The downfall of the Tang Dynasty: 50,000 rebels in Hu Bing defeated 600,000 Tang Jun.

First, the hidden danger of chickens laying eggs In the winter of 626, the East Turkic khanate suffered a natural disaster that never happened in a hundred years. A large number of cattle and sheep died, food was tight, and conflicts between tribes were greatly intensified. Instead, powerful tribes such as Xue Yantuo took the opportunity to go through the customs, and the East Turkic khanate sent troops to suppress it three times. The result was a fiasco, and the remaining strength was hit hard again. The powerful khanate that once dominated Mobei once became weak. With a genial smile, Tang Ting went ahead with the show and sent troops to attack. Together with Xue Yantuo, he carved up the territory of East Turkic, and the East Turkic khanate, which once dominated North Asia, perished.

In 646, the Uighur Ministry of Xue Yantuo's khanate rebelled and competed with Xue Yantuo's Ministry for the position of ruling clan, and Xue Yantuo fell into large-scale division and civil strife. Due to the disparity in strength between the two sides, the Uighurs easily killed Duomi Khan, and the Xueyanto khanate perished. Just as the Uighurs were about to take over Xue Yantuo's territory and tribe, the situation rose, and Datang intervened in time to send troops to snatch the fruits of victory. At this time, the tribes of Xueyan Tuo khanate were unable to resist Tang Jun because of the national chaos, and some of them were forced to attach themselves to the Tang Dynasty, while others took refuge in their old colleagues in Uighur. The Uighurs, who have just annexed a large number of remnants of Xue Yantuo, are eager to integrate their internal affairs and digest the newly acquired grasslands and people, and are unwilling to be enemies of the Tang Dynasty for the time being; In addition, nomadic people only pay attention to real benefits, not fame, so they took their tribes and called them vassals of the Tang Dynasty. The whole Mobei became a place of detention in the Tang Dynasty in name. Because there is no strong neighbor in northern Cyprus, the northern part of the Tang Dynasty was peaceful for more than 30 years.

Although most of the ministries in Mobei expressed oral submission to the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty could not really control most of Mobei, especially those powerful tribes. In particular, those tribes attached to Uighur are even more fearless and don't care about the Tang Dynasty. Many of them were even hostile to the Tang Dynasty, but they didn't tear their faces verbally. Of course, some tribes in Mobei are closer to the Tang Dynasty, and some even rely on the protection of the Tang Dynasty to avoid being annexed by other tribes. The Tang dynasty used these tribes to realize their own interests on the grassland. Among Mobei tribes belonging to the Tang Dynasty, the remnants of East Turkistan subverted by Xue Yantuo are the most important one. The Tang dynasty often asked them to send troops to help fight and act as pawns for their external expansion. Turkic warriors are elite teachers, and their fighting capacity is higher than that of Tang Jun. However, due to the small number and lack of cohesion and mutual restraint among tribes, they have to obey the orders of the Tang Dynasty and fulfill the obligations of vassal countries.

For the Tang dynasty, it can be said that a large number of foreign troops joined their own camp and fought against the Han army, and achieved good results in a short time. After Li Shimin introduced the system of officers and men, Tang Junbing was composed of a group of peasants who assembled temporarily before going to war. The foot soldiers lacked training and didn't cooperate with each other, so Tang Jun's fighting capacity was mediocre. However, after forming a military alliance with a small number of tribal troops with strong fighting capacity, the advantages of the two sides are complementary, and the number advantage of Tang Jun, the sufficiency of financial and material resources of the Tang Dynasty and the elite of the tribal army are combined. The tribal army is brave and good at fighting, riding and shooting, and has strong long-range attack ability. The fighting capacity of the allied forces was greatly improved, and the external expansion of the Tang Dynasty was relatively smooth for a time.

