PersonAD 755

Gao Xianzhi

Also called: Go Seonji

Tang general of Goguryeo descent who led the Anxi Protectorate’s army on a famous march across the Pamirs, but was defeated by the Abbasids at Talas in 751

He was the son of Gao Sheji, one of the Goguryeo refugees who moved to Tang China after Goguryeo fell. Following his father into the army of the Anxi Protectorate, he made his name in 747 by leading ten thousand men over the high passes of the Pamirs and Hindu Kush to subdue Little Balur. In 751 he was heavily defeated by the Abbasids at Talas. Sent against the An Lushan Rebellion in 755, he was slandered and executed in his camp that same year.

Show on the map

Where they went

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

1 related event

1
AD 751Battle of Talascommander
On the Talas River in Central Asia a Tang army led by Gao Xianzhi, a general of Goguryeo descent, was heavily defeated by the Abbasids. Chinese papermakers taken prisoner are said to have brought papermaking to the Islamic world.

Themes this person appears in

The Rise of the Islamic WorldAD 570 – 1055
From the revelation to Muhammad to the Seljuk entry into Baghdad — 450 years in which a new faith from Arabia built a civilisation stretching from Iberia to Central Asia and reached as far as Silla by sea