Han Khan

Chapter 132, Left Wing

At this time, Zhang Sheng led an ordinary regiment, a guards regiment, more than a thousand cavalry, and more than two thousand cavalry composed of Kyrgyz people.

More than 3,000 cavalrymen escorted more than 30,000 prisoners and more than 100,000 livestock, and marched towards the Golden Mountain Temple camp along the Irtysh River and Kobdo River, tributaries of the Ob River.

Zhang Sheng didn't care about Baichaer's anger and the Ubili people's fear, and withdrew his troops leisurely.

The march with the captives was slow, but fortunately the surrounding tribes had now been wiped out by the Jin Han people.

After arriving at the Kobdo River, the Jinhan people headed southwards. The victorious people were in high spirits and made a great splash.

At this time, on the grassland at the foot of the mountain north of Yanran Mountain, at a shallow river a hundred miles east of the Yudujin Tatar tribe, Koza, the left wing brigade commander of the Jinhan tribe, was leading 900 elite guards.

Like a torrent of steel, they charged at a Tatar cavalry force of more than 3,000 people, broke into the enemy's formation, kept charging back and forth, and hacked at the enemy at close range.

The sound of their horses' hooves was like thunder, shaking the earth.

Koza waved the spear in his hand and led the soldiers behind him to charge at the enemy again and again.

With every charge, a large number of Tatars fell in a pool of blood.

Their blood dyed the grassland red and filled the entire battlefield with a strong smell of blood.

At the same time, Luo Wenda and Erke, as the left and right wings of Koza, also led their respective 900 cavalrymen to attack the Tatar tribe from the left and right sides.

Armed with bows and arrows, they aimed at the Tatars who tried to escape or resist, and shot deadly arrows.

Under such a three-sided attack, the Menggu Shiwei tribe fell into chaos.

Their leaders attempted to organize an effective resistance, but their efforts pale in the face of such a powerful opponent.

Soon, the tribe was completely defeated, most of them chose to surrender, and only a few escaped.

The Shiwei people were mainly descendants of the Donghu people, the Xianbei and the Rouran people. They originated from the Great Xianbei Mountains and were mixed with some remnants of the Turks and Uighurs. The Khitans were one of them, descendants of the Yuwen Xianbei and some other tribes of the Xiongnu.

Therefore, their language is the Donghu language that has been passed down since the Wuhuan and Xianbei, mixed with a large number of Turkic and Uighur languages. The language spoken by these Tatars today has evolved and developed from these languages.

Previously, they were ruled by the Turks and Uighurs, which is why there is a saying that Khitan is half Uighur.

They were originally tribes living in the forest, engaging in hunting, fishing and simple farming.

The turbulent situation in the north and south of the desert dragged the Shiwei people into wars with their neighbors, stimulating many of them to walk out of the forest and transition to grassland nomadism.

The Shiwei tribes continued to migrate westward and southward, adopted new titles, and embarked on a new path of development.

Some of them called themselves Tatars because the Tatar tribe of thirty surnames who roamed around Hulun Lake and Buir Lake became increasingly powerful and became the most powerful tribal group among the Shiwei tribes.

Therefore, other Shiwei tribes, big and small, also called themselves Tatars. When the Uighur Khanate ruled the desert, there were the Nine Surnames Tatars in the north of the desert, and the Yinshan Tatars and the Black Car Tatars in the south of the desert.

These tribes participated in the political and military disputes with the various tribes in the desert, as well as with the Khitans and the Central Plains, and continued to progress and develop.

The various tribes continuously paid tribute to the Tang Dynasty and accepted official titles such as governor and grand governor from the Tang Dynasty. Tribal nobles emerged and became hereditary chieftain families.

Now that the Tang Dynasty had fallen due to internal strife, the Central Plains was in chaos. The Khitan, who had risen in the Songmo and Liaohe areas, took the opportunity to send troops to attack the Shiwei many times, causing the Shiwei to completely disintegrate. From then on, there was no longer a common ethnic name for Shiwei, and Tatar became the new name for all Shiwei people.

Just like today's Jin Han, under the leadership of Zhang Sheng, conquered a large number of Uighurs, Naiman tribes, and Yudujin Tatars, and incorporated the remaining Kyrgyz tribes. Now these tribes no longer exist in fact, replaced by the powerful Jin Han tribe. These conquered people, because of the strength of Jin Han and its rule over them, all called themselves Jin Han people.

After the fall of the Uighur Khanate, the Kyrgyz moved south, forcing the Uighurs to migrate west and south.

The Tatars took the opportunity to migrate to the northern desert in large numbers, turning this area, which was originally a pastureland for nomadic Turkic and Uighur tribes, into a gradually Tatarized area, thus changing the distribution of populations in the north and south of the desert.

These Tatars who engaged in nomadic life between the Langjuxu Mountain and the Yanran Mountain were the ancestors of the future Mongolian, Tatar and other tribes.

At this time, to the south and east of the desert were the powerful Khitans. Under the leadership of the current Khitan leader Yelu Abaoji, the Tatars were defeated and could not resist.

They were either annexed and conquered by the Khitan and integrated into the Khitan tribes, becoming subject people or tribes of the Khitan, such as the Black Car Tatars and the Thirty Surnames Tatars, or they migrated northwards and westwards to escape the Khitan's attacks, such as the Nine Surnames Tatars.

The Jinhan tribe, which moved north from Dunhuang to Jinshan, also began to move eastward and southward, launching a powerful war of conquest against the Tatars who were spread across the desert.

The 2700 cavalrymen consisting of a guards regiment and two ordinary regiments on the left wing of Jinhan led by Koza were the vanguard of the conquest of the Tatars.

Today, they defeated a Tatar tribe of 4,000 households and 20,000 people.

In order to solve the problem of guarding the prisoners, after defeating the tribe, Koza ordered his men to kill all the surviving men and children in the tribe who were taller than the wheels, except for some craftsmen, shamans and guides.

More than 4,000 women, child craftsmen and shamans were captured, as well as more than 100,000 sheep, more than 6,000 horses, 4,000 to 5,000 cattle, several hundred camels, and 500 to 600 high-wheeled carriages.

At this time, Koza didn't even know the name of the leader of this tribe, nor did he want to know. His mission was to conquer the entire Yanran Mountain, and if there was another chance, to attack the Tatar tribe near Langjuxu Mountain.

After the three regiments of Jinhan cavalry under Koza's command had rested, they selected high-quality war horses from the captured horses for replacement, and collected usable weapons, armor and arrows for replenishment. Then they drove cattle, sheep, horses, camels, women, children, and a large amount of supplies and continued to move forward in a mighty manner.

Apart from the prisoners of war, there were no Tatars who escaped, so they were not afraid that the surrounding Tatar tribes would know about the arrival of the Jinhan people in advance.

Why was it so smooth? We have to thank the powerful military equipment of the Jin Han people.

When facing these light cavalrymen who were only wearing leather coats and leather armor, the damage that the many Jinhan cavalrymen wearing iron armor could suffer was relatively low.

………………

(End of this chapter)