XIII AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CHINESE TURKESTAN : THE EARLY PERIOD

L’histoire des Tures occidentaux est comme la clef de vofite ou convergent et se rencontrent pendant quelques années les histoires particulitres de grandes nations qu'on regarde trop souvent comme isolées les unes des autres; elle nous rappelle que la continuité est la loi de univers et qu'il nest pas d’annean qu'on puisse ignorer dans la chaine infinie dont toutes les parties sont solidaires. — CHAVANNES, Documents sur les Turcs Occidentauz.

Tue history of Chinese Turkestan presents the difficulty that until mediaeval times it filled but a small part on the stage of Asia. On the other hand, it lay on the highway of the nations, and migrations from the Far East to the West, which have so deeply influenced the history of mankind, generally traversed the Tarim basin, the country to the south being almost impracticable, and the country to the north presenting a longer and a more difficult line of advance. Holding firmly to the belief that history should be studied as a whole rather than in watertight compartments, I have attempted in this sketch to give some account, not only of events affecting Chinese Turkestan but also of their connection with, and reaction upon, neighbouring states of Asia.

The earliest recorded connection of China with what is now the province of Chinese Turkestan is the progress of Mon Wang, one of the emperors of the Chow Dynasty, to a province in the vicinity of the Kuen Lun mountains which may be identified with Khotan. This tour is alleged to have taken place about 1000 B.c., but is possibly legendary, and we reach firmer ground at the beginning of the third century B.c., when China, under the Han dynasty, became a world power. At this period the chief concern of the ruler was the powerful tribe of the Hiong-Nu or Huns, which occupied Mongolia. These ambitious nomads attacked the Yue-chi (known later as the Indo-Scythians) then inhabiting the north-west parts of Kansu, Kokonor and the southern half of the Gobi, and not only defeated but expelled their enemy, thereby setting in motion a series of human avalanches, with far-reaching consequences. The dispossessed Yue-chi crossed the desert to Kucha and, advancing to the Ili river, subsequently broke up into two divisions, the Little Yue-chi who moved into Tibet, and the Great Yue-chi who oceupied the Ti valley and drove the Sakas from Kashgar in 163 B.c. But the Huns, some fifteen or twenty years later, followed up and again defeated the Yue-chi, and the latter, fleeing westwards and driving the Sakas before them, invaded Bactria and, in 120 B.C., destroyed its Greek dynasty. They then crossed the Hindu Kush and carved out an empire in India with Peshawar as their capital.

The wide outlook of the Han dynasty is demonstrated by the fact that, between 120 B.C. and 88 B.C., missions were despatched across Chinese Turkestan to distant Parthia, known in China as An-S8ih, from the Chinese form of the name of the royal house of Arsaces. Itis worthy of mention that Mithradates IT. of Parthia, who received the earliest of these missions, and thereby initiated an intercourse with China which was invariably peaceful, was also the first Parthian monarch to receive an embassy from Rome.

Wars with the Huns were a constant preoccupation of the Chinese until, in the first century s.c., they began to take most vigorous action in Chinese Turkestan. By 59 B.C. the entire province was conquered and a strong government was established. In 51 B.C. the nomads of Central Asia, exhausted by internecine strife, appealed to China, whose supremacy—so Chinese historians declare—was acknowledged in gome form, however slight, from the province of Shensi to the Caspian Sea. Owing to the wide range of nomadic tribes the statement is not as fantastic as at first sight it would seem to be.

This vague authority was consolidated in the first century of our era by the famous warrior Pan Chao, who in the course of his earlier campaigns steadily annexed provinces and districts lying to the west of China. In A.D. 70 he defeated the ruler of Khotan, and six years later he conquered the entire province with which we are dealing. According to a local legend, on one occasion Pan Chao was besieged in Kashgar and access to the river was cut off, but the great general rose to the occasion and stamped on the ground, whereupon springs, still known as “ the Springs of Pan Chao,” gushed out and the army was saved.

In 88 the Yue-chi, who had assisted Pan Chao in a campaign against Turfan, sent a tribute of jewels and lions to China, and demanded a princess of the Han dynasty as a consort for their ruler; but this proceeding was viewed with disfavour by Pan Chao, and he arrested the ambassador. The Yue-chi, to avenge the insult, despatched an army estimated at 70,000 men across the Pamirs. Broken down by hardships, it was defeated with ease, and as the outcome of further negotiations the Yue-chi continued to pay tribute to China.

Tn 91 Pan Chao was appointed General-Protector, and according to the Chinese historian not only crossed the Pamirs, but conquered fifteen kingdoms lying between Kashgar and the Caspian Sea. Probably what occurred was that he received envoys from the various nomadic tribes, who agreed to recognize Chinese suzerainty; for it is unlikely that a Chinese army actually marched to the Caspian Sea.

In 97 