The History of China - #82 - Tang 1: The Tiger's Trap

Episode Date: November 20, 2015

The Duke of Tang had taken control of China’s primary capital at Chang’an, and is now in position to seize the throne for himself. But even that momentous shift will only mark the beginning of the struggle to reclaim imperial authority and unite China under his single banner. For there are other claimants to the throne, and powerful warlords who have their own designs for China. But it will be in the cauldron of chaos that is the North Plains of the Yellow River that the new Tang Dynasty will truly be put to the test – will it remain a mere regional player in a multi-polar struggle, or does it have what it takes to reforge the nation into its united whole?Period Covered:617-621 CEMajor Historical Figures:Tang:Li Yuan, Duke of Tang (Emperor Gaozu) [566-635CE]Prince Li ShiminSui:Emperor Yang [d. 617]Emperor Gong [r. 617-619]General Yuwen Huaji [d.]Gansu/Qin:Xue Zhu (Emperor/Warlord of Qin) [d. 618]Xue Rengao [d. 618]Zheng:General Wang Shichong (Emperor/Commandant of Luoyang) [d. 621]Xia:Dou Jiande (Prince of Xia) [d. 621]Li Mi Rebel Faction:Commander Li Mi [d. 619] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history.

Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Hey all, before we get started today, I'd just like to say thank you for listening. I know, I usually save that for the end. But today is a rather special episode for me, because it's the history of China's second anniversary. So, happy birthday to us! I rather clumsily forgot all about it until it was far too late to put out a call for listener questions to answer on air. But if you'd like to send in your questions, comments, or just pop over to say hi, we would love to hear from you. You can reach us via Facebook at our page there, via Twitter under the handle at THOCpodcast,

and as always, through our homepage, thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com. So here's celebrating being two years old and looking forward to many happy returns. It would not have been possible without all of you, so thank you very, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 82, The Tiger's Trap We left China in a pretty bad spot last time. Between famine, enormous tax burdens, and not to mention a string of failed wars so terrible that one of the battles topped the list of deadliest of all time, between 614 and 618, the Sui dynasty's chickens had come home to roost, big time. Military weakness from the disastrous Sui foreign policies had been compounded by

rebellions and betrayals from farmers and nobility alike, resulting in the very basis of Chinese government unraveling into chaos after a mere three decades of unity. And then right there at the end, Emperor Yang's own personal bodyguard had turned traitor and strangled him and the majority of his family to death in 618 at their southernmost capital at Jiangdu. In the north of China, the Duke of Tang, Li Yuan, and his family had conducted an amazingly successful campaign against Sui rule from their base of operations in the heavily fortified region called Taiyuan, and by 617 had managed to take control of Sui's primary capital, the combined cities of Daxing and Chang'an. With his hole on both the cultural and physical center point of northern China secured,

the Yuan had named Emperor Yang's grandson as a puppet successor, and from there planned his next move. Because though he had won a great victory in crushing the Sui imperial armies pitted against his own Tang armies, the fall and capture of Chang'an was only the first step toward winning the war that was threatening to once again shatter China into pieces. In fact, it wasn't just threatening to break the empire apart. It had done so, and to an extent that even the height of the period of disunion hadn't seen. Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Illinois, Howard Weschler, tells us, quote, the Tang now occupied the Sui capital, and parts of both Shanxis, but they remained only one of many regional regimes, end quote. Just how many? Try more than 200 mutually hostile parties vying for power, though it should be immediately pointed

out that of the lot of them, less than a dozen could actually claim any real prospect of actually seizing power for itself. For the hundreds of other local movements against the Sui authority, the goal wasn't something as grand and out of reach as conquering the entire empire, but something much easier for us to understand. Sheer survival. Whether that meant just physical survival or maintaining one's own social and hierarchical position within the local and regional power structures, the vast majority of the rebel groups held remarkably similar reasons for maintaining their autonomy for as long as they could. Namely, to not wind up mistakenly pledging oneself to a side that might

ultimately lose the conflict. To wind up on the wrong side of a conflict such as this, most of the officials and commanders would have very understandably assumed, would mean demotion, imprisonment, and potentially death. Whereas holding out for the best possible offer, and even more importantly, the offer from the side that seemed most likely to actually win in the long run, would result in security and perhaps even promotion. But it was a precarious tightrope to walk. Submit too soon, and you might get less of a deal than holding out for more concessions.

