A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 1149: There is no turning back when the bow is fired
Ashina Helu drew out his wolf-head knife and raised it high to the sky.

"Great Tengri God, please bear witness for us!"

The sky is blue,

This is a good sign. Blue is the supreme color in the Turks and also refers to the highest god of the grassland, Tengri. The Ashina clan calls themselves Blue Turks, which means noble wolf.

Now, this noble wolf finally decided not to bow his noble head to the Tang people anymore.
They want to become free wolves on the grassland again, strong wolves.

A noble wolf will never be a slave.

Ashina was the child of Changshengtian, so how could he submit to the Tang people?

Flags are fluttering on the grassland, with proud wolves embroidered on them.

A white horse was led over.

Shabolayahu Ashina Helu reached out and stroked the forehead of the white horse, then stabbed the horse's neck with a knife. Blood spurted out, staining the white horse's hair red and Helu's robes red.

Queshijin Zhuxie Ajue of the Chuyue Zhuxie tribe also came up with a knife in hand.
He also stabbed the horse's neck with a knife.

Then there was Sadaṇasuṭhigīn of the Sātā tribe.
When I was in the secret department, I was very busy.

Luchuo from the Chumukun tribe and Quchuo from the Huluwu tribe, the old rivals, walked up to Helu and attacked him with their swords.

When the last person appeared, he attracted many eyes. This person was Duman, a special leader of the Asijie tribe.

The Asijie tribe, one of the five Nushipi tribes in the Western Wing, is also the strongest tribe among the five tribes in the Western Wing. It has two strong tribes, the Nishushijin tribe and the Queshijin tribe, with a total of more than 100,000 people.

"Welcome the Asijie brothers from the West Wing to join us in planning great things."

Helu came forward and embraced Duman.

Dumanteqin was young, tall, and had blond hair. He and Helu were old acquaintances. When Dilishi was Khan, he was incompetent in ruling, which made the Asikyi tribe very dissatisfied.
Queshijin of the Asikyi tribe and Tutun of the Shiguo tribe united together and prepared to support Yuguse as the Great Khan and Dilish as the Small Khan.

This rebellion destroyed the prestige of Shaboladi Khan, who fled to Yanqi. With the support of his subordinate Bulishe, he managed to gain a foothold in Yanqi.

Later, Tongtutun was killed by his subordinates, and only then was he able to temporarily retain the title of Khan.

Yugu set up his own Yibi Duolu Khan and built Yadihe Mountain to the west, calling himself Beiting. He also called himself Nanting with the five tribes of Dilishi, Shinu, and Bi.

But later, Dilish Khan was defeated by Duolu Khan and Tutunshilifa, who was supported by Asijiequeshiqin, and fled to Bakhchiara, where he died.

However, the other tribes in the West Wing all supported Dilishi's nephew Bobu as the new Khan of Nanting, and did not give Asijie the opportunity to dominate alone.

In fact, everyone knows Asiqie's ambition.

At the beginning, they said they wanted to support Yugusi, who came from the Eastern Turks, as the Great Khan, but in fact they just wanted to establish an outsider as a puppet. The Asikyi tribe wanted to take control of the Western Turks.

But no one expected that Dilishi would be defeated later, but Yugushe would rise quickly.

Seeing this, Asijie had no choice but to turn around and support Shabolayahu Khan Bobu.

But Bobu, like the former Duolu Khan Nishu, Shaboladishi Khan and Oshe, was very pro-Tang, which made the Asikyi tribe dissatisfied.

Now we see the Tang army marching westwards and doing whatever they want in the Western Regions, but Bobu Khan cannot even keep his title of Khan, allowing the Tang people to change it at will.
Another thing is that Wu Huaiyu directly ceded the land on the south bank of the Yizai River, which originally belonged to their Asijie tribe, to the Turgesh.

Over the years, the Asiqie tribe and the Tuqishi tribe have fought many battles for territory.
Now the Tang people issued an order requiring them to acknowledge that large tracts of land belonged to the Turgesh, which made the Asiqiye tribe even more intolerable.

Nishushijin and Queshijin, the two leaders of the Asikyi tribe, contacted Helu after a long private discussion.

When he knew that Helu was going to rebel against the Tang Dynasty,
They sent Dumanteqin, the son of Asijiequejijin, as a representative to form an alliance and swear an oath.

