Anxi Iron Army: A lone army defended the city for forty years, and the whole city of Qiuci was grayed out

The young man came from the army to guard the frontier, and his body was only to serve the country. The middle-aged students enter Yumen Pass, but the iron-blooded guards have not returned it. A lone army defended the city for forty years, and Qiuci was all gray-haired. The veteran is not dead, Mo Dao is here, and he swears not to forget Datang.

In 808 AD, this was the last battle of the Anxi Duhu Mansion of the Tang Dynasty. The last Anxi Duhu, Anxi Four Towns Jiedu Envoy, Wuwei County King Guo Xin and the Mancheng white-headed veteran who followed him for 42 years Tubo fought to the death, and eventually the city of Kucha was broken. The Anxi Protectorate surrendered and all tens of thousands of soldiers under Guo Xin surrendered, and they all fought with Tubo until the end.

set the time back to AD 640, the founding general of the early Tang Dynasty, Hou Junji, led his army to conquer Gaochang, and successively wiped out more than 20 Western countries including Yanqi, Qiuci, Shule, Yutian, and his city-states. The former place was the Duhu Mansion. The Great Tang Empire established Beiting Daduhu Mansion in 702 AD. So far, Anxi and Beiting Duhu Mansion were bounded by Tianshan Mountains, and Anxi Duhu Mansion was the main one, dividing the north and south of the Western Regions. Around 753, it was the heyday of the Tang Dynasty’s management of the Western Regions. When the sphere of influence was at its peak, it was called the Anxi Daduhufu. It governed the entire Western Regions, Central Asia, Persia and the Aral Sea in the west, and governed Mengchi and Kunling. Hedawan, Persia, Tiaozhi and other nine capitals, as well as Anxi and Xiuxun states, Anxi Duhu is located in Qiuci Town.

Map of the Great Tang Empire drawn by Japan

Great Tang was stationed heavily in the Western Regions for a long time. In that era, the tens of thousands of Tang troops under the Anxi Prefecture were for the Western Regions and Central Asian countries. In other words, like the heavenly soldiers and generals, there are invincible majesty, countless city-state tribes descended from fear, and countless city-state tribes cast down because of respect.

Since the Zhenguan period, the Anxi Duhu Mansion was built in the early Tang Dynasty. In the Yuanhe period, the last Anxi Major Protector Guo Xin died in battle. Anxi Duhu Mansion has existed for nearly two centuries.

Guo Xin, the last Anxi guardian and king of Wuwei County, is the nephew of Guo Ziyi, a famous general in history who settled the Anshi Rebellion. Guo Xin’s father Guo Ziyun is the brother of Guo Ziyi and the same mother. Guo Xin grew up behind the generals, so he was inspired to serve the country. , "Want to be here to serve the country, why bother to be born in Yumen Pass" is the best portrayal of the life of Guo Xin, King of Iron-Blood County.

西域边塞

After the Anshi Rebellion, the national power of the Tang Dynasty gradually declined. At this time, the neighboring country of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo, became increasingly strong. Therefore, Tubo took advantage of the lack of power in the Tang Dynasty and continued to send troops. Invaded the western frontier of Datang. Under this circumstance, Guo Xin, a general in the prime of life, was ordered to serve as the general protector of Anxi Prefecture.

In order to quell the Anshi Rebellion, the central government of the Tang Dynasty once drew back many elite troops from the western frontiers. At this time, the garrisons of the Anxi and Beiting frontiers were far inferior to their heydays. It has reached more than 100,000 people, while the number of troops stationed in Anxi Prefecture, which Guo Xin took over, was only two to three million.

and the Tubo Kingdom also saw that the central government of the Tang Dynasty was unable to protect the border, so it began to gradually devour the border areas of the Tang Dynasty. Not long after Guo Xin took office as the guardian of Anxi, the Hexi Corridor was completely occupied by Tubo due to the weakness of the garrison. Later, Tubo gradually eroded the control of Datang’s Western Regions. Under the gradual eroding by Tubo, Datang finally left only the four towns of Anxi and Beiting in the Western Regions, and Anxi Duhufu and Beiting Duhufu were due to the Hexi Corridor. It was completely controlled and occupied by Tubo and completely lost contact with the Datang Central Government.

After the occupation of the Hexi Corridor, Tubo completely cut off the connection between Anxi, Beiting and Chang'an

Facing the powerful forces of Tubo, facing a seemingly defeated battle, although The Tang Army of the Western Regions had long been besieged by Tubo and became a solitary army. However, without the support of the central government, the Anxi and Beiting defenders still defended the Western Regions under Li Tang Zhengshuo.

Guo Xin joined forces with Li Yuanzhong, the major guardian of the Beiting Duhufu, and held fast to the four towns of Anxi. When they were trapped, they had been trying to get in touch with the central government of the Tang Dynasty in Chang'an, and they continued to send troops to Chang'an.

In 781 AD, under the perseverance of Guo Xin and Li Yuanzhong, the messenger finally arrived in Chang'an and told Tang Dezong, the then Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, the heroic deeds of the Tang army in Anxi and Beiting. Since 766 AD, ShuoAmbassador Fang Jiedu, Zhongshu Ling, and Fenyang King Guo Ziyi asked the court to dispatch Zuo Wuwei General Guo Xin to administer Hexi, Anxi and other places and served as the guardian of Anxi and Jiedu of the four towns of Anxi, which lasted 15 years. The government finally reconnected with the central government.