But wait too long, and you ran the risk of being viewed not as a noble negotiating terms, but as an opponent of the regime, and treated as such. If this all sounds very Game of Thrones-y, it certainly is. You win, or you die. Or at least, that was how it was with most of the players on this particular game board, and that was certainly how it had been over the 300-year course of the Civil War that had just finished up some 30 years prior. But what many of the regional lords holding out for the best possible deal would come to learn in the years to come was that the Tang faction and its leader, Duke Li Yuan,

was not the typical warlord with the typical cutthroat demeanor. Li Yuan's goal was to cobble the pieces of this fragmented empire back together again, and he seemed to have come to the realization very early on in his stratagems that harsh punitive policy would bring him no closer to that ultimate goal. Where many of the other warlords and self-proclaimed monarchs of the period were quick to threaten the stick, the Duke of Tang found great success in liberal application of the carrot. Commanders who freely submitted were virtually to a man pardoned and granted amnesty.

Even those commanders defeated honorably on the battlefield had a better than 50-50 chance of finding themselves essentially forgiven, and both themselves and their men simply rolled into the Tang chain of command. In Li Yuan's actions, we might even think of General Julius Caesar during the Roman Civil War of the 1st century BCE, who wrote to his advisors, quote, let this be our new method of conquering, to fortify ourselves by mercy and generosity, end quote. Now, for Caesar, that policy hadn't worked out so well in the end, as two of the men he'd personally pardoned and then promoted, namely Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, could have attested. A too, Brute? For Li Yuan, however, it would prove a far more reliable stratagem. This may have been because Li Yuan was not nearly the borderline idealist Caesar seemed to have been regarding clemency,

whereas Caesar was the type of man to have said after learning of one of his arch enemies, Cato, committing suicide rather than accept the dictator's pardon. According to Plutarch, quote, In contrast, Liuan understood well that not everyone could be forgiven, and that there were some people just not worth keeping alive to stab you in the back later. As we will come to see, the Duke of Tang held few qualms indeed towards ordering the executions of the more implacable of his foes that fell into his hands. But unlike, oh, say, Qin Shi Huang, who had been infamous for ordering the extermination of entire armies that had been against him after they had surrendered,

the Yuan would in contrast typically order the execution only of the enemy commander or commanders, and then allow the rest of the formerly enemy army to join his own. In terms of psychological impact, this policy of clemency was clearly a tremendous factor in what would be the ultimate outcome of the post-Sue interregnum. Voluntary submission would see a rebel army's commanders not just spared, but rewarded, and typically kept at the head of his own unit, just now under the banners of the Tong. Rebel and even so-called bandit leaders who had assumed de facto positions of authority over regions and forces could often expect to have those titles in pretense simply confirmed under the Tong once they had submitted. And for the rebel leaders of particular prominence or regional power, Li Wen would occasionally bestow membership into his own

Li clan, conferring at first nobility, and shortly thereafter no less than imperial authority over the Tang's burgeoning power. For the smaller bands of farmers and rebels, whose aims were little more than an end to hostilities and a preservation of their lives and livelihoods, submission to the will of the Tang promised to more than meet those necessities. The sheer military might of the Tang armies and relatively benign aura exuded by its commander and his willingness to provide a continuity of leadership at the local and regional levels would have been a great peace of mind to a populace terrified of being plunged back into a renewed era of chaos and bloodshed. From Weschler, quote, the resulting large number of voluntary surrenders to the Tang was a consequence not only of their overwhelming military power, but also of Gaozu's successful

efforts to create an image of himself as a forgiving, generous, and trusting ruler who wished only to forgive and forget in an effort to restore peace to the empire, end quote. Ah, yes, the name, Gaozu. I'm getting to that. But first, the lead-in. You'll remember from last episode that when Li Yuan had captured the capital city in late 617, he had named the child grandson of Yang of Sui as the reigning Emperor Gong of the dynasty, and Yang himself nominally promoted out of power to retired emperor, or Tai Huangdi. Well, it wasn't long at all before his lieutenant's urgings to claim the throne for himself started to sound like a pretty darn good idea indeed. When word at last reached Chang'an of Emperor Yang's betrayal and murder at the hands of his own general,

