Geshu Han

Geshu Han (Chinese: 哥舒翰; pinyin: Gēshū Hàn) (died December 1, 757[1]), formally Prince Wumin of Xiping (西平武愍王), was a general of Tang China who was of Turgesh extraction.[2] A veteran of many battles, he became a powerful general late in the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and in 756 became responsible for defending Tong Pass against the rebel forces of An Lushan.

After being forced by the Chancellor Yang Guozhong to engage An Lushan's forces, he was defeated and subsequently kidnapped by his own subordinate, Huoba Guiren (火拔歸仁), to An Lushan's camp. An Lushan tried to use him to get his subordinate generals Li Guangbi, Lai Tian (來瑱), and Lu Gui (魯炅) to surrender as well, but when those generals refused to do so, put him under house arrest in Luoyang, the capital of An's newly established state of Great Yan.

In 757, after An Lushan's son and successor An Qingxu was defeated by Tang forces and forced to abandon Luoyang, An Qingxu executed Geshu and some thirty other captive Tang generals.

  1. ^ 兩千年中西曆轉換
  2. ^ Xiong, Victor Cunrui (2016). Capital Cities and Urban Form in Pre-modern China: Luoyang, 1038 BCE to 938 C. Asian States and Empires (Book 13). Routledge. p. 151. ISBN 9781317235569.