Chapter 237: Confrontation in a Narrow Passage

The Tang army’s 50,000 troops did not enter the city but took over the defense of the East Gate—this was necessary. By not entering, the Tang army showed respect for the State of Shi. Yet, with full mutual trust still far from being established, the Tang army also needed to take symbolic actions. Of course, these actions had to be effective. Controlling the East Gate of Tuozhi City was like a needle standing out in a mass of soft cotton—the Tang army demonstrated friendship while upholding its principles, essentially choking off the State of Shi’s ability to harbor any rebellious thoughts, forcing it to submit completely to the Tang Dynasty.

Li Qing’an’s command tent was also set up outside the city. At that moment, he was carefully reviewing the alliance treaty with the State of Shi. Although he had been granted full authority by Li Longji to handle affairs in Hezhong, such treaties between nations still needed to be approved by the imperial court. On such sensitive matters, he didn’t want to leave himself exposed to criticism.

“It’s ready. Send it to Chang’an immediately.”

Li Qing’an signed his name below the draft of the treaty and handed it to his bodyguard, who took it and left at full speed. Only then did Li Qing’an turn to Liu She, the military advisor waiting nearby, with a smile and ask, “Go ahead! What happened?”

“General, when we were reassembling the soldiers from the State of Shi, we found 2,000 missing. I’ve investigated, and it turns out that after surrendering, 2,000 of the State of Shi’s soldiers left Tuozhi City to the north, led by General Tanbul. The reason is unknown.”

“Is that possible?”

Li Qing’an pondered for a moment before ordering his guards, “Hurry and bring Prince Hassan here.”

He strode quickly to the map. Where could those 2,000 soldiers from the State of Shi have gone? Heading north from Tuozhi City led to vast grasslands and deserts. Eventually, Li Qing’an’s gaze fell on the small northern city of Talas—a city that had once witnessed a tragic chapter in history. It stood out sharply before his eyes. In the tenth year of the Tianbao era, Gao Xianzhi’s 70,000 troops were completely annihilated in the Talas Valley. It was still the tenth year of Tianbao, but history had taken a turn. Could Talas once again become the focus of history?

Li Qing’an shook his head. Just then, he heard the bodyguard reporting at the door, “General, Prince Hassan has arrived.”

Li Qing’an was taken aback. Had he come so quickly? “Let him in!”

Although King Teler of the Stone Kingdom had reconciled with the Tang army, and Li Qing’an also said past mistakes would be forgiven, the negative decisions Teler had made in the past remained difficult to erase. To establish a new alliance with the Tang Dynasty, Teler officially handed over power to his eldest son Hassan, appointing him as regent, while he himself retired behind the scenes under the pretense of illness. This was undoubtedly a turning point for Hassan. Just two days earlier, his father had decided to crown his second son, Yuanen, as king, leaving Hassan deeply disappointed. But the arrival of the Tang army changed everything, allowing him to ascend to the throne of the Stone Kingdom. For this reason, he was extremely grateful to Li Qing’an.

“General, I was just about to invite you to move into the city when I heard you were looking for me.”

Hassan entered the tent smiling. Compared to his brother Yuanen, who was tall, thin, fair-skinned, and skilled in leading troops, Hassan was dark, fat, and of short stature, with a penchant for food and women. As a result, he wasn’t as favored by their father as Yuanen. Yet his support for his father at critical moments enabled him to become the ruler of the Stone Kingdom. He bowed to Li Qing’an and said, “Living in the tent is harsh. I’ve prepared a grand house for you in the city, along with twenty beautiful women to serve you. General, you must agree to this.”

Li Qing’an smiled slightly and replied, “I would certainly appreciate having beautiful women to serve me. But the Arab army could arrive at any moment, so I can’t afford to slack off. Thank you for your kindness, Prince.”

“Then there’s nothing I can do. Once the war is over, I’ll send someone to Samarkand to bring my sister here to be with you. To be honest, I strongly opposed her becoming that holy woman—she’ll never be able to marry.”