Li Yuan, now having promoted himself to Prince of Tang, knew that the time was at hand. He ordered young Emperor Gong to yield the throne to him and establish his own dynasty named, of course, Tang. And since this was where he claimed the throne in his own right, we'll here switch over to the name he'll be remembered as in history, Emperor Gaozu of Tang, meaning the High Ancestor of the Tang. The Sui dynasty was dead. Long live the Tang. Oh, if only it were that simple. The first challenge to Gaozu's claim to power would come from his own northwest, from the forces of the agrarian warlord of Gansu and self-styled emperor of Qin, Xuezhu. Of course, at this point, it's worth pointing out that everyone with an imperial title is merely self-styled, our own Gaozu included. Looking back from our position today, it's pretty easy to dismiss the

other contending rebel leaders as just that, rebellious subjects and false emperors. But in reality, at the time, sure, Gaozu occupied the capital, but his claim to legitimacy wasn't really any stronger than that of any of his other rivals. Until he could prove that he would be able to unite the empire and restore stability, in short, that the mandate of heaven had indeed been passed to him and him alone. Well, his claims to high office were just as pretentious as anyone else's. Nevertheless, I will strive to avoid throwing too many competing titles into the mix and refer to these alternate emperors we're talking about today instead either as warlords or perhaps by their alternate titles. Like the Tang army, warlord Xueqiu had held designs on capturing Chang'an as of 617, but critically had been

delayed by a splinter faction within his own ranks, aided and abetted by the Gukturk Khanate to the far north, who as we discussed last time was just having a ball playing the different Chinese factions against one another. As such, by the time Shui Ju had quelled his internal rebellion and been able to turn his attention back to the capital city, it was too late and already held by Gao Zu and his Tang faction. Nevertheless, in early 618, the forces of Qin began to advance eastward toward the capital, occupying first the city of Fufeng and thus prompting response from the Tang. Gaozong empowered his second son, Prince Li Shimin, to lead a force against the Gansu occupiers and throw them out of the city that they held. Shimin did so, and was by all accounts easily

able to expel the rebel army from Fufeng and drive them back to the Gansu borders. Curiously though, Prince Shimin then opted not to pursue the fleeing rebels further, and instead allowed them to escape and himself returned to Chang'an. Victorious, but not decisively so. This lack of follow-through on Ximing's behalf would duly come back to bite the Tang regime later that summer. By the time Emperor Gaozhu had gotten around to dispatching three more of his generals to mop up the Qin rebels, Shui Ju had gotten over a brief bout of fatalistic cowardice, re-rallied his troops, and was waiting for the next attack. In the subsequent battle, the Tang imperial army was soundly defeated,

and one of its three commanders taken captive by Shui Ju's forces. This would be followed up by an attack on Jing Prefecture, where the remaining two Tang commanders, ignoring the orders of Prince Ximin, who was himself laid out from a bout of malaria at the time and thus could not directly participate, and also underestimating the cunning of Shui Ju, wandered into an ambush set for them on the Qianshui plains of Shanxi. This surprise attack would prove devastatingly effective against the unwary Tang army, which reportedly suffered between 50 and 60% casualties in this battle alone, apparently the highest attrition rate they had suffered to this date.

Prince Ximing, still ill, was forced to withdraw the remnants of his army from the field and retreat back to Chang'an. His bungling lieutenants found themselves swiftly out of a job. Warlord Xue Zhu prepared to follow up his stunning victory at Qianxue by marching on the capital itself and laying it to siege. An ironic ending to the newly enthroned Emperor Gaozu indeed. But his victory in the field and grand plans were not to last. On the march to Chang'an, Xue Zhu himself took ill and died in the 8th month of 618, draining his Qin army of its morale almost entirely. With Warlord Xue's death, his son took over command of the Qin army, but quickly realized that just about the only thing he could command this army to do anymore was to retreat back to the northwest and try to consolidate his own position.

However, on the Qin army's heels was the by now fully recovered Prince Ximing, under whose command the Tang army caught up with the Qin along the borders of Gansu at a place called Qingzhou in the 11th month of that year. Though the Qin position was fortified, thus presenting the Tang army from taking it outright, they were able to cut off their supply routes and essentially lay the rebel army camped to siege. And it's in this siege that we first really see the insidious effectiveness of the Tang's policy towards enemy armies at work. As the Qin army's supply caches ran empty, and hunger, thirst, and the creeping cold of oncoming winter must have really begun to take hold, the Tang emperor's standing offer of mass clemency in return for submission began to look

