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Gao Xianzhi
Tang general of Koguryo descent who crossed the Pamirs to take Little Balur in 747, lost to the Abbasids at Talas in 751, and was executed at Tongguan on a eunuch's false charges
Mural of the event “Battle of Talas”, which this person took part in.
The High Tang's expansion in the Western Regions reached the Transoxiana region of Central Asia, producing direct collision with the newly risen Arab Abbasid Caliphate. The Qarluq and other Central Asian tribes hedged on the fence between the two empires.
Also known as Duke of Miyun
Gao Xianzhi was of Koguryo origin; his father Gao Sheji joined the Tang army and rose to commander in the Four Garrisons, and the son, raised in Anxi, was a general by his twenties. In 747, as deputy protector-general of Anxi, he led ten thousand horsemen across the Pamirs, stormed the Tibetan fort of Lianyun, crossed the Darkot pass and captured the king of Little Balur with his Tibetan queen, then replaced Fumeng Lingcha as military governor of the Four Garrisons. In 750 he tricked the ruler of Shi (Tashkent) into submission and sent him to Chang'an for execution; the next year the Abbasids defeated him at Talas. When An Lushan rebelled in 755 he served as deputy commander, abandoned Shanzhou with Feng Changqing and fell back on Tongguan, and the eunuch monitor Bian Lingcheng accused them of losing ground and embezzling pay. Both were beheaded in camp in January 756; the Old Tang History says his soldiers cried out that he was wronged.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–756 CE
- 751Battle of TalasTook part