“That decision should rest with your sister. Let’s discuss matters of importance first.”

Li Qing’an led him to the map and asked, “My men have just discovered a group of 2,000 Stone Kingdom soldiers heading north. Although they have surrendered their weapons, I still want to know what’s going on.”

“It’s General Tanbur!”

Hassan sighed and said, “He originally didn’t want to surrender to the Tang army, but our father finally convinced him to lay down his arms. Our father also promised him he could return to his tribe. General, he had no choice!”

“Why?”

“Because there are still a small number of Arabs stationed in his tribe, right here!”

Hasan pointed at Talas on the map. “His tribe is in the area around Talas, and there are still nearly five hundred Arab troops stationed there. I originally wanted to discuss this in detail with the general, but since the general is asking now, I have to be straightforward. In fact, Talas is nominally part of the Shi State, but it has been under Arab control for many years. The troops and officials in the city are Arabs, and the taxes also go to them. It’s an Arab enclave.”

Li Qing’an’s gaze fell once again on this small northern city. No wonder Gao Xianzhi had led his troops to attack Talas in history—it turned out to be an Arab enclave. After pondering for a moment, he asked, “Why did the Arabs choose Talas as their enclave?”

“Because Talas has an extremely important strategic location.”

On Li Qing’an’s map, Talas was already at the far north. Hasan had to draw a rough outline on the table with his hand. “General, after reaching Suiye, the Silk Road splits into two routes. One goes straight west, passing through Tuozhi City to Samarkand, and then to Merv and Damascus. The other route goes northeast from Suiye to Talas, then to Itil City, across the Sea of Azov, and finally to Byzantium.

Itil City is a very prosperous commercial city. For hundreds of years, merchants from various countries have gathered there. I’ve heard that even Gauls and Vikings from the distant north come here to do business. So, controlling Talas means controlling this trade route. The Arabs don’t want Tang Dynasty goods to reach Byzantium through here, as it would affect their trade interests. That’s why they keep troops stationed there.”

Only then did Li Qing’an realize how important Talas was strategically. He examined the map carefully again. Talas not only had great commercial value but was also the northern route to Suiye. If the Arabs captured Talas and Ashibulai City, it would be like having a sword hanging over Suiye’s head, threatening its safety at any time. During the first Suiye War, the Arabs sent Judir along this route to attack Suiye.

Thinking of this, he asked, “Are you sure there are only five hundred Arab troops stationed there?”

Hasan nodded. “I heard from Tamber that there used to be many troops, but most were sent to Suiye to fight against the general. Only five hundred remain to defend the city. It should be correct.”

Li Qing’an pondered for a moment before turning around and ordering, “Go and summon Li Guangbi immediately.”

A short while later, Li Guangbi rushed into the tent, knelt down, and saluted militarily. “Reporting to the general.”