better and better. Morning by morning, the Qin forces would wake up to find that another officer, or several, had defected in the night, more often than not taking their entire contingents of troops along with them, on the promise of not only their lives, but that they'd maintain their positions and commands under the Tang government. Thus, as the Qin army continued to starve, freeze, and shrink day by day, the waiting Tang forces only swelled, and even worse, with their own former brothers-in-arms. Try to imagine keeping a positive outlook about your chances in that particular situation, and all the more so because it didn't have to go on like this. You could follow the defectors in turn, giving up this struggle and not only save your life but probably get a

hot meal to boot. In relatively short order then, Xue Rengao found his Qin army a skeleton of its former self, and with the vast majority of both its officer corps as well as the infantry having stolen away under the cover of darkness to defect to the Tang. With nothing else he could do, he was forced to himself surrender to the prince Ximing, and was subsequently sent to Chang'an and ultimately executed. The state of Qin was annexed and incorporated into the emergent Tang state in late 618, and in 619, the subsequent capture of the last major rebel leader in the far west ensured that the entirety of Gansu was firmly under Tang dynasty control. Well, that was certainly one roadblock removed, but far from the only one. Professor Weschler

tells us that though the first military challenge to the Tang regime had come from Gansu to the west, quote, it was the military situation on the northeastern plain in the Hebei and Henan regions which was ultimately to decide whether the Tang would remain a regional regime or whether they would succeed in uniting the country under its control, end quote. The capital region was, of course, symbolically and militarily important to the empire. But in terms of population, the Shanxi and Gansu regions, the Tang yet controlled in 619, comprised less than a quarter of the overall Chinese population. On the other hand, the area of Hebei and Henan, or as we've referred to them previously,

the North China Plains, were some of the most productive and populated in all of China, all by themselves. Even today, Hebei is the region surrounding both Beijing and Tianjin, and rivals both Shanghai and Guangdong in terms of sheer population and industrial output. In the early 7th century, though, the need for control of the North China Plains was even more pronounced. It housed and sustained well over half of the entire Chinese population. More than that, it was this northern region along the Yellow River that contained the majority of the Sui dynasty's massive grain silos, as well as many of the juncture points for the Grand Canal. And it simply cannot be overstated how pivotal control over the North China Plains

and the Beijing-Tianjin regions was for the prospect of Tang reunification. And yet here, Gaozu and his armies would face some of their most intractable foes in the way of this goal. Most notably, they included the Sui general, Wang Sichong, who was commandant of the defiant secondary capital, Luoyang, and who had declared a member of the Sui imperial clan the new emperor and himself the dynasty's regent, then the anti-Sui separatist warlord Li Mi, then Dou Jiangde, an agrarian rebel leader and self-styled prince of Xia, and finally the traitorous regicide and now regent lord of his own Sui emperor, the man who had strangled to death Emperor Yang not a year prior, Yuwen Huaji.

But boy oh boy, that is a lot of names to throw at you. So for ease of operation, let's just call them Commandant Wang, Warlord Li, the abandoned Prince of Xia, and the regicide general, Yuwen. Prior to Emperor Gaozu turning his gaze to the North China Plains, Commandant Wang had been holed up behind his walls of Luoyang, fending off a siege by Warlord Li's forces. Though Li's army had failed to breach Luoyang's formidable defenses, they remained nearby to plunder and pillage the countryside at their leisure, awaiting any weakness that might let them storm the city. At this point, who should arrive from having recently murdered his Li's lord and absconded

from the southern capital with the imperial bodyguard? Why, none other than the regicide general Yu Wan, of course, with his own imperial pretender in tow and headed straight for Warlord Li's headquarters in northern Henan at Liang City. When Kaminat Wang's intelligence officers informed him of this development, he saw a way to potentially kill two birds with one stone. Weschler takes up the tale, quote, Wang Xichong devised a scheme which would simultaneously weaken both Li Mi and Yuan Huaji, and so enable him to destroy them. The Luoyang administration of Wang offered to pardon Li Mi in return for his cooperation

in opposing Emperor Yang's assassination. Li Mi had to protect his base at Liang, and moreover, he believed that he could turn this detente into good advantage and eventually remove Commandant Wang, thus gaining control of Luoyang and the whole North China Plain. So, Warlord Li accepted Commandant Wang's offer of alliance, all the while thinking that he could use it to eventually kill off Wang and take his territories for himself. But in the meantime, one of the conditions of this alliance was that Li turn his armies and engage the regicide general, whom both could agree was just the worst and needed to be taken care of post-haste. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such.