Relying on its strong national strength, financial resources and huge population, the Tang Dynasty forced the tribes in Jimmy area to take themselves as allies, and then ordered the tribes to obey their orders as the sovereign state, and tied these alien tribes tightly to their chariots of external expansion. Tribes have different attitudes towards cooperating with Tang and taking Tang as the leader of military alliance. Some weaker tribes have to rely on the Tang Dynasty to protect themselves and survive, so they have to do as they say. Although some tribes can protect themselves, they are afraid of the Tang Dynasty and have to obey orders against their will. Some tribes are strong, but they are divided and scattered internally. Although the foot soldiers are elite, they check and balance each other and dare not resist the Tang Dynasty. There are even some tribes, although they are very powerful, but their leaders are either wooed by Tang Ting, a high official and generous, unwilling to risk rebellion, or simply puppets supported by the Tang Dynasty, and their prestige alone is not enough to control power, so they have to choose to cooperate with the Tang Dynasty; Because some tribes have lived in Huhan for a long time, they have merged with the Han people to a certain extent, so they can't be immune to it ... In short, in order to achieve the goal of accommodating all ministries, the Tang court often used both hard and soft methods to lure the powerful to make profits for themselves, forcing the weak to use force, supplemented by buying tribal leaders and changing their defenses to drive them away for their own use.

In the old and new books of the Tang Dynasty, we can often see the records of the surrounding vassal States and neighboring countries after the Tang Dynasty. For example, in 639, Xue Yantuo offered to cooperate with Tang Jun to conquer Gaochang. In 647, Wang Xuance entered Tubo with only one horse, pulled out a Tubo soldier and a Nepalese soldier, invaded India, and was plundered there. In history books, these phenomena are usually interpreted as the powerful national strength of the Tang Dynasty and the awe of neighboring countries. Some of them took the initiative to flatter and please, while others dared not disobey and were forced to send troops to help. In fact, these are just the arrogant words of Central Plains historians. When the Tang Dynasty called on all countries and ministries to follow the levy, using their own force to deter coercion was only a secondary means, and most tribes would never sell the accounts of the Tang Dynasty. The establishment of military alliance is mainly because both sides have the same practical interests.

When the opponent's strength was weak, the Tang Dynasty rallied the vassal states to send troops as the sovereign state, expanded the territory through the war of aggression, shared the wealth of the country with the vassal states, and ensured the stability of the military alliance with naked interests as the link, which was similar to the cooperative hunting of primitive people. For this opportunity to get a lot of benefits, the tribes naturally complied with it, and Xue Yantuo volunteered to levy the western regions out of this intention (Li Shimin flatly rejected the well-documented barbarian Khan, also out of practical interests. With the existing strength alone, the Coalition forces are enough to capture Xiao Gaochang. They naturally don't want anyone to share a piece of cake in the western regions, and they are more worried that Xue Yantuo will expand his sphere of influence to the western regions through this campaign, and then expand). Wang Xuance was able to borrow soldiers from Tubo, the enemy who repeatedly beat up the Tang Dynasty, not because the Tubo people wanted to please the Tang Dynasty. The real reason is that the Tubo people also want to take the opportunity to attack India and seize people and money. In the end, the Tibetan army and the Nepalese army captured a large number of slaves and property and returned to China, but the host of the attack, the Tang Dynasty, only got the hatred of Indians. Between the gains and losses, it is actually quite worth pondering.

Since the fundamental means of recruiting ministries in the Tang Dynasty is to obtain benefits from the same interests, there is bound to be a problem, that is, when faced with different targets, the wishes of ministries are often very different. When going out to the rich western regions (such as Gaochang, Qiuci, or a tribe after the split of West Turkistan), governors often respond positively and even take the initiative to fight; But when the goal of the expedition is a barren but tenacious opponent, many tribes are reluctant to go. In 638, Tubo invaded the territory of the Tang Dynasty, burned and looted, and retreated safely to China. However, Li Shimin is powerless to retaliate. But to send Princess Wencheng out to make up by marriage. This move is very weak. One of the reasons is that the Han army can't attack each other alone, while Tubo is barren and tough, and the terrain is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Many tribal troops are unwilling to follow this sign, so they can't carry out armed attacks on it. The situation in Koguryo is similar to that in Tubo. It is tenacious and barren, with a long journey and cold weather, and all ministries are reluctant to leave. The forced expropriation of Tiele ministries also triggered a great rebellion, forcing Tang Jun to withdraw the northern army at the critical moment of the second expedition to Koguryo, which was also one of the important reasons for the second expedition to Liao. After the Tang Empire attacked Liaodong, the only vassal attached to it was the H tribe army in Liaoning and Jilin.

