Early Tang Dynasty: forge ahead

Chapter 542: Unstable Military Morale
The cold wind was howling. Winter came early in the Western Regions. It was only October, but frost and snow had already formed on the ground.

It was warm as spring inside the Arab tent, with a huge fire burning in the middle of the oversized tent.

The Caliph Muawiyah of the White Caliphate was chatting happily with his chief adviser Amr ibn al-As and his favorite eldest son Yazid.

The atmosphere is cheerful.

Muawiyah said: "The Tang Kingdom is indeed powerful. If we had not met the help of the true God, it would be difficult to find an enemy in this world."

Muawiyah's words were echoed by the generals of the surrounding Arab Empire.

Since the development and growth of the four caliphs, the Arab Empire has had almost no rivals in the Mediterranean region, and its expansion has spanned Asia, Europe and Africa.

The generals of the Arab Empire were rarely rivaled and they defeated Persia and Byzantium, forcing them to flee in panic.

To the extent that, in the Tang Dynasty, the generals of the Arab Empire also developed an arrogant character, with the mentality that they were the best in the world and everyone else was just a loser.

But this time they shifted their strategic focus eastward, and fought several rounds of battles with the Tang army in the Western Regions, only then did they realize that they had really underestimated the heroes of the world.

They had been confronting the Tang army for nearly two years, and the two sides had fought no less than a hundred battles, large and small.

Although there are wins and losses on each side, the battle line cannot deceive people.

In this battle, they were the one that took the initiative to attack, advancing together with Tubo.

With the advantage of being the first to move, they successfully defeated the first wave of defense of Kangju and Tocharistan, occupied the capital of Kangju, and got off to a good start.

Although Pei Xingjian, the commander of the Tang army's Western Regions Protectorate, responded quickly, he could only passively defend due to the disparity in strength.

However, with the arrival of Tang general Li Ji, hundreds of thousands of Tang troops were deployed across the vast land of the Western Regions. Both sides paid a heavy price from mutual probing to in-depth fighting.

It is too early to talk about victory or defeat now.

However, the Arab Empire had already invaded the Western Regions and even occupied the capital of Kangju. But now it was forced to give up and retreat to the west bank of the Yaosha River, pushing the battle line back to the border between the two sides.

Muawiyah was very upset about this, but there was nothing he could do.

After two years of confrontation, the strength of both sides has been relatively understood by the superiors like them...

The troops directly under the Tang Army were extremely powerful. With the same number of people, the Imperial Guards of the Arab Empire were no match. However, their number of soldiers far exceeded that of the Tang Army, so they could make up for the lack of strength with their numbers.

The real gap lies in the grassland coalition...

The composition of the Tang army can be roughly divided into three types: the government troops of Guanlong and Liangzhou, the vassal troops of the grassland tribes, and the coalition forces of the Western Regions. Among them, the vassal troops of the grassland tribes have the largest base, including the Tiele, Uighur, Karluk, Basmil, Turk, Tuyuhun and other grassland tribes.

The army of the Arab Empire can be divided into three types: one is based on the army composed of Arab tribes, the other is the guards who recruit soldiers from various ethnic groups, undergo rigorous training, and receive military pay, one is the private army of the governors who are in charge of military and political affairs in various places, and the last is the believers who believe in the Arab law. Among them, the believers have the largest number...

The two sides had 300,000 to 400,000 soldiers and horses distributed in various important locations in the Western Regions, attacking each other.

The royal guards of the Arab Empire and the private soldiers of the governors of various places were able to compete with the Tang army's soldiers and the coalition forces of various countries in the Western Regions with their numbers and fearlessness of death.

However, the strength between the believers' army and the grassland coalition army was extremely unequal.

Although the grassland tribes were easily conquered by the Tang Dynasty, they were extremely strong in terms of combat power. Especially since they had been fighting with the Central Plains for a hundred years, they had learned and evolved themselves, and had grown very fast. That was because they were suppressed by the Chinese. If they really lost the constraints of the Han dynasty, once they integrated themselves, their strength would be extremely terrifying.

It was difficult for the Arabs to gain an advantage against the steppe tribes who moved like the wind and were skilled in riding and shooting. It just so happened that the steppe coalition army and the Arabs' army were each other's main components.

Li Ji was an experienced military commander and would naturally not miss this opportunity. He constantly made use of the mobility of the grassland tribes to launch roundabout and rapid attacks in the sparsely populated Western Regions, avoiding the powerful guards of the Arab Empire and the private soldiers of local governors, and attacked the untrained army of believers, and succeeded repeatedly.

After many unsuccessful attempts to respond, Muawiyah finally chose to retreat to the west bank of the Yaosha River and use the Yaosha River to confront the Tang army.

The Yaksha River originates from the Tianshan Mountains, flows through the Turan lowlands and flows into the Aral Sea.

The northern end of the Yaosha River is the Aral Sea, which is extremely vast, and the southern end is the Tianshan Mountains, which are endless. The Yaosha River itself is turbulent and the water level is extremely deep, making it difficult to cross, and the grassland tribes cannot make a detour to cross... Relying on the geographical advantage, it makes up for its own shortcomings.

This method indeed achieved miraculous results. The grassland tribes lost their mobility and the threat was reduced by more than half.

However, the Arab Empire also gave up the land and cities of Kangju that it had conquered, especially the rich Samarkand...

This made Muawiyah very angry. There was no doubt that the Arab Empire had lost the battle so far.

Until the spies hiding in Chang'an brought the news of Li Zhi's death...

This is a battle that concerns the destiny of the two major countries in the East and the West, so naturally no means will be taken into consideration.

With such a sudden change in the Tang court, the cunning Amur immediately smelled an opportunity: he began to send people to lobby and bribe the various tribes on the grassland, taking advantage of the major political event of the death of the Tang emperor and the ascension of the new emperor to the throne, with remarkable results.

Not to mention the turmoil among the tribes on the grassland, even the Tang army was shaken.

After all, Li Zhi's attitude was clear. He was a heroic ruler who expanded the territory, and Li Hong was famous for his benevolence and filial piety. Moreover, most of the ministers in the Prince's Palace advocated putting weapons into storage and focusing on people's livelihood.

In particular, Zhang Wenguan, in order to suppress the military, even suppressed the news of Su Dingfang's death.

Su Dingfang fought in many battles in the north and south. The most glorious time of his life was when he led the soldiers from Lianglong to dominate the Western Regions and was invincible.

In Lianglong and the Western Regions, Su Dingfang was known to everyone, and the treatment he received made the officers and soldiers in the three places feel wronged.

Now that the heroic ruler Li Zhi has passed away and the benevolent and filial Li Hong has ascended the throne, how will they view this war in the Western Regions?

Even Li Ji was unsure, let alone the other generals.

With such a major event happening, it is impossible not to shake the morale of the army.

Fortunately, the commander-in-chief was Li Ji, who had enough prestige to calm the situation, and Chen Qingsi also sent many capable civil and military officials to the Western Regions, which stabilized the situation.

However, Li Ji's prestige was not enough to influence the grassland tribes. Faced with the turmoil within the Tang court and the lobbying and bribery of the Arab Empire, some of them had already wavered.

The balance of victory originally tilted towards the Tang army, but now because of this unpredictable major political change, it began to tilt towards the Arab Empire.

The Arab Empire was founded on religion, so naturally it attributed all of this to the guidance of the true God.

"When the ice and snow melt, we will crush the pagans under the guidance of Allah!"

Muawiyah's simple slogan caused a huge response.

(End of this chapter)