General Gao Xianzhi dragged ten thousand heavily armored Tang dynasty soldiers across the freezing Pamir Mountains just to brutally crush a Tibetan alliance and prove that China…

A closer look

The Tang Dynasty didn’t just wait behind the Great Wall; they actively exported violence across the globe. By the 8th century, China was desperately trying to secure the Silk Road from the encroaching Abbasid Caliphate and the Tibetan Empire. Enter General Gao Xianzhi, a brilliant tactician who led an insane military expedition through the freezing, oxygen-deprived passes of the Hindu Kush. He managed to coordinate logistics for thousands of cavalrymen and siege engineers in the literal Himalayas, briefly establishing Tang supremacy in Central Asia before the catastrophic Battle of Talas ended their westward expansion forever.