[Lightscreen]
[After the fall of the Kingdom of Yanqi, the situation surrounding the Great Tang grew even more complicated.
Starting from the year 644, the eighteenth year of the Zhenguan era—
The first tremor came from the Korean Peninsula.
In Goguryeo, the powerful minister Yeon Gaesomun murdered his king, installed his own nephew on the throne, seized control of state affairs, and then conspired with Baekje to carve up Silla.
With nowhere else to turn, Silla sent an urgent plea for help to "Big Brother Tang."
Li Shimin dispatched envoys to mediate.
Goguryeo didn't give him any face at all.
So Tang Taizong made up his mind—
He would personally lead an expedition against Goguryeo.
In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, from the second lunar month to the ninth, Tang armies advanced and then withdrew.
Two thousand Tang soldiers were killed in battle.
Seventy thousand enemy troops were captured.
More than ten cities fell in succession.
Enormous quantities of supplies were seized.
And yet—
Goguryeo was not destroyed.
That same year, to the north, Xueyantuo apparently thought that "Big Brother Tang" was busy beating Goguryeo senseless and wouldn't have time to deal with them.
So they boldly attacked Xia Prefecture.
The result?
They were crushed by Tang defenders.
Their khagan was killed on the battlefield.
The entire confederation plunged into internal chaos.
Freshly withdrawn from the Liaodong front, Li Shimin looked north and decided that Xueyantuo no longer had any reason to exist.
A decree was issued—
Destroy the state.
The Tang armies that had just campaigned against Goguryeo didn't even bother going home. They turned westward, smashed Xueyantuo in open battle, and forced them to flee deep into the northern steppes.
But the nation was not yet annihilated.
Which meant—
The war could not end.
In the sixth month of the twentieth year of Zhenguan, Li Ji rode north of the desert with only two hundred cavalry.
He recruited elite warriors from the Nine Surnames of the Tiele, incorporated them as auxiliary troops, and delivered Xueyantuo a final ultimatum:
Surrender—or die.
Of Xueyantuo's remaining two major chieftains, one submitted.
The other fled.
Li Ji was furious.
He led the auxiliary troops in pursuit.
That July, Li Ji beheaded five thousand enemies and captured thirty thousand more.
The Xueyantuo Khaganate collapsed.
At the very moment Tang forces were fighting in Liaodong and beyond the desert—
Trouble flared again in Western Turkestan.
The good news was that the khagan Tang had installed there was extremely capable in battle.
The bad news?
He was too capable.
While Tang was destroying Xueyantuo, the Tang-backed Western Turkic khagan also defeated all rivals, ended twenty years of internal strife, and ascended as the new Great Khagan.
The son had grown up.
And no longer wanted to call himself "son."
That was the reality of Western Turkestan.
Still, seeing Tang wipe out yet another state, the Great Khagan paused to think.
Then he sent envoys to Chang'an, proposing a marriage alliance.
Exchanging princesses for peace was nothing new in any dynasty.
But Li Shimin, as usual, did things his own way.
provided that Qiuci, Khotan, Kashgar, Zhuju Po, and the Pamirs, five states in total, be ceded as the bride price."
Five entire states in exchange for a Tang princess.
The Western Turkic Great Khagan exploded in rage.
Diplomatic relations officially collapsed.
But from Tang Taizong's perspective, this demand was not meant as humiliation.
His thinking was very simple:
If Western Turkestan could not be completely driven out of the Western Regions, then the Great Tang would never sleep in peace.
Negotiations failed.
Which meant—
This issue was destined to be settled the hard way.]
Hou Junji sat in his chair, watching the winds of the Great Tang rise and churn.
His heart filled with longing.
How wonderful.
Battles in Liaodong.
The destruction of nations in the north.
No concessions in the Western Regions.
Everywhere in the Great Tang was a stage for real men to achieve merit and glory—
But…
History no longer had anything to do with a dead man.
Why, back then, when attacking Gaochang…
Why couldn't I control that hand of mine?
Hou Junji sank deeper into loss and self-reproach.
By contrast, Li Shiji looked radiant.
