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Su Dingfang
Tang general who led the vanguard against the Eastern Turks in 630, captured the Western Turk khagan Helu in 657, and crossed the sea to destroy Paekche in 660
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
Also known as Ming Lie · Zi Dingfang · Xingguo Gong · Shi Zhuang
Su Dingfang, whose given name was Lie, came from Wuyi in Jizhou; as a boy he rode with his father against local bandits, and at the end of the Sui he served Dou Jiande and Liu Heita. In 630, under Li Jing, he led two hundred horsemen through the fog to the tent of the Eastern Turk khagan Illig, who fled. In 657, as commander of the Yili expedition, he defeated the Western Turk khagan Ashina Helu on the Yezhi River; Helu fled to Tashkent and was handed over, bringing the Western Regions under Tang control. In 660 he sailed from Chengshan with the Shenqiu army, destroyed the kingdom of Paekche and captured its king Uija, though his attack on the Koguryo capital Pyongyang the next year failed. In his last years he guarded Liangzhou against the Tibetans as pacification commissioner, and he died in 667 at seventy-five as Duke of Xing, with the posthumous name Zhuang.
Life and times
Dates 592 CE–667 CE