Chang Tang: I Built an Empire in the Western Regions

In the fourth year of Jianzhong, in the Western Regions.

The final great battle of the Anxi Protectorate ended, and then everything went silent. It wasn’t a victory or a defeat. It simply vanished. An army of twenty thousand scattered overnight. The Tibetans chased down the fleeing soldiers, cutting them down from Shule all the way to the Congling Mountains. So much blood flowed that it could have drowned a camel’s legs.

No one knew that a remnant force had survived.

A twenty-one-year-old garrison commander led more than two hundred men in retreat. As they ran, their numbers kept growing. It wasn’t because there were fewer pursuers. The other fleeing soldiers were gathering around him. They weren’t fools. They knew who could still fight and who had already lost their nerve.

By the time they reached a crumbling earthen enclosure called Puchang City, he had around a thousand men under his command.

A thousand men. What were they going to eat?

Good question.

They’d farm.

The man knew how to farm. He also knew how to dig wells, smelt iron, make gunpowder, and set up schools. The Western Regions were home to Sogdians, Turks, Tibetans, and Arabs, none of whom would yield to the others. They had fought for centuries without end. Then he arrived, and nobody could beat him.

When the muskets fired, a cavalry charge was like serving up a meal.

When the cannons were set up, city walls were as flimsy as paper.

Someone asked him where he had learned those skills.

He said, “In a place called the modern world.”

No one understood.

Later, he proclaimed himself emperor and named his country Dachang. Some called it usurpation; others said it was the Mandate of Heaven. He paid them no mind and led his troops east, fighting his way back to the Central Plains.

By then, the Central Plains had gone through several emperors. Ordinary people could hardly keep track of who sat on the throne. Whoever taxed them less was a good emperor, as far as they were concerned.