Campaigning against Goguryeo alongside His Majesty.
Destroying Xueyantuo with two hundred cavalry.
It might not rival General Li Jing's legendary feats—
But it was nothing to be ashamed of.
Even Su Lie, whose eyes brimmed with envy, suddenly looked far more agreeable to Li Shiji.
"Maogong truly is a general of rare talent!"
Li Jing spoke first, praising him:
"Two hundred cavalry to destroy a nation—
even across the annals of history, such a feat is seldom seen!"
Li Shiji instead grew modest.
"Without the lingering might of Duke Wei annihilation of Illig Qaghan,
without His Majesty's overwhelming imperial authority,
how could the Nine Surnames of the Tiele have submitted so readily?"
"This destruction of a state was not my merit,
but the merit of the Great Tang."
As he spoke, Li Shiji glanced sideways at Su Lie.
"The general's martial virtue shall be passed down through the ages—
a true model for all of us."
Su Lie offered a stiff compliment in response.
Li Shimin, however, furrowed his brow.
None of the four directions gave him any peace of mind.
"So Xueyantuo, too, was blind to the consequences?"
Their khagan Yinan had witnessed with his own eyes how Eastern Turkestan was destroyed—
And yet he still dared harbor rebellious ambitions?
"The problem likely lies with the Turkic tribes that were allowed to return to their homeland,"
Zhangsun Wuji said, suppressing a flash of excitement.
As expected… I have been reinstated.
But now was not the time for personal joy.
He needed to share His Majesty's burdens.
"Your Majesty ordered those Turkic tribes to return to their ancestral lands,
intended to enthrone their khagan,
and instructed Xueyantuo to withdraw and recuperate."
"As for Xueyantuo—"
Before he could finish, Li Shimin nodded.
Even if Xueyantuo agreed to withdraw, resentment among its people was inevitable.
In time—
"An awkward mess, indeed."
Li Shimin sighed softly.
The evaluation was painfully accurate.
His handling of the Turkic peoples—
Had been awkward.
Still, the northern frontier was firmly under control.
After Illig's destruction, what remained was nothing but scattered sand.
Turning his gaze back to the Western Regions, Li Shimin sighed again.
"Why is it that the Western Turkic Great Khagan simply refuses to become my son-in-law?"
His Majesty's expression was utterly sincere.
The ministers, however, laughed without restraint.
"If the Western Turkic Great Khagan agreed to such terms,"
Du Ruhui shook his head, thinking that later generations were absolutely right—
His Majesty had never intended to negotiate sincerely.
"He would first be torn apart by his own major tribes."
"Five states' worth of territory—nearly half of Western Turkestan—
to cede half the nation just to marry a Tang princess…"
Fang Xuanling continued,
"I fear that before the Tang princess even arrives,
the Great Khagan's head would already be missing from his shoulders."
The ministers of Ganlu Hall were well acquainted with nomadic customs.
When chaos erupted, changing khagans was faster than changing clothes.
If every tribe benefited, you were the supreme Great Khagan.
But if you tried to give away half the land to marry a woman?
Then don't blame the Ten Surnames for rising overnight to "execute the traitor."
Qin Qiong muttered,
"His Majesty is not wrong.
With barbarians, nothing works better than beating them into submission."
Li Shimin nodded happily, fully in agreement.
Yet a shadow crept into his heart.
This was already the twentieth year of Zhenguan.
Tang Taizong's life had entered its countdown.
Would he live long enough to see the Western Regions fully return to Tang rule?
[Lightscreen]
[At the end of the twenty-first year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin once again issued an edict to destroy a state.]
This time, the target was Qiuci, west of Yanqi.
Everyone knew—
This was striking the mountain to shake the tiger.
The real target lay behind Qiuci:
Western Turkestan.
Ashina She'er was appointed Grand Commander of the Kunqiu Route,
with Qibi Heli as his deputy.
Guo Xiaoke led the vanguard.
The Tiele tribes, along with Turkic and Tuyuhun auxiliary forces, were summoned.
In total—
One hundred thousand troops, blades pointed straight at Qiuci.