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one recommended by universities and loved by enthusiasts, then check out Grey History, The French Revolution today. Or simply search for The French Revolution. Lee therefore led his armies against General Yuan, and in a string of victories, forced him off his warpath against Luoyang and retreating to Damingfu. But the warlord Li Mi's repeated successes had come with a steep price, at least as far as Commandant Wang was concerned. Li's victories on the field had enhanced his power within the court at Luoyang,

even to the point where Li Mi had eventually been able to essentially elbow his way into high office on sheer force of will alone, eventually being granted the honorary title of Supreme Commander of the Sui's armed forces. Just take that in for a moment. An ally of pure necessity, who immediately prior to this situation had been actively besieging the city and pillaging the towns around it, had all of a sudden found himself a member of the government's own inner circle. Well, Commandant Wang was having none of this weaseling, and useful

idiot or not, Li Mi was too close for comfort. Wang was said to have darkly asked, quote, why are they giving offices and titles to a lowly bandit? End quote. As such, in the seventh month of 618, Wang alleged that there had been reports of a plot uncovered against him and his imperial charge. And on that rather thin pretext, he commenced with a brutal countercoup against the whole of his perceived political enemies. He incited the Sui troops at Luoyang, claiming that should the warlord Li succeed in actually gaining command over them and the city, that he would surely slaughter the lot of them for having dared to oppose him before. True or not, the ruse worked, and the Sui troops carried out his orders to purge Luoyang of Li Mi's influence.

Those within his grasp, he liquidated, and as for the warlord himself, yet beyond the wall and beyond Wang's direct justice, he ordered the city gates sealed and under no circumstances to allow the rebel commander entrance. It had all gone almost exactly as Commandant Wang had hoped. Yes, Li Mi had gained fame and prestige with his victories against the regicide general, but critically, he had won such victories with the blood of his own followers, and paid dearly for it. With his own force's strength critically weakened as a result of the extended campaigning, and now declared effectively persona non grata in the court at Luoyang, that's when the other boot dropped on Li Mi's head. While Li had been off fighting and winning glory, Wang had been carefully holding back his forces

behind the walls of Luoyang, building up his reserves and keeping his men well-fed and armed, waiting for just this moment. Now, with Li's army critically weakened, Commandant Wang at last launched his force from Luoyang against his erstwhile ally. And Wang was not one to simply rely on a greater relative strength, either. He was all about the psychological warfare. It had been noted that among his troops, there was a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Li Mi himself. And so, he ordered the doppelganger, bound in ropes and trussed up. Then, at the height

of the fighting against Li's battle-fatigued troops, he had the lookalike brought out and displayed before the waning rebel army. A sly move if ever there was one. The ruse worked like a charm, and whatever was still left of Li-Mi's army's fighting spirit was shattered, driving the whole mass of them into a rout. Now utterly broken, the actual Li Mi had no other recourse. Obviously, he, like everyone else, had heard of the generous terms offered by the Tang Emperor Gao Zu in Chang'an, and so with the remnants of his once-mighty army, he fled to the capital and prostrated himself before Gao Zu, throwing himself upon the mercy of the imperial court. In typical form, Gaozu accepted the voluntary surrender to his

will, spared Li Mi, and rolled his army into the Tang zone. Back in Luoyang, though, Commandant Wang was feeling, well, pretty much on top of the world. By his cunning in battle prowess, he had won the day and driven off both the forces already against him, and all across the region, the formerly independent militant factions had almost 201 submitted to his authority over them. That was certainly call for a celebration. And how better to celebrate than by deposing your puppet emperor and declaring yourself ruler instead? So that's exactly what Wang did in the early spring of 619, casting off the juvenile Sui figurehead and declaring his own dynasty at Luoyang, called the Zheng.

But that initial rush of victory wouldn't last long, because the Tang army had begun to swing its attention eastward to Luoyang and this so-called Zheng threat. Fresh off a string of great victories securing the remaining territories of Shanxi, Prince Ximing began to advance on the secondary capital region in August of 620 at the head of a 50,000-man army. His force was able to make rapid headway, and reportedly, by the following month, the Tang army had begun to construct a series of fortified encampments in a ring encircling Luoyang itself, apparently with minimal resistance from the now-Emperor Wang of Zheng.