When Asiqie planned to support Yugushe as the Great Khan, Helu, as Yugushe's confidant, went to Asiqie tribe in Suiye for consultation. Duman accompanied him throughout the trip, and the two met and became friends.

Now, goodbye, old friend.

"We, the Asiqie tribe, support Heluyehu as the Khan of Beiting to replace that weakling Mishe. We, the Western Turkic East and West wings, the North and South courts, must unite to drive the Tang people out of the Western Regions."

When Helu heard this, he laughed out loud and was very happy.

He became much more courageous after getting the support of the Asijie tribe. Asijie was the strongest among the Ten Arrows Tribe of the Western Turkic Khaganate.

Even Asikyi is divided into two parts, each of which can be as good as the other nine arrows.

With over 100,000 cavalry under his command and their support, Helu could not help but have some ambition to become Khan. However, he was restrained, knowing that this was not the right time, and at least he had to take down the Khan Futu City, or even Gaochang, and drive away the Tang army. Then he could force Mishe to step down, and then he could be elected as the Khan by all the tribes, and then it would be legitimate.

The white horse fell down,

The delighted Helu personally took the knife, cut open the horse's belly, took out the hot horse heart, and cut it into several pieces with a knife.

The leaders of the tribes who had sworn an oath of alliance shared the food together.

Chuyue, Chumi, Chumukun, Huluwu, Asijie, and Helu,
They were numerous and powerful, with ten divisions of men gathered together.
Among them, there are three in the Ten Arrow Tribe.

He Lusheng chewed the horse heart with big mouthfuls, his mouth full of blood, but he was very excited, as if he was not chewing the horse's heart, but the heart of Wu Huaiyu, the prime minister and chief steward of the Tang Empire.

After eating the horse's heart, Helu raised his wolf-head knife high.

"How can the wings of a falcon be complete?
How can the steed's iron hoof remain undamaged?
How can an article made by a craftsman last forever?

How could the people created by Tengri not die?

But how can the noble Blue Wolf submit to the Tang people and be enslaved and oppressed by them? I, Ashina Helu, swear to drive out the Tang people."

In order to command the Turkic tribes in the Western Regions to jointly rebel against the Tang Dynasty, although Helu did not immediately declare himself the Great Khan, he still chose a majestic title for himself.

"Born by heaven and earth, placed by the sun and moon, the great Turkic virtuous emperor, Ilishabhara Khan, was born from heaven."

He did not proclaim himself the Great Khan, but rather the Lesser Khan, and promoted himself to a higher level from Shaboluo Yehu to Shaboluo Khan.

Before the name of this Khan, a series of prefixes were specially added: Born by heaven and earth, placed by the sun and moon, born from heaven as the wise and holy emperor of the Great Turkic people.

This prefix completely exposed his ambition.

Because he said he was a little khan, but in reality he followed the example of the Han people in the Central Plains and gave himself the title of Son of Heaven. Son of Heaven means the emperor.

Since you, Li Shimin, can be called Heavenly Khan, the title on the Turkic steppe is Dengli Khan or Tengri Khan, which is translated into Chinese as Heavenly Khan.

You can call yourself Dengli Khan, and I can also call myself the Great Turkic Emperor.

Mishe and Buzhen, it turns out that they are the Yehu of Beiting just like him. Why do they become the Great Khan and the Lesser Khan? Isn’t it because they knelt and licked the Tang Dynasty and Wu Huaiyu?
Helu refused to accept.

If you don't give me a title, then I will declare myself Khan. Today I am the Little Khan, but when I take over Futu City, conquer Gaochang and drive out the Tang people, Mishe will have to give up the position of Great Khan to me, and I will be the Great Khan.

The wind is clear and the clouds are light,

The sky is blue,

Helu killed a white horse to swear an oath of alliance, and the eight tribes leaders ate a horse heart together to conclude an alliance.

The eight tribes jointly elected Ashina Helu as Shaboluo Khan.

Helu also took great pains to unite the various tribes.

He promised the Chuyue Zhuxie tribe that after driving away the Tang army, he would hand over the Khan Futu City to the Chuyue Zhuxie tribe and Yiwu to the Chuyue Shatuo tribe.
Gaochang was given to the secret department.

Yaochizhou and Luntai were divided equally between the Huluwu and Chumukun tribes.