Obviously, the military cooperation mode of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs" adopted by Datang is unstable and has great hidden dangers. Due to the lack of its own combat power, the Tang court generally lacked deterrence against tribal forces and could not control them freely. It can only use the contradictions between tribes to provoke differentiation or lure them to profit. However, it is only a matter of time before a few elite foreign troops are controlled to fight with weak fighting capacity. The temporary victory of foreign troops is only a fleeting castle in the sand. In essence, as a group of mixed troops lacking cohesion, when fighting with the wind, they can often fight bravely inspired by the looting after winning; However, when encountering a slightly stronger opponent, after the war situation is deadlocked or even unfavorable, it will quickly fall apart and flee. This is the law of war, and bandits who have gathered temporarily since ancient times have always been like this, and the Tang Dynasty Coalition forces, which are dominated by vassal armies, are no exception. During the 30 years from 630 to 660, the Tang Dynasty took advantage of the civil strife in neighboring countries to expand greatly. However, in the second half of the century, it was defeated repeatedly, and it was often a tragic situation that almost all the troops were wiped out. These are actually doomed by Tang Jun's fighting mode.

The so-called "success is Xiao He, failure is me". The military expansion in the early Tang Dynasty relied on the successful use of the vassal army, but it also became the shackles of foreign expansion after the Tang Dynasty. With a reliable object, the Tang empire naturally refused to make progress and would not spend any more effort to develop the strength of its own Han army. After seeing that the Tang Dynasty was strong outside and hollow inside, the vassal states refused to serve the Tang Dynasty again. When the Tang empire met a strong enemy, it was naturally irresistible. This is why several expeditions to Koguryo in the Tang Dynasty failed, and then they were defeated by Silla, which was even more painful after 660 years.

Even more deadly, when the hand with the knife lacks strength, it is easy to be bitten back. The Tang dynasty expanded in all directions from the mighty, and suddenly became extremely embarrassed and was beaten everywhere. On the one hand, because the previous victory was opportunistic by taking advantage of the civil strife in neighboring countries; Another important reason is that with the gradual disintegration of the officers and men system, the mediocre military strength of the Tang Dynasty itself further declined, while the vassals gradually became bigger and out of control. The knife in his hand refused to be used by himself, but he cut it at himself. It is not surprising that Datang was in an awkward position.

Second, the country will die in 755, and the Anshi Rebellion broke out. Because Tang Jun's fighting capacity is weak, it is far from An Lushan's Hu Bing opponent, so it has been defeated one after another, and the rebels are invincible all the way. Li Longji took the famous Feng Changqing as john young and Pinglu and went to Luoyang to resist the enemy. Feng Changqing hastily pieced together 60,000 military forces, but compared with the Anshi Rebellion, these people are a veritable mob. As soon as they met, they were ravaged by soldiers and suffered a great defeat. Retreat to Kwai Garden and fight again, and come back defeated; Retreat to Luoyang and go to the East Gate to fight again and be defeated; Rebels invaded Dongdu and fought Tang Jun in Duting Lane. Tang Jun was defeated and retreated to Xuanrenmen. When the rebels attacked, Tang Jun was defeated again. After six defeats, Feng Changqing really couldn't stay up, and led the remnants to the west and fled. In this campaign, Tang Jun's performance was extremely poor, which was a defeat. According to "The Book of the Old Tang Dynasty-A Biography of Loyalty and Righteousness", "After the soldiers were handed over, (Tang Jun) was suddenly attacked by iron horses, flying like rain, and the soul was scattered, looking at the thief and fleeing ..."