Prince Ximing had sent further detachments of his army off to the north, south, and east to seize control of the lands Zheng claimed but at this point could not hold. The local commanders of the majority of these regions would see which way the wind was blowing and rapidly defected to the Tang, resulting in the flip of the majority of central Henan. From one of the nearby monasteries, Prince Xiamen was also able to procure the aid of a contingent of Shaolin monks, who managed to single-handedly defeat a contingent of Zheng troops at Mount Huanyuan and take Emperor Wang's nephew prisoner. By now isolated within Luoyang and cut off from

whatever help might still lie outside the Tang noose pulling tighter around his neck, Wang began to grow desperate. Time and again, he ordered his forces to attempt to break out of Luoyang and through the Tang army's blockade, but to no avail, and each time he was turned back and forced within the confines of the walled city, which surely by this point must have begun to feel more like the walls of a prison cell rather than that of a fortification. Unable to re-establish supply lines into the city, the situation in Luoyang grew even more grim as winter approached and the populace's supplies dwindled. According to David A. Graff in his book Medieval Chinese Warfare 300-900, by the following March,

the people of Luoyang had been reduced to sifting through piles of dirt to find any traces of rice, and would then mix those bits with mud to form a semi-edible cake. Yuck. Wang's last real hope was the message carried by an envoy who had managed to slip past the Tang siege lines and make his way to Doujian De, a former ally and vassal of the Sui dynasty at Luoyang, and notably, the eventual executioner of the defeated regicide general, Yuan Huiji. He had been a backer of Commandant Wang's regency in Luoyang, but had cut off relations with Wang following the latter's overthrow and usurpation of the throne, which Dou found distasteful.

Dou had subsequently declared himself the independent Prince of Xia and held power over the majority of the Hebei region north of the Yellow River. Dou and Wang had, needless to say, not exactly been on speaking terms since the Prince of Xia had cut off diplomatic relations with Luoyang in disgust, but when informed of the Tang army's siege of the capital, even he could see the future ramifications of a Tang victory over the Zheng state and its capture of Luoyang. They wouldn't stop there. Of course they wouldn't. And the next likely target without Zheng to serve as a buffer would be, well, him. Thus, the Prince of Xia, like it or not, was forced to agree to send his armies in aid of Luoyang and of Emperor Wang. But there was, of course, an ulterior motive at work. Sure, he would agree

to come assist Wang Shichong, but if he proved to be able to fight off the Tang encirclement of the city, well, then there would be little Wang could do to stop the Prince of Xia from rolling in and ousting him entirely. The Prince of Xia had every reason to expect victory as well. He knew at least a rough idea of the numbers of troops the Tang armies had been able to send against Luoyang, again some 50,000, and so dispatched a force roughly twice that size, more than 100,000 men, and some earlier sources further ballooned the figure to more than 120,000. This massive force was to march south to, oh, let's call it liberate Luoyang and the Henan region from the Tang and the Zheng, both. Now this force discrepancy

does actually seem believable, because again, the Hebei region was probably the single most densely populated area of the empire at the time. By land and by canal, the forces of Xia descended upon Luoyang. When news of this massive enemy force moving against them reached the command tent of the Tang siege, several of Prince Ximing's top generals noted the sheer size differential of the Xia army versus their own, and thus advised their prince to abandon his siege of Luoyang and retreat to a more defensible position at Guangzhong, to the west. But Prince Ximian had a different idea. Ordering the bulk of his army to stay outside of Luoyang and maintain their siege operations against the city, he ordered a portion of the Tang force to break off and march some 60 miles due east to occupy a place called Hulao Pass. So let's take a moment to set the stage here. The name

of the pass, Hulao, we could translate directly as the tiger's cage or the tiger's trap, and it is an apt name. It's a narrow east-to-west ravine carved out of the mountainous terrains of the Yishui River, a tributary of the Yellow River to the north, and with Mount Song looming to the south. It is steep, narrow, and lined with escarpments on both sides of the Sishui, marking it for hundreds of years as the major defensible point to guard Luoyang from an eastern approach. David A. Graff suggests it might in some respects be compared to the Thermopylae Pass of ancient Greek and Zack Snyder movie fame. And make no mistake, Prince Shemin was planning to pull a 300, with him playing the part of Leonidas. He arrived with his detachment of troops, perhaps some 10,000 to 20,000 of them, on April 22nd, and began to make ready the pass for the

