The war between Han and Hungary and the Western Regions

The war between Han and Hungary and the Western Regions

After the death of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in the era of Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, the two sides entered a quite long period without war. In the late reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the army of the Han Dynasty often went out on a large scale in winter and spring. Although the Huns were able to win the war in the end, they paid a lot of casualties in the early stage. In Hanshu, there is such a record about the plight of the Huns: "Why are you lazy?" It means that Huns and animals need to migrate constantly because of the constant pursuit of the Han army, which leads to the continuous abortion of Huns' mother beasts and pregnant women during the migration process, which greatly affects the nomadic economy and population reproduction of Huns. This detail also explains from the opposite side why Huns like to directly capture the army of the Han Dynasty. The reason is that the resources of Xiongnu are limited, and surrenders and prisoners are urgently needed to supplement the manpower gap. From the establishment of the Han Dynasty to the rule of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Xiongnu was the only recorded enemy of the northern desert in the Han Dynasty. By the time of Emperor Zhao and Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty, with the obvious decline of Xiongnu's strength, the vassal regimes and former enemies around Xiongnu rose in succession, even challenging Xiongnu's hegemonic authority. Compared with the early Han Dynasty, another important factor that accelerated the decline of Xiongnu was the unprecedented infighting of Xiongnu.

In the first year of Yuanfeng, 20,000 Huns invaded in four ways, and the Han army beheaded 9,000 people and captured Ou alive. Huns heard that Ou, who was familiar with the marching route between Han and Hungary, was captured and worried that Ou would leak the marching route to the Han Dynasty, so Shan Yuting chose to take the initiative to move to the northwest to avoid the war, and the wind was rustling. In the third year of Yuanfeng, the Xiongnu right Wang Xian and Plough King's 4,000 troops invaded Zhangye in three ways, and were defeated by Zhang Ye's satrap and the captain of the vassal. At the same time, the Huns sent troops to Wuyuan. After the first three thousand cavalry won the first battle, tens of thousands of Khan cavalry went south to hunt in the Great Wall of Han Dynasty and conquered the isolated pavilion fort beyond the Great Wall. However, with the improvement of the bonfire system in the border areas of the Han Dynasty and the restoration of the vitality of the military and civilians in the border areas, the opportunities of the Xiongnu became more and more limited.

After the westward expansion and southward expansion were blocked, the Huns sent 20,000 troops to invade Wuhuan. Seeing signs of the resurgence of Xiongnu, Huo Guang, the ruling minister, sent twenty thousand troops to the northern expedition against Xiongnu. After expelling the Huns, the Han army randomly turned back and invaded Wuhuan, beheading more than 6,000 people. From then on, the Huns were even more afraid, and dared not easily confront the Han Dynasty in Mobei and Monan.

Kill Loulan and comfort Wusun.

In the Han Dynasty, in order to further cut off the influence of Xiongnu on the western regions and obtain more resources from the western regions, the competition between Han and Hungary in the western regions became increasingly fierce. The hegemony of the western regions was decided during the period of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty. After several dynasties of Emperor Zhao, Emperor Xuan and Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, it temporarily ended with the victory of the Han Dynasty moving its capital to the western regions.

Due to the serious loss of national strength in his later years, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty promulgated the Imperial Decree of Luntai, which was ostensibly a summary and reflection. In fact, it was from this starting point that the domestic and foreign policies were adjusted, so that the national policy of the Han Dynasty returned to the road of helping the people and enriching the people and being cautious about foreign wars. Now, with the Han Dynasty's entry into the Western Regions, mobility has resumed. So Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty sent Prince Lai Dan, who was pedantic to the country, to lead the soldiers of the wasteland army to the front. This is the defense line that the Han dynasty continued to extend westward, and it is also the strategy that the Han dynasty further explored westward.

Loulan, later Shanshan, was the first major western country that Han Dynasty encountered after leaving Yangguan for Gobi. As early as the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty had a war with them. In the winter of 108 BC, the Huns were unable to support Gu Shi and Loulan in the south. Zhao Ponu led 700 vassal Hu Qi, that is, Hexi minority soldiers belonging to the Han Dynasty, to the Western Regions. Because they are the Xiongnu, Qiang and Xiaoyue warriors who are good at cold tolerance, they crossed the Hashun Desert between Gansu and Xinjiang in December of the lunar calendar with strong field survival ability and hard-working spirit.

Because the endless sand dunes undulate like waves, the Han people call this road from Yumenguan in the west to Turpan Basin "sea road". 700 cavalry judges the direction according to the rising and falling direction of the sun and moon. They first attacked Loulan, and then defeated Gu in the north, making an example of two small countries.

Fight for Wusun

Greek warrior figurines unearthed in xinyuan county 7 1 regiment in the northern Tianshan Mountains and in the East Ili Valley were the homes of Serbs or Wusun people at that time.

Huns are very disgusted with Wusun's looting in troubled waters. Because they could not fight against the powerful Han Dynasty, they took their anger out on the relatively weak Wusunguo. So in the winter of this year, Xiongnu Khan personally led 65,438+10,000 people to conquer Wusun. Compared with riding hundreds of thousands of Khan's direct troops at random in the Maodun era, the Xiongnu at this time can be described as extremely declining and very shabby. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it was not the military forces of the Han army that seriously weakened Khan's strength, but the extreme climate and the infighting of the Huns that wiped out more people. Assuming that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty can see the cards of history, I wonder if he will launch several tragic wars against Xiongnu in his later years?