“General Li, lead five thousand cavalry north to Talas at once. Eliminate the five hundred Arab troops there and capture the city of Talas.”
……
The city of Talas was located northeast of Tuozhi City, about four hundred li away. The terrain was flat. Li Guangbi led five thousand cavalry north at full speed. By the third noon, they reached a forest that stretched for dozens of li. In the middle of the forest, a large river lay ahead of them. This river was called Baishui. Baishui City in the central part of the Shi Kingdom was located upstream, about eighty li away.
The water was clear, and the white pebbles beneath were clearly visible, making the entire river appear white. It was late summer, and the river current was strong, making it impossible to cross on foot.
Scouts went to search for a path, while the Tang troops rested on the pebble-covered riverbank, eating their dry rations. Li Guangbi stared anxiously at the other shore. Since he had arrived in Beiting, he had not fought a proper battle yet, and his name was not on the list of achievements. With the battle against the Arab troops about to begin, Li Qingan ordered him to capture a small northern city. Could this be an attempt to remove him from his position?
Li Guangbi was prone to worry and anxiety. He often overreacted to small matters, easily turning them into big problems. Coupled with the setbacks he had faced in his military career over the years, he developed a habit of guessing the intentions of those in power. He had tried to figure out An Sishun’s thoughts and Ge Shuhan’s thoughts before. Now, following Li Qingan, he began habitually guessing Li Qingan’s intentions as well.
After thinking for a long time with no solution, Li Guangbi sighed, picked up a pebble, and threw it heavily into the river. On the other side was a dense forest, and a low hill in the distance blocked his view.
At that moment, a scout rushed over from the west, clearly very anxious. Li Guangbi immediately stood up and asked loudly, “What’s happened?”
“General, enemies are coming this way!”
Li Guangbi was shocked, and the soldiers around him also stood up.
“Where are the enemies? Who are they?”
“Reporting to the general, they are Arab cavalry, about three thousand strong. They are coming toward us along the river. They are less than three li away.”
“Everyone, get up!” Li Guangbi ordered sharply. “Leave the forest immediately—hurry!”
If it were only three thousand Arab troops, it wouldn’t be a problem. What worried him was that the scout had only spotted part of the enemy force. If the Arabs surrounded them from all sides, the consequences would be disastrous.
The soldiers quickly packed up their things and rushed south. After running about seven or eight li, they emerged from the forest and arrived on the grassland. The Tang troops drew their bows, loaded arrows, drew their swords, and watched vigilantly into the forest.

The grassland stretched vast and empty, with no sign of the enemy in sight. Li Guangbi felt slightly relieved. The enemy force was likely only three thousand strong, which presented an opportunity. He mounted his horse and whispered a few instructions to his deputy, Bai Xiaojie. Bai Xiaojie nodded, waved his hand, and led two thousand men eastward, retreating once again into the forest. “Beat the drums!” At Li Guangbi’s command, the Tang army’s drums roared like thunder, scaring the birds and animals at the edge of the forest into flight. As the Tang army continued to beat the drums while retreating slowly, after about fifteen minutes, a Persian army emerged from the forest. This was the vanguard force sent by the Muslims to capture Talas City, the same force that had encountered the Tang army by chance by the Bai Shui River. Upon learning that the Tang army had taken control of Tuozhi City, they took a detour northward, intending to reinforce Talas City directly. Unluckily, the wooden bridge they planned to use to cross the river had collapsed due to disuse. Hou Meid then led his troops eastward along the river. They had already detected the presence of a large army and were nervous when they suddenly heard drumbeats coming from the south. Hou Meid was one of the Four Tiger Generals under the Muslims, ranking third after Qiyad and Ibrahim, who was marching to Sindh. The fourth general, Rashid, was currently guarding Muluk. Hou Meid was also from Khorasan, around forty years old, and had been childhood friends with Abu Muslim. He had once been the governor of Kabul under the Umayyad dynasty. After Muslim rose up in Khorasan, he led five thousand troops from Punjab to join Muslim, fighting alongside him against the Umayyad forces and achieving great feats. In this campaign to suppress the Shiite rebellion in Jezireh, he was tasked with quelling the rebellion in the Xiao Shi State, succeeding within just one month despite killing countless people. This time, as a vanguard, he came to the Shi State. If he couldn’t capture Tuozhi City, he would defend Talas City, aiming to hold back the Tang army’s westward advance. He had had smooth progress along the way but never expected to encounter the Tang army by the Bai Shui River. After initial panic, Hou Meid quickly stabilized his troops. He immediately set up a curtain by the forest edge to observe the Tang army. The Tang army had retreated three li away, leaving an open grassland, clearly ready to engage in battle. Hou Meid narrowed his eyes. The number of Tang soldiers was not large, roughly equal to his own force. They probably also intended to go to Talas City—this was an opportunity. Hou Meid was very confident. His three thousand elite cavalry were seasoned veterans who had followed him for years, possessing rich combat experience and being the core of the Khorasan army. They had also fought in the previous battle against Gao Xianzhi, where they had crushed the Tang army from the flank.