Prince of Shah's own arrival. When the Prince of Xia duly arrived with his 100,000 men at Hulao sometime later, he was dismayed at what he found. The canyon had been thoroughly fortified with walls, and the western heights near bursting with encamped Tang defenders. This was no good. No good at all. So, the Prince of Xia opted to try to lure the Tang forces some ten miles away, from their fortified pass to a plain called Banju, where day after day he would march back to Hulao and offer battle with the Tang forces. But they would have none of it. I mean, for one, that would just be tactically stupid. The Tang detachment would give up every advantage by marching away from the pass itself. Besides, every day they

delayed the Xia relief force was a day closer to the defenders within Luoyang city, finally reaching their breaking point and either starving or surrendering. And when that happened, Prince Jiamin would have the rest of his army freed up to launch against the already stymied Xia force. His best option was to simply wait it out, regardless of what taunts the Xia might throw at him. The Xia army's only other option would be to either try a much smaller mountain pass, of which there were several, but that was no good because they were all equally defensible for the Tang, and any smaller pass would further stretch out their forces in crossing it, rendering them even more vulnerable. On the other hand, he might try to cross the Yellow River to the north, and move around the troublesome mountain pass that way before recrossing it on the other side,

or indeed just forget about Luoyang entirely and try to weaken the Tang holdings in Henan by striking at its valuable heartland in Shanxi. Prince Xia's generals, however, strongly objected to such a plan, saying that they must relieve Luoyang at once, and therefore avoiding Ximing's army was just out of the question. It's unknown why they so strenuously objected to a plan that, at least on the surface, seems to have some merit. Some historians think that one or more of them may have been bribed by Emperor Wang within Luoyang to ensure that their army didn't, you know, lose focus in terms of their mission to rescue him, but it's not really known. There's also the extremely important,

but often under-considered factor of supply chains to consider. Keep in mind that the Xia army was tied to the Yellow River's canal network to keep it supplied and fed so far from home, and a strike into Shanxi would cripple that pivotal link. Whatever the reason might have been, the Prince of Xia assented to his general's urgings and committed his army to uprooting the Tang defenders from Hulao Pass and breaking through to Luoyang itself, no matter the cost. Thus the standoff, such as it were, would endure for a further month. The Xia army probing without success for weaknesses in the Tang line, and the Tang defenders patiently waiting for Luoyang City to just give up the ghost already.

But at last, in mid-May of 621, one of the commander's patients broke, and it was Prince Shemin. He at last ordered his troops to force a confrontation with the opposing Xia's armies, but it was to be on his own terms. It's not exactly certain why he would have done this, but historian David Graff posits, It is possible that he believed the morale of Do's troops had deteriorated, and it's very likely that he did not wish to allow the exposed Xia army to withdraw to the safety in Hebei after Luoyang had fallen. If he could break the Xia army here and now, it would be a major stroke for the Tang dynasty. Not only would they capture Luoyang, but they would have simultaneously broken the back of Xia

and left it easy pickings for a follow-up conquest. Prince Ximing therefore positioned his troops to make it appear as if the majority had abandoned their prepared positions within Hulao Pass, and only a small contingent yet remained, and then sent his squadron of cavalrymen to raid the Xia supply lines in their rear. The Prince of Xia swallowed the ruse, hook, line, and sinker, and immediately ordered his army to assault the Tang position in the early morning hours of May 28th. The Xia force arrayed itself along the eastern bank of the Sichui River and awaited the deployment of the Tang.

But the Tang did not show. As per their commander's orders, they remained hidden in their fortifications and waited for the Xia troops to tire themselves out and grow impatient and disheartened, and only then, quote, to rush out and fall upon the demoralized and disorganized enemy. This, according to Graf, conformed to the usual battle strategy of Prince Shemin, which had already proved fantastically successful against two other enemy commanders. And it was this, to allow his enemies to advance against his position, thus stretching out their supply lines, while avoiding direct confrontation, but to continue to raid those same strained supply lines, and then wait for signs of enemy weakness or retreat. When he found those, he would launch his all-out attack aimed at totally

crushing the foundering enemy in a single stroke, and then riding down the resultant route with a relentless cavalry pursuit. In this, his third major employment of the strategy, it once again proved massively successful. The two armies, having faced off since the early morning hours, maintained their standoff until around noon. As the Maysun bore down upon the Xia forces in battle formation, the heat and thirst began to take hold. Prince Shimin, from up on his vantage point within the Hulao Pass, took note of these signs of weariness and fatigue, and decided to test his enemy's resolve. Sending out a contingent of 300 horsemen to launch a probing attack, Prince Shimin watched as this relatively small force caused the Xia line to recoil rather than stand their ground.

