it was extremely common for the subordinates of one's subordinates not to be one's own subordinates.

Although he was the Khagan, apart from his own core forces, he could not interfere too much with the chieftains below him, let alone manage them directly.

He had intended these hundred thousand men to be absorbed into his own core tribe after defeating the great army of the Central Plains, but now, to stabilize the situation, he could only push them all out to be sacrificed.

Moreover, that alone was not enough. He still had to immediately latch onto a powerful patron in order to erase the disastrous consequences of failing to take Suyab.

Inside the tent, a minor chieftain seated at the very back had a glint flash through his eyes. Taking advantage of everyone's inattention, he quietly edged a few steps toward the outside, as if looking for a chance to slip away.

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