In 7551February, the rebels occupied Luoyang and soon reached Tongguan, the barrier of the capital. 200,000 Tang Jun went through customs to fight. As a result, they were defeated. Tang Jun foot soldiers everywhere, tens of thousands of people fell into the Yellow River and drowned. The cry of despair is earth-shattering In the end, there were only 8,000 people left, almost completely annihilated. Yan Jun immediately took Tongguan lightly, and Ge Shuhan, a famous Tang Dynasty soldier, defected. An Lushan took advantage of the situation to attack Chang 'an, and just defeated Tang Jun. Seeing that the tide was gone, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty secretly fled to Chengdu on June 13 with harem beauties and a few close officials. Early the next morning, the emperor's chair was empty, and the civil and military officials and the people of the whole city realized that they had been abandoned by the beloved king, so they dispersed one after another. Suddenly, the capital was in chaos, the five armies collapsed, and the order disappeared. People in Beijing rushed into the imperial city, burned the palace, robbed the treasure and even rode donkeys to the temple. The majesty of the Tang royal family was lost, and the scene was as bleak as the last days. ("When driving, people enter the palace and are forbidden. They took the money left in the vault of the camp and burned it. From day to noon, the fire burned more and more brightly, and someone rode a donkey to Chenzi and Xingqingtang. " -Old Tang Books (volume 1 15)

On the way to escape, Prince Hengli planned the Ma Wei mutiny, and in July 756, with the support of Guo Ziyi and other military generals, he succeeded to the throne and seized Dad's throne. Soon after, An Qingxu killed his father and replaced him. Yan Jun suffered a large-scale infighting, and Shi Siming led half of the military forces to stand on their own feet. Tang Suzong, who was already afraid, saw such a good opportunity and was greatly inspired. Therefore, he appointed Guo Ziyi as Sikong, the deputy marshal of the world's military forces, and made him seize the opportunity to make a big counterattack. Guo Ziyi unified Tang Jun main force to move forward, although the timing is good, but because Tang Jun's fighting capacity is really poor, even civil strife, panic, the already divided rebels can not beat. As a result, Xingping was defeated and the foot soldiers were killed and injured. Since then, the situation has become worse. Guo Ziyi was demoted to the third level, and finally became a left servant. At the same time, the situation in the Jianghuai area, as the economic lifeline of the Tang Dynasty, also deteriorated. Prior to this, the rebels in the south Jianghuai area were blocked by two fortified cities, Suiyang (now Shangqiu, Henan Province) and Nanyang, which made it impossible for the other side to cut off the source of money and grain in the Tang Dynasty. However, after more than a year of defense, Nanyang still couldn't wait for reinforcements. The city was "cannibalized" and "hungry people slept together". It fell in the summer of 757 and Suiyang fell in October. In other directions, Lingchang fell, and the satrap Xu Jishu defeated Cheng Peng; Shaanxi county was captured by rebels; Shangdang didn't fall into the important town, but the column of guarding the city was captured alive by the rebel star Cai Xide ... In short, the overall situation at this time was extremely unfavorable to Tang Ting, and Datang was on the verge of complete collapse.

At this time, Chang 'an has been occupied for several years, and the capital of a country is the most important symbol of imperial power. Tang Tingben, who was expelled from Beijing, was humiliated. If the rebellion can't be put down quickly, his prestige will further decline. Once the local government feels that the central government has declined and has the opportunity to stand on its own feet, the rule of the Tang Dynasty is likely to collapse completely in a short time. Seeing that Datang was on the verge of national subjugation, Tang Jun's actual commander-in-chief, Guo Ziyi, convinced Tang Suzong to recruit soldiers in the Uighur Khanate at any cost in August after determining that Datang was unable to destroy the rebels.

However, there is no free lunch. In exchange for Uighur troops, Tang Suzong promised a very high reward: "On the day of arrival in the city, the land and scholars will belong to the Tang Dynasty, and gold, silk and children will all belong to Uighur." That is to say, after the recovery of Chang 'an, the land, old and young will be owned by the Tang Dynasty, and all the property in the city (including the private property of each family) will be sold to the Uighurs by the Tang Dynasty court, and the other party can plunder it at will, and all young men and women in the city will be allowed to plunder it and return to China to be slaves.