Although they got in touch with the central government, they did not know that the civil and military ministers of the Manchu dynasty, including Tang Dezong, were so moved by Guo Xin and Li Yuanzhong’s persistence. It was not until the arrival of the messenger that Tang Dezong knew that the Western Regions fortress was still there. The North Korean government is in control, but the central government has no other better way than to reward Anxi and Beiting defenders. The Tang Dynasty had suffered from the Anxi Rebellion and was already lacking in national power. It was unable to charge the Hexi Corridor, let alone to Anxi and Beiting. Beiting’s material support could only provide spiritual encouragement to Anxi and Beiting’s garrison’s imperial decree. At the same time, Guo Xin and Li Yuanzhong were sealed for shooting at the left and right, and Guo Xin was named the king of Wuwei County. Big, but there was no actual reinforcement, so in desperation Guo Xin and Li Yuanzhong could only stand independently in Anxi and Beiting.

In the long years of persistence, Li Yuanzhong finally did not survive the waste of the years, and Li Yuanzhong died for a long time in the absence of medical treatment and medicine. After the death of Li Yuanzhong, the great protector of Beiting, Yang Xigu took over as the great protector of Beiting Duhu. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. In 787, Tubo launched a full-scale general offensive against Beiting Duhu. Perseverance has always been supported by the Huihe tribe. At this time, most of the Beiting guard Yang Xigu had to ask for help from the Huihe tribe.

However, Tubo was preparing for a war for many years. To capture the Beiting Duhu Mansion, Tubo dispatched troops to unite several other tribes in the Western Regions, and soon defeated the coalition forces of Beiting Duhu Mansion and Huihe. Hu Yang Xigu led his army to break out of the siege and rush towards Xizhou, only to be killed by the former ally of Huihe. The union between Huihe and Tubo and the destruction of the Beiting Duhu Mansion made Anxi even more isolated and helpless. Although Guo Xin still insisted on it, he was already unable to recover.

But even in this difficult situation, Guo Xin led the old and old white-headed soldiers to stay in the four towns of Anxi for eighteen years. When the four towns of Anxi fell, there is no clear record in the history books. However, according to the Tang Dynasty monk Wukong (the prototype of Monkey King in Journey to the West), he returned from Tianzhu in 789 and passed through the four towns of Anxi. He once visited Anxi Duhu Fu and Da Duhu Guo Xin, it can be seen that the four towns of Anxi were still guarded by Guo Xin at least around 790 AD.

According to historical records, Yutian, one of the four towns in Beiting and Anxi, fell completely in 790 AD and was completely occupied by Tubo. According to the inference of modern history scholar Professor Xue Zongzheng, Anxi finally fell in 808 AD.

The Datang Jianzhong Tongbao built by the Anxi Duhu Mansion unearthed in Aksu and Kuqa, Xinjiang. Soldiers to the field, self-sufficient in coining. There are very few records of Guo Xin and the Anxi Iron Army in the history of the Tang Dynasty, and later generations can only learn about the Anxi Iron Army that stood by for forty-two years at that time by studying the cultural relics unearthed in Xinjiang and combining historical data.

In the winter of 808 AD, the sky was full of blizzards, and the most tragic moment in the history of the Tang Dynasty arrived. Tubo launched a general attack on Qiuci City, the last resident of Anxi Prefecture.

Guo Xin, who was born into Yumen Pass in his prime, is already a veteran with silver temples. Guo Xin has been holding Anxi for forty-two years. During these forty-two years, the Tang Dynasty has changed. The four emperors and the soldiers who followed themselves out of Yumen Pass have also become white-headed veterans. Since the Tang Dynasty’s national strength has been declining since the Anshi Rebellion, they have long wanted to abandon the Western Regions, but when the central government had to abandon the Western Regions, these veterans of the Western Regions were alone. They did not give up, Guo Xin, Li Yuanzhong, Yang Xigu did not give up, and they still stood in this desperate situation for Yang Da Tang Guowei.

The gray-haired old General Guo Xin led the same gray-haired veterans in the city of Qiuci to the bloody battle with Tubo to the end. The old, weak, sick and disabled Tang army finally had a bloody fight with the Tubo soldiers. The next day, the vast snow covered the city of Qiuci, and the city was covered with snow. Of course, there were also the Bai-headed Tang army who had all been martyred to the city. Guo Xin, the king of Wuwei County, and his white-headed veterans all died in a bloody battle. No one surrendered. They used their blood to defend the last glory of Datang Anxi Duhu Mansion and the last glory in the military history of the Tang Dynasty.

stick toGuo Xin, the king of Wuwei County in the forty-two years of Anxi, was also revered as the "Iron-Blooded County King", and his white-headed Tang army was also revered as the Anxi Iron Army. They used heroic deeds to write the Chinese people's determination to defend the frontier. Today, in areas such as Aksu and Kuqa in Xinjiang today, where the four towns of Anxi during the Tang Dynasty were located, it is still possible to dig out the Tang Jianzhong coins minted by Guo Xin, a small coin, but a thousand Many years ago, tens of thousands of white-haired veterans, the sad figure of iron and blood protecting the country!

finally used Guo Xin's contemporary Tang Dynasty poet Dai Shulun's "Song Song" to commemorate the memory of Guo Xin and his Anxi Tiejun, "The Han family is full of Yinshan, and I will not send a horse to return. This body is long to serve the country, so why bother to be born into Yumen Pass.”