It was precisely that previous decisive victory that gave him a slight disdain for the Tang army. The Tang army might have good equipment, but their fighting spirit was low; they were only slightly better than the Sogdian forces and were far inferior to the Abbasid army.
“Get ready for battle!”
Hou Meide shouted loudly. The 3,000 Abbasid soldiers instantly raised their spears in perfect unison, demonstrating their exceptional military discipline.
“March in formation!”
The Abbasid army moved slowly forward. The 3,000 cavalry were divided into five ranks, with 600 soldiers in each rank, spaced two zhang apart—seemingly measured with great care. Each soldier was equipped with ten short spears, each weighing about seven jin, forged from high-quality iron and capable of being thrown far enough to pierce enemies from thirty steps away. These were the Abbasids’ most potent weapons against Byzantine heavy cavalry.
The cavalry began to trot, holding shields in one hand and spears in the other, maintaining perfect formation. The sharp tips of their spears gleamed in the sunlight.
The army led by Li Guangbi was the Tianwei Army from Shibao City, originally part of the Longyou Army. They had fought against the Tibetans for years and also possessed extensive combat experience. Equipped with horn bows and crossbows with an effective range of a hundred steps, their only drawback was their slow rate of loading, allowing at most two shots within that range. To compensate for this weakness, each Tang soldier also carried a set of bows for short-range shooting. In addition, they were equipped with swords, spears, and shields—fully armed.
Although this Tang army was fighting the Abbasids for the first time, their rich combat experience allowed them to immediately identify the Abbasid army’s strengths and weaknesses.
Their training was impeccable—maintaining perfect formation while running was something even the Tibetans could not achieve, indicating highly coordinated teamwork. Just based on this, they were a formidable opponent. Moreover, the Abbasids had no bows; each soldier carried multiple short spears along with a long spear, suggesting that the short spears were their throwing weapons. Their range was inferior to that of crossbow arrows, giving the Tang army a slight advantage. The Abbasid horses seemed strong and robust, far superior to the Tibetan plateau horses and even faster than the Tang horses.
Yet their weaknesses were also evident—their armor consisted of tight-fitting leather armor, which could not withstand the Tang army’s arrows. Seeing the Abbasid army’s weaknesses, Li Guangbi immediately ordered, “Form a crescent formation!”
The Tang army’s flags fluttered as they quickly adjusted their formation into a crescent shape, heavier in the center and lighter at the edges. With five ranks in the center and two ranks on each side, this arrangement ensured the highest density of archers. The first two ranks of Tang soldiers held large shields to defend against the Abbasids’ sharp spears.

The Tang army also advanced slowly, holding crossbows and arrows, controlling their warhorses with their legs while maintaining a tight formation. As the two armies drew closer, the sounds of neighing and shouting merged together, accompanied by the thundering drums that boosted the morale of their soldiers.

Two hundred paces… one hundred fifty paces… one hundred paces—now within range of the Tang army’s crossbows. The Abbasid army quickly raised their shields, but Li Guangbi did not order an attack. His sharp gaze fixed on the Abbasid shields, as if seeing through them. At a hundred paces, those shields could indeed withstand the Tang army’s powerful crossbows. The Tang army halted and prepared firmly.

Eighty paces remained, yet Li Guangbi still gave no order. Many Tang soldiers’ palms were drenched in cold sweat—this had never happened to them in years of warfare, as they hadn’t fired an arrow even at eighty paces.

Suddenly, the Abbasid army accelerated, widening the gaps between their ranks while still keeping them orderly. This was Hou Meide’s clever tactic—widening the distance at the last moment to reduce the area affected by the Tang army’s arrows.

The warhorses galloped, and the cavalry charged at the Tang army in a overwhelming wave. At sixty paces, Li Guangbi raised his sword and shouted, “Fire straight!”