Uighurs were well paid and gladly sent troops. The Book of the New Tang Dynasty, volume 246, said: "Thieves laugh and fear Uighur, which is both peaceful, shocking and noisy. The king was divided into elite soldiers and children, and his loyalty and righteousness were defeated. He led the army eastward, and Tong Ru abandoned his wife and fled to Shaanxi County. Julian Waghann entered Chang 'an ". "Biography of the Old Tang Dynasty Uighur" records: "The thief buried the essence and rode to the east of the camp, and he will attack our army. The soldiers and horses in the left compartment of Shuofang led their servant Gu Huaien to rescue them, but the horse did not return because it was in Xijing. " Because the rebels were "afraid of Uighurs" and saw that there were Uighurs in the Tang army to help them, Abala, the strategic deployment for Tang Jun was disrupted by the Uighurs, and they immediately panicked. The Coalition forces defeated the rebels in An Qingxu outside Chang 'an and recovered Chang 'an.

On July 8, 757 10/KLOC-0, the allied forces went down to Luoyang without fighting. When Tang Jun entered Luoyang, people who were harassed by rebels and looked forward to the arrival of Tang Jun day and night were surprised to find that they had been betrayed by their beloved motherland. According to the agreement between the Tang Dynasty and Uighurs, Uighurs can legally commit rape and plunder within 200 Li of Fiona Fang with Luoyang as the eastern center, while hundreds of thousands of Tang Jun turned a blind eye to these atrocities.

Those Muslim soldiers who later believed in Islam did not miss this great opportunity to dig three feet. With contempt for the Han people and Datang, they plundered Luoyang for three days. Just when the Uighurs were still "wanting more", the remaining Luoyang "elders" gathered 10 thousand Luo Jin war horses and sent them to the Uighur camp, and the atrocities of the Uighurs gradually stopped. As the Uighurs first entered the Tang Dynasty, they still had the intention of making friends with the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, they are restrained in violent fashion, only robbing property and robbing young men and women as promised, instead of burning and killing on a large scale. The old and young in Luoyang are basically unscathed, and the looted Luoyang is not completely broken, which is really different from the next time the Uighurs re-enter Tokyo.

40,000 to 50,000 rebels defeated 600,000 Tang Jun, and the Uighurs (Tang Jun also played an auxiliary role) greatly reduced the military pressure of the Tang Dynasty after Anqingxu annihilated hundreds of elite troops of the rebels, while the strength of the rebels was greatly damaged. Moreover, the rebel team learned that Uighur sent troops to help Datang, and they were all scared. Many intermediate forces and even pro-rebel forces began to lean towards Tang Ting. Datang gained both political and military advantages.

At this time, however, the Uighurs have returned to China, and the Tang Jun Group is once again in a weak state, and the rebels can show their talents again. In September 758, Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, the great Khitan, besieged An Qingxu with more than 200,000 troops in Yecheng, and then Tang Jun's troops gradually increased to 600,000. However, at this time, Tang Jun was a mob. He besieged Xiaoyecheng for more than four months with ten times the troops, but he couldn't defeat it and his performance was extremely poor. Finally, Guo Ziyi even used the method of digging up the banks of Zhangshui River and forcing it to divert its course to irrigate the city. I don't know how many people downstream were burned by this coup. Yecheng was finally a few feet deep, and there was no food, but Tang Jun still had no choice. Until the end of February 759, Shi Siming commanded 50,000 soldiers to help Anqingxu, and Tang Jun rode 600,000 troops in the north of Yecheng, but refused. A large-scale field battle broke out between the two sides. ("In March, Ren Shen, loyalists rode 600,000 troops in Anyang, Hebei Province, and Siming personally took 50,000 enemy troops in Tianjin"-"Zi Tongzhi Jian")