Once Tang formally mobilized, the entire Western Regions felt the pressure.
Storm clouds gathered.
Facing the impending war, the Western Turkic Great Khagan chose to purge internal threats first.
A former khagan's trusted general, Ashina Helu, was hunted down.
With no escape, he defected to Tang and served as a guide.
We'll just call him Little Lu.
With an insider leading the way, Tang's advance went remarkably smoothly.
In a single battle, they crushed Yanqi—recently reclaimed by Western Turkestan—
And continued west toward Qiuci.
The King of Qiuci, backed by Western Turkestan, had long prepared.
He raised fifty thousand troops, determined to test Tang's weight.
But when dealing with these straightforward Western Region folk—
The Tang army decided to play tricks.
Vanguard commander Han Wei led just over a thousand men to attack Qiuci.
Upon encountering the Qiuci army, he feigned defeat and retreated.
Waiting in ambush behind him was Tang general Cao Jishu.
Believing the Tang army weak and easily broken, the King of Qiuci charged straight into the trap.
The fifty thousand Qiuci troops were routed by Tang's vanguard.
The king fled in terror.
Tang forces pursued relentlessly.
The Qiuci king ultimately fled into Bahuan City—modern-day Aksu, now famous for its apples.
He defended the city for a full month.
Frankly—
That alone was worthy of pride.
When the city fell, nearly all Qiuci nobles were captured.
One man escaped:
The Prime Minister of Qiuci.
He fled west, sought help from Western Turkestan, and returned with ten thousand elite Turkic troops—
Intending to sever Tang's supply lines.
Under the prime minister's guidance, the Turkic elite launched a surprise attack on the Qiuci capital guarded by Tang troops.
Using his status, the prime minister entered the city and rallied part of the population.
Street fighting erupted.
Caught off guard, the famed general Guo Xiaoke was isolated and killed in battle.
Qiuci morale surged.
Only then did Cao Jishu and Han Wei arrive with reinforcements.
Facing Qiuci forces still fighting fiercely, they joined the brutal street combat.
The fighting raged from dusk into the early hours of the next morning.
At last, Western Turkic reinforcements were driven off.
The Qiuci prime minister still refused to give up.
Several days later, he led another Western Turkic force to attack again.
But this time, there was no element of surprise.
Han Jishu led Tang troops in a frontal engagement and crushed them.
The Qiuci prime minister was captured by his own people—
And handed over to Tang.
The Kingdom of Qiuci fell.
Tang generals, however, never stopped surprising Li Erfeng.
With the momentum of Qiuci's destruction, marching administrator Xue Wanbei led fifty Tang cavalry straight into Khotan.
After negotiations—
Khotan surrendered.
Its king personally traveled to Chang'an to offer tribute.
Khotan fell.
Tang then established garrisons in Yanqi, Qiuci, Khotan, and Kashgar—
The Four Garrisons of Anxi.
Kashgar, in effect, also ceased to exist as an independent state.
Thus—
After four hundred years—
Within Li Shimin's lifetime—
The Western Regions were once again incorporated into the Chinese realm.
And the prestige of the Tang surpassed even that of the Han Dynasty.
For the first time, Tang exerted real influence over Central Asia.]
Li Shimin rose to his feet without realizing it.
Four words echoed endlessly in his heart:
Within my lifetime.
That was enough.
He had no interest in "the accumulated merits of six generations."
His achievements—
He preferred to complete them himself.
As Prince of Qin, he once envied Emperor Wu of Han.
As emperor, he resolved to surpass him.
And now—
Within his lifetime—
That ambition had truly been fulfilled.
No reckless wars.
No exhausting the people.
That alone was enough.
On the glowing screen, the Tang Empire's borders had never been broader.
Hou Junji's eyes were filled with loss.
Li Jing stroked his beard, deeply satisfied.
That his contributions to the Tang would still be remembered a thousand years later—
That was enough for him.
Li Shiji glanced northward, happy—
Yet puzzled.
Xueyantuo was just one state.
What about the other two?
Then he looked at Su Lie.
Kid, behave yourself.
Go clean up some minor border scraps.