During the death of Emperor Gaozu Zhao Di, Huns attacked Wusun with chariot drivers in the north, claiming to invade Wusun, plunder Wusun, capture Princess You Jie and send Wusun far away from the Han Dynasty. Facing the threat of Xiongnu, Xuan Di, Emperor Gaozu, after receiving a letter from Princess You Jie asking for help, sent his troops 1.5 million in the second year (72 BC). In the first month of the following year, the soldiers divided into five roads and explored Xiongnu in the north, which forced him to disperse Wusun. This is one of the few large-scale northern expeditions in the Han Dynasty after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

However, the weather was not beautiful, and Khan once won. On the way back to the army, the Huns encountered a rare snowstorm, with more than ten feet of snow a day. In the end, less than one tenth of the people returned to the pasture. Then Wu Sun and Wu Huan took advantage of it, and even Ding Ling, who had always surrendered to the Huns, began to rebel. The three sides killed tens of thousands of Huns, plundered countless cattle, horses and sheep, and Lien Chan lost in a row. At this time, the Huns died three-tenths in the war.

driver

With the hopeless conquest of Wusun, the Huns paid more attention to the Huns and soldiers of Che and Yanqi, and also paid more attention to the back of Che. Although the owner apparently surrendered to the Han Dynasty again, the owner Wang married the Xiongnu princess and continued to be the first mouse. In order to completely isolate the Huns and block the Huns' access to the Western Regions, the Han Dynasty decided to gather troops and take this place completely. From 68 BC to 62 BC, the Han army and the Xiongnu army launched a new round of fierce fighting at the gate of the automobile market, which was called "five battles in the automobile market" in history. Previously, in the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to cooperate with Li Guangli's northern expedition to Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty besieged the automobile market twice in 99 BC and 89 BC. Therefore, the Han army is quite experienced in this field.

After a long wait, Ji Zheng's distress letter finally reached the Chang 'an court through the attack and temptation of the Huns. After leaving Yumenguan from the west, Hu Qi, a knight and warlord from Zhangye and Jiuquan, crossed the northwest desert. After suffering from the huge temperature difference between day and night and the lack of water, he rushed into Turpan Basin and galloped away to Jiaohe City.

These reinforcements soon expelled the Xiongnu besiegers, who were also besieged for a long time, and the Han defenders in the city turned the corner. After clearing Jiaohe City, the Han army sent people to take back Wu Gui who abandoned his wife and children from Wusun and sent him to Chang 'an to spend the rest of his life with his family. An ill-fated monarch of a small country often accompanied Emperor Xian of Han to meet other foreign envoys, and became the pet hostage of the son of heaven, a great man who preached kindness to Siyi.

In the Western Regions, Wang Zijun, a coachman who hated the Huns and was friendly to the Han Dynasty, was made king by the Han Dynasty. The Huns were tit for tat, supporting another pro-Hun driving king against the Han Dynasty. At this point, the Cheshi people across the Tianshan Mountains were divided into six different small countries, such as the former country and the latter country. In this way, the Che kingdom became the victim of ethnic division under the wrestling between Han and Hungary. Generally speaking, the fifth drive still keeps the important place connecting the north and south of Tianshan Mountain firmly in the hands of the Han army.

Pingding the western regions

In 60 BC, civil strife broke out in Xiongnu. Japan, which was in charge of Xiongnu affairs in the Western Regions, surrendered to the Han Dynasty one by one, and his servants had the same surname and died without fighting. Since then, all the western regions in the Han Dynasty have become the highest officials in the western regions. From the south of Wusun to the east of Dawan, the western countries and nobles accepted the titles of the Han Dynasty and were regarded as officials of the Han Dynasty. With such a foundation, we have the grandiose words of Chen Shang's expedition to Zhi Zhi Khan.

1 1 years later, in the early years of Emperor Han Yuan's reign, many natural disasters broke out throughout the Han Dynasty: in May, the Bohai Sea flooded, endangering the coast; In June, a folk plague broke out, and in September, severe floods and famines occurred in eleven counties in Kanto. Kanto region suffers from poor harvests all the year round. By the end of that year, the southern Xiongnu, who was close to the Han Dynasty, asked the Chang 'an court for food to alleviate the famine.

In the case of food shortage in the Central Plains, soldiers in the western regions need to farm their own fields to alleviate the food crisis. Therefore, Emperor Hanyuan ordered the establishment of "Captain Endless" to open up wasteland in the territory of Che Shi. This name is actually a pun: according to the concept of Yin-Yang and Five Elements at that time, the western regions belonged to gold in the west and the Xiongnu belonged to water in the north. During the ten-day dry period, Wuji belongs to the soil, which can produce gold and water, suggesting that the soldiers of captain Wuji are soldiers who can defend the western regions and resist the Huns;

At the same time, Wuji is in the drought of 12 days, suggesting that the Han Dynasty stationed troops in the central area of the western regions, which can appease the countries in the western regions.