This time, Tang Jun almost pieced together all the troops, trying to win by more, to offset the disadvantage of its poor field ability. However, no amount of sheep can compete with tigers and wolves. Shi Siming led elite riders into the Tang army, and Tang Jun suffered heavy losses, which soon became difficult to support. At this time, the sudden wind intensified the rout of Tang Jun. When Guo Ziyi, the actual leader of Jiujie (another prestigious Li Guangbi), saw that the tide was gone, he gave up his friendly troops and led his headquarters to flee without fighting. Guo Ziyi's Northern Army was the most elite army in the Tang Dynasty. He is the commander behind the scenes of the whole army. He played a leading role in the army rout and accelerated the process of the army rout. The soldiers who were fighting fiercely in front saw that the rear troops had left, and they suddenly lost their fighting spirit. The whole war situation in Tang Jun quickly collapsed, and the rebels seized the opportunity to kill them. The bodies of Tang Jun foot soldiers were all over the ground, and most of the soldiers and horses were damaged. Finally, all the supplies collected were discarded, leaving only 3,000 horses and 100,000 batons, all of which were earned by the rebels. After the war, "An Qingxu collected food such as children's equipment and got six or seven hundred thousand stones."

In this campaign, Shi Siming unified 50,000 soldiers and defeated 600,000 Tang Jun, which set another classic example in the history of China. After the war, Guo Ziyi led his troops to Luoyang, and eight remnants of our army, including Li Guangbi, also led his troops back to this town. On the way to the rout, the defeated army of the Tang Dynasty vented its prestige on the people, plundered the people and did many evils, which the local officials could not stop. The chaotic situation ended after more than ten days. ("Deng, the holidays are all in our own town. The soldiers were plundered and officials could not stop them. It will be decided within ten days. " )

In the rout, only Li Guangbi and Wang Sili had strict military discipline and were able to "take the whole army and return". In fact, among the generals in Tang Jun at that time, Li Guangbi, a Khitan, was the best at fighting and was the strictest in running the army. His contribution in the whole Anshi Rebellion is also the biggest, far exceeding the misnamed Guo Ziyi. As a different kind, he was not highly praised by later Central Plains historians like Guo Ziyi, but only fell behind Guo Ziyi in fame.

"New Tang Book" is motivated by denying defeat and vilifying rebels. Historians try their best to distort the fact of defeat, trying to blame the failure on the sudden gale during the war, and saying that because of the gale, "Wang Shinan fell, thieves left, and weapons were everywhere", but it can't explain why the two armies fighting in one place met the gale at the same time and turned around and fled. The author believes that on the boundary of Henan, the wind level is limited no matter how big it is, and the area with serious influence will never be too big. Tang Jun has 600,000 troops lined up, covering at least dozens of kilometers. What kind of strong wind can selectively disperse these 600 thousand armour soldiers, but make the rebels indifferent? You know, gale is unselfish, and it will not be biased like the historians of the Tang Dynasty.

Although the inside story of this war has been cut clean, we can infer the general situation only by the most basic logic and common sense. There was a strong wind in the war, but it did happen, but at most it was just a rout of the accelerator. It was never the main reason for Tang Jun's defeat, and all the responsibility for the fiasco was shifted to the weather, but it was just what historians said to cover up the shame of the Tang Dynasty and the extremely low combat effectiveness of Tang Jun. Six hundred thousand Tang Jun looks scary, but it's just a paper tiger, which can be seen from the fact that even a small town like Yecheng can't be captured for several months. This mediocre army, made up of many people with different ideas, has extremely low fighting capacity and poor morale, so when elite rebel fighters break into the array, they are like tigers entering the flock. When Tang Jun was still struggling to support, the fierce and disciplined rebels were affected to some extent, but they will soon be able to rally and attack again; For Tang Jun, who was once beaten in military discipline and frightened, this gale was the last straw to crush the camel. As Guo Ziyi's rear army took the lead in leaving the friendly forces and fleeing, Tang Jun branches with different intentions rushed to flee for their lives, thus staged a complete rout.