He would also support the Asijie tribe to take back the land on the south bank of the Yili River, and would support Asijie to replace Bobu as the lord of Nanting in the future.

When the success comes, Helu will naturally go to the west of Mount Dianhe to set up his headquarters.

The interests of all parties have been distributed.
All that remained was to defeat Wu Huaiyu and drive out the Tang army.

Helu was extremely ambitious. There was no reason why the eight-tribe coalition forces could not take Futu City. They were fighting at home and could not defeat the Tang army.

They are not Gaochang, with only tens of thousands of troops.

They are eight tribes, with tens of thousands of accounts in total.

Moreover, Helu had also sent people to contact other tribes, such as the Geshu tribe, the Qarluk tribe, the Gongyue tribe, and so on.

He believed that they would support him.

He even contacted Bu Zhen, hoping to join forces with him to overthrow the pseudo-Khan Mishe.

······
The sun sets and the sky darkens.

Outside the Khan Futu City in the north of Tanhan Mountain,
The oasis in the twilight has long since turned into a fierce battlefield.

The Tang army went out of the city and lined up, fighting with their backs to the city. Flags were fluttering above the battle formation, and Tang flags were also fluttering on the Futu City behind them.

The Turkic coalition army led by Helu, tens of thousands of people, came from all directions, riding on war horses and roaring like a surging tide.

The battle lasted from morning till dusk.

The oasis was littered with corpses, some human, some horse, and some seriously wounded who were not dead yet, howling and screaming in despair on the battlefield.

As far as the eye can see,
There were corpses everywhere.

The battlefield was littered with arrows, like weeds that had suddenly grown.

The strong smell of blood filled the air, attracting countless vultures and crows circling in the sky.

From morning till dusk,

The Turks launched round after round of charge.

They have light swords and fast horses, and countless sharp arrows and javelins.
But they were never able to defeat the Tang army.

The number of Tang troops was far less than theirs, but with their backs against the city walls, they took the initiative to go out of the city to fight. Cheng Yaojin and Qibi Heli both went out of the city to command and unify their armies.

The Turks could never defeat them.

It seemed that there were only a few thousand people outside the city, but they were backed by Futu City, with archers on the city providing long-range support. The infantry outside the city formed a spear formation, with archers behind them, and on both wings were the Qibi tribal cavalry of Qibi Heli.

They repelled the Turkic attacks again and again.

Turkic corpses were piled up in front of them.
The Tang army's front was like a meat grinder. No matter how many people died, it seemed that it could not be filled. There were several times when they were about to defeat the Tang army, but they used mysterious weapons.
Many smoking objects were thrown from behind the spear formation, followed by a loud noise and a flash of fire. This thunderous attack immediately frightened the Turkic cavalry who were about to break through the enemy formation, causing their mounts to run away uncontrollably.
This happened several times.

Although each unit took turns attacking up to this point, they had lost their fighting spirit and even their confidence.

Under the wolf-head banner, Helu's smile had long since disappeared from his face.

He looked over immediately, frowning.

"I didn't expect that the Tang people not only dared to come out of the city to fight, but also were so difficult to resist."

Duman Teqin was also greatly shocked. He did not expect the Tang army to be so strong. "Hold on a little longer. If it were not for those mysterious weapons, the Tang people would have collapsed long ago.
Now both sides are very tired, it depends on who can hold on to the end, whoever gives up first will lose. "

Helu gritted his teeth. Those mysterious weapons had too much power to restrain the cavalry. Another reason was that the Tang people had Futu City behind them, and their archers on the top of the city supported those outside the city, which also greatly restrained their cavalry.

"Before it gets dark and our morale is not completely lost, let's launch another fierce attack. This time, everyone should go forward. Success or failure depends on this one."

Duman looked at the Tang army outside the city, surrounded by mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and was filled with admiration.

"Move out 10,000 men, dismount and fight on foot, charge forward with shields and spears, and have the cavalry provide cover and force the attack!"

Helu had lost his confidence. "If the Tang army retreats back to the city and defends it, they have bows and crossbows, as well as weapons like that. What should we do?"

Without siege equipment, Helu no longer had the confidence to face the largest city north of Tanhan Mountain and its high city walls.

Duman took off the leather bag and gulped down a few mouthfuls of mare's milk. "We have to give it a try. Otherwise, are you willing to retreat now?"

"Once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back. There is no retreat."

(End of this chapter)