TAIZONG—AN EMPEROR on the RUN from 645–646, in Particular

CHAPTER NINE TAIZONG—AN EMPEROR ON THE RUN From 645–646, in particular, Taizong engaged in an extraordinary number of mobile personal appearances at the frontlines of the Liao River campaign of 645, the early 646 month-long sojourn at Bingzhou (south of modern Taiyuan), and then finally his triumphant personal summit in the ninth lunar month of 646 at Lingzhou (south of modern Yingchuan, Ningxia) with the defeated, tribute bearing leaders of the the Turkish nomad tribes of Inner and Outer Mongolia. The goal of all this personal movement was to recoup the political capital lost in the 643 court political fiasco. The Liao River campaign and the Tang subjuga- tion of the Turkish tribes of Mongolia had their respective geo-strategic logics but could have been executed without Taizong’s personal presence. Taizong’s goal was to attempt to hitch the political fortunes of the throne, in terms of court politics, to these military and foreign affairs activities; which will be of particular concern to this discussion. The key point in the following discussion is the surge in Taizong’s personal presence at these distant places; a degree of mobility unusual for most established emperors, indeed, unusual compared to Taizong’s previous activity after ascending the throne in late 626.1 The 645 Liaodong campaign turned into a strategic failure, and Taizong’s month-long sojourn in Bingzhou was in fact a full scale political retreat, an effort to avoid the court political arenas of Loyang and Chang’an. By the time he died in 649, Taizong had, in fact, been able to chalk up some high profile military achievements—the destruction of the Xueyantuo confederacy of late 646 and the conquest of Kucha in 648. However, in the immediate post-643 environment Taizong’s efforts at enhancing the prestige of the throne came to rely heavily on the Tang military. In this latter regard, the role of the early Tang general, Li Ji, whom I discussed in detail in the preceding chapter, in executing Taizong’s politically motivated military 1 David A. Graff makes a similar evaluation, attributing Taizong’s activity to “. the lingering influence of North Asian ideas of rulership among mixed-blood elites in North China.” There is truth to this statement in terms of providing an enabling militaristic ethos. See Graff,Medieval Chinese Warfare: 300–900 (London: Routledge, 2002), 256. 240 chapter nine campaigns and associated personal appearances became central to the throne. Li Ji was Taizong’s man at the court—he backed his lord without ques- tion.What distinguished Li Ji from other outstanding generals whom Taizong had attempted to use in a similar fashion in the past (Li Jing and Hou Junji) was that Li Ji was politically astute and had the ability to make wide-ranging connections that gave him political protection. His real task was to use his military luster to lend political support and prestige backing to Taizong’s political endeavors. In 643, when Li Zhi was appointed the new heir apparent, Li Ji was appointed as one of his close advisors. As Taizong’s man, Li Ji was generally opposed to the Zhangsun Wuji factional grouping, and this factional struggle would play itself out into Gaozong’s reign with the 655 appointment of Wu Zetian as Gaozong’s new Empress (over the objections of Zhangsun Wuji); and reach its denouement in 659 when Gaozong would sentence Zhangsun Wuji to death. Li Ji was the crucial behind the scenes supporter of all these efforts. In 645 Li Ji was one of the few courtiers who both supported the idea of a Liaodong campaign and Taizong’s desire to personally attend to the frontlines.2 The campaign was a disappointment for Taizong. Li Ji was the overall commander, and he conducted a conservative, highly orga- nized series of sieges against a line of fortified cities on the east bank of the Liao River. The siege campaign was only partially successful, and Li Ji was unwilling to expose his supply lines by attempting to execute a sudden breakthrough offensive against Pyongyang. The result was that the Korguryo regime did not buckle under the pressure of the Tang campaign in the Liaodong region, and in the latter half of the ninth lunar month, with the onset of the winter season, Taizong called for a general withdrawal. In fact, by the fourth lunar month of 646, it appears 2 See the Cambridge History of China, vol. 3, 233. Lü Simian notes Li Ji’s isolated support for Taizong’s Liaodong campaign and labels Li Ji a sycophant. See Lü Simian (1984 ed.), 104. The ZzTj 196.6169–70, provides the earliest evidence that Taizong was planning a Liaodong campaign. This was at the height of the factional competition which Taizong was fomenting between his two sons. This in turn makes one wonder if Taizong was planning to use military operations as another means to sharpen the competition by assigning his sons different field commands at different times—much as Gaozu did to Jiancheng and Li Shimin in the early 620’s. At any rate, this issue becomes moot in the aftermath of the 643 fiasco. Taizong first announced that he would personally attend to the frontlines in the second lunar month of 644 (ZzTj 197.6207), approximately one half year after the 643 collapse of the Chengqian-Tai competition..

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