A thousand arrows from the first row were fired straight ahead—this was the advantage of sixty paces: no need to shoot in a parabolic path; they could fire directly. The arrows rained down like a storm, whistling toward the Abbasid cavalry. The powerful crossbows pierced the shields and leather armor of the Abbasid cavalry, penetrating their bodies. Warhorses collapsed, and cavalrymen fell from their horses in screams. In an instant, nearly two hundred men were knocked down, disrupting the Abbasid army’s offensive momentum. Soon, the second and third waves of two thousand arrows followed. Within sixty paces, three thousand Abbasid soldiers lost five to six hundred men. As soon as these three waves of arrows were fired, Li Guangbi immediately ordered, “Form the wild goose formation!”

The Tang army’s crescent-shaped formation suddenly dispersed. Before the Abbasid army could throw their short spears, the Tang soldiers quickly spread out to the sides, resembling a flock of wild geese flying north in a reverse “V” shape. This sudden change in formation caught Hou Meide off guard. He had initially thought that the Tang army’s front two rows holding large shields were meant to resist their spears, which made him feel pleased. The Abbasid short spears were extremely sharp and powerful, and no shield could withstand them. The dense formation of the Tang army seemed ideal for their spears to wreak havoc.

But the Tang army suddenly changed formation at fifty paces, leaving Hou Meide no time to adjust. He could only order, “Throw the spears!”

The Arab cavalry threw their spears wildly, with thousands of short spears creating a dense rain of projectiles that flew through the air. Though the sight was terrifying, most of the cavalry threw from a distance of fifty to sixty steps. Even with the help of their warhorses, most of the spears failed to reach the Tang army’s positions; only a few hundred at the front managed to hit them. The Tang soldiers at the back had no time to dodge, and the sharp spears pierced their shields, causing dozens of them to fall from their horses, screaming as the spears pierced their bodies.

It was clear the Tang army had no intention of engaging the Arab forces head-on. They fought in groups of fifty, each operating independently, using bows and arrows to shoot from the flanks of the Arab army. Sometimes they coordinated with each other, forming a unified force, but other times they dispersed to fight separately. Though it seemed chaotic, it was as if a rope tied them together—dispersed in form but united in purpose. That “rope” was the Tang army’s command flags, which constantly changed patterns to direct the troops to attack the Arab army’s weak points.

This flexible fighting style of the Tang army was clearly a counter to the Arab cavalry’s formation-based tactics. That formation style was designed to counter the Byzantine phalanxes and was highly effective in large-scale battles, allowing for a dense barrage of spears that could inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. But against the scattered Tang forces, its advantages were not utilized; instead, its clumsy and slow weaknesses became evident.

This was Li Guangbi’s military genius—he could adapt to the situation, adjust tactics on the fly, and identify the enemy’s weak points to attack. This was the purpose of firing arrows from a distance of sixty steps: to strike at the enemy’s weak points before they could reorganize their formation. Once the Arab army tried to change its formation, it would be at a disadvantage, as the Tang army wouldn’t give them time to adjust.

The Tang army’s flexible, small-scale, multi-point attacks disrupted the Arab cavalry’s formation, causing them to gradually adopt a similar decentralized approach. This was true decentralization—without unified command or coordination, resulting in chaos. The Arab army gradually fell into a disadvantageous position.

Seeing that the moment had come, Li Guangbi immediately ordered, “Fire the flaming arrows!” A flaming arrow soared into the air, trailing long black smoke. Suddenly, two thousand Tang cavalry emerged from the forest behind the Arab army. They were arranged in a neat formation, forming a complete phalanx. With their warhorses galloping fast and a fierce fighting spirit, they charged at the Arab army.

As the Tang army’s hidden reinforcements launched their attack, the Arab cavalry could no longer hold back and began to retreat. The Tang army pursued them, inflicting heavy casualties among the Arabs, with countless surrendering.

Abu Muslim’s three thousand vanguard troops sent to Talas encountered the Tang army’s cavalry at the White Water River. The Abbasid forces were utterly defeated, and Humaid managed to escape back to Samarkand with less than three hundred survivors. Two days later, Li Guangbi led the Tang army to Talas City. With the help of the Kent tribe of the Shi State, they launched a coordinated attack and captured Talas City that very night. Thus, the Tang army firmly established its presence in the Shi State.