During this period, the Abbasid dynasty basically lost control of various places, and powerful princes separated themselves from each other. In Central Asia, some descendants of the great Parthian nobles established the Samanid dynasty. This is a regime that believes in Tianfang religion and belongs to Persia culturally.
This dynasty was the first attempt by the Persians to establish political power with the help of Tianfang religion. Medieval Persian historians called it the revival of the Persian Empire. They also resumed missionary work in the East in an attempt to expand their influence.
To the northeast of the Samanid dynasty was the Karakhanid dynasty established by some exiles after the disintegration of the Uighur Khanate. At this time, a struggle for the throne was taking place within Karakhan. Around 954, during the reign of Chai Rong, Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty, Satuk, the nephew of the Great Khan, accepted the persuasion of Samanid missionaries and converted to Tianfang religion. With the strong support of the Samanid dynasty, he overthrew his uncle's rule. It is generally believed that this is the beginning of the acceptance of Tianfang religion by various Turkic tribes.
However, the turmoil of Kara Khan attracted the attention of Khotan, a city-state in the Western Regions. Taking advantage of the unrest, Khotan sent troops to attack the Kara Khanate and occupied Shule Town, the eastern capital. After that, the two sides fought continuously and the city changed hands many times.
For the Kara Khanate, the situation at this time was quite unfavorable.
In the northeast is the Liao Kingdom. To the east were the Gaochang Uighur and Shazhou rebel regimes. In the southeast are the Tibetan tribes on the plateau. Now that even an oasis city-state can gain the upper hand in a battle with itself, these people are even more untouchable.
Always fighting with others in your own capital is not a long-term solution. Therefore, the Khanate urgently needed a new direction.
Starting from the Turkic Khanate, previous regimes almost always focused on the East. Even if he was driven to the Western Region, the ambitious Khan always wanted to fight back.
But accepting the Tianfang Sect gave everyone a new idea - since I believe in other people's teachings, then I can definitely join the struggle for hegemony in the Tianfang Sect's world, so why should I go to the East to fight for it?
I can't defeat Khotan, how can I defeat you?
Satuk Khan, who had an epiphany, immediately launched a war against the Samanid dynasty who had preached to him.
The Samanid dynasty was one of the overlords of the Tianfang religion, controlling a large area from the two river basins of Central Asia to the Persian mainland. In short, very rich.
This war brought Kara Khan a lot of gains, and thus formed a path dependence: if the east suffered a loss, there was no need to be afraid, it could fight the Persians to make up for it, and it would soon recover. The war on the Western Front lasted until 992, when Hassan Bogra Khan captured Bukhara, the capital of the Samanid dynasty. Since then, the Samanid dynasty began to decline.
It was also because of these results that the Kara Khanate was emboldened to engage in a decades-long tug-of-war with Khotan.
The battlefield on the Eastern Front was much more tragic. In order to resist Khotan's western expedition, a large number of adult male members of the Khan's court died in the battlefield, including the conqueror of Samania, Hasan Bogra Khan himself.
When the war was at its most intense, none of Satuk Khan's male grandchildren survived, and they had to rely on women to support them. Even Hassan's sister was killed by the Khotanese in the war of revenge.
However, the resistance of the Kara Khanate was still much stronger than that of Khotan. The great-grandsons of Sartuk persuaded believers from all over the world to launch expeditions to support them. The four imams led volunteers recruited from Ghazni, Khorezm, Baghdad and other places to join the war. This time, they finally succeeded in counterattacking and captured the city of Khotan.
Khotan was a city-state. Karakhan could lose its capital many times, but losing Khotan once would be fatal. The Khotan king surrendered and surrendered to the Khanate, thus ending the Yuchi regime.
But the winner did not enjoy the joy in the end. Some Khotanese troops who were unwilling to surrender fled the city and, with the support of the Tibetan tribes, set up ambushes on the roads.
The Kara Khanate was unprepared and was attacked on its way back. Historians recorded this battle and said with emotion, "The jihadists were killed like an avalanche." In the end, the entire expeditionary army was wiped out, and all four imams were killed.
This win-lose victory made the war unsustainable.
After that, the Kara Khanate cooperated with the Song Dynasty and launched several attacks on Xixia. However, the combat effectiveness of both sides was very limited and no effective results were achieved. As for the Liao Kingdom in the north, Karahan actively joined the other party's tribute system. In the end, because of his obedience, he got the opportunity to marry a Liao princess who believed in Buddhism.
Karahan was very proud of this and persuaded other countries in the world of Tianfang Sect to pay tribute together. She even acted as a matchmaker and wanted to introduce the Ghaznavid dynasty to come and get married.
In addition to his father-in-law, the Khanate was also very respectful to the Northern Song Dynasty and directly addressed him as "uncle" in his letters. Obviously, with the support of his father-in-law and uncle, life becomes much more peaceful.
But Tianfang teaches the world that there is no way to feel at ease.
Karakhan's "new ideas" set a disastrous precedent. After that, the nomadic tribes that originally wandered in the Western Regions and Central Asia followed suit. We no longer follow the hard rolls in the east.
During the Tang Dynasty, the Iron Gate in southern Central Asia blocked several Turkic invasions. But now, there was nothing the Persians could do. The Turkic immigrants scrambled to find opportunities to go south and invade the hinterland of Persia.
The Turkic language they used replaced the original Indo-European languages of Central Asia. From then on, the Persians never regained their previous prosperity. The Persian regimes in various places were also eliminated one after another, and the Turkic warlords ran rampant and competed with each other for hegemony, causing serious damage.
Guo Kang didn't know if the Persians would regret why he was so mean in the first place and insisted on preaching and recruiting people.
This series of events also had a long-lasting impact on the world of Tianfang Sect. The caliphate of Baghdad has completely become a puppet, and even the lord of a city cannot sit firmly. Over time, a strange system somewhat similar to Japan was formed. The powerful Turkic warlords will attack Baghdad's "Shangluo" and force the caliph to proclaim himself the sultan, thereby establishing hegemony over the entire Tianfang world.
The caliph was arrested every day by the warlords and suffered terribly. Some people couldn't stand the domineering military leaders and even violated the ancestral precepts and ran away from home. But in the end, they had no choice but to accept reality.
The reason was actually created by the Tang Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom unintentionally.
People in later generations may not have heard of these unpopular histories. But in Guo Kang's era, these are issues that are closely related to many people.
Apart from anything else, if he told an old Persian scholar who knew history, he was actually a very peace-loving person, always gentle and weak, and very good at fighting. Then the other party will most likely think that he is being arrogant and make him angry to death.