Assured then that the Xia needed but a push to turn their lines into a disorganized retreat, Shimin dispatched a far larger cavalry force with the goal of turning the Xia's southern flank. The Prince of Xia, himself as thirsty, hot, and on edge as the rest of his men, reacted to this follow-up attack by ordering the withdrawal of his entire army to the far more defensible position along the eastern rise of the gorge. But as is ever the danger of any battlefield withdrawal or retreat tactic, what begins as an organized orderly retreat can all too easily become a panicked rout. Confusion washed over the Xia battle lines, causing a breakdown in their formations as they moved backwards, exactly the opening Prince Shemin had been betting on and anticipating. As the confusion and chaos broke down the cohesiveness of the Xia's

lines, Shemin led the spear tip that would penetrate its heart. His own elite force of 1,000 jet-black armored heavy cavalry. Already thrown into confused retreat and pinned on both flanks by the probing attacks, the Xia force was unable to turn to meet this central strike with any effective force. And in spite of their far superior numbers, the Xia soldiers' retreat instantly devolved into terror and massacre as the prince's personal lancers smashed into their center and planted the Tang banners in full view of both armies. If you'd like a visual, think perhaps of that famous photo from World War II of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima. Yes, of course that was stage-managed and

a total photo-op, but the visual itself is what I picture. Raising up the Tang banners in the midst of intense combat, right in the heart of what should have been the Xia's deepest defenses. Absolutely disheartening if you're an already tired, wavering soldier of the Xia, and a complete pick-me-up if you're one of the Tang's troops. We've pierced the enemy heart. Now, let's finish this. Whatever remained of the Xia's forces' martial discipline broke down when the Tang banners were raised over them at Hulao. Their lines completely collapsed, and the whole of the

army broke and fled as the Tang cavalry pursued them relentlessly. At the end of the day, some 3,000 lay dead in the ravine at Hulao, while a staggering 50,000 Xia soldiers would be taken prisoner in the resultant rout, including the Prince of Xia, Dou Jiangde himself, who had been wounded and taken captive while attempting to make his way back to the far side of the Yellow River. He would be brought in chains to the walls of Luoyang and presented to the defenders within, an undeniable proof that there was no help coming to rescue them and no point in further resistance. Emperor Wang Shichong of Zheng was forced to admit defeat and

open his gates in surrender to the victorious Tang army, who took him and Luoyang into their custody shortly thereafter. Just as Prince Ximing hoped, in a single stroke, he had won for his imperial father not just Luoyang, but the whole of Henan and Hebei, and with its population, fertile farmlands, and critical canal infrastructures that would prove vital towards political reunification of the Chinese empire under the Tang Dynasty yet to come. As for the vanquished, it was not a pretty tale. While the vast majority of the captured combatants almost definitely were given the same treatment as the others in their position, namely that they were simply rolled into the existing Tang military structure and maintained their service simply under a new banner,

the same leniency would not be shown by Emperor Gaozu to the two captured enemy commanders. They were simply too dangerous. Both had not only flaunted his authority, but had had the gall to declare themselves imperial royalty in their own right, a slight against his imperium, Gao Zu, could not tolerate. The Prince of Xia was executed within Chang'an, while the pretender emperor, Wang Shichong, in what was perhaps a show of formality towards his somewhat nominally equal rank, was merely banished from the realm.

However, in typical form of such retirements, Wang met his end while in transit to his place of exile. Emperor Gaozu and his Tang dynasty have gone from regional player to the definitive heavyweight of the struggle to reunite China in the post-Sui world. From his fortified and defensible position in Shanxi, the emperor of Tang was, with the deft military command of his second son, Prince Xie Min, able to seize not only the primary capital of Chang'an, but now the secondary capital of Luoyang and the veritable breadbasket of China, the Northern Yellow River Plains of Hebei and Henan, and in doing so, eliminate the most tenacious of his rivals to power. Here we will leave the reconquest of China today. But next time, we will have Gaozu finish the mopping up process of bringing the remainder of the Middle Kingdom to heel, and then take a look at his own domestic policies

and their ramifications on the political order that he was building as we speak. Thank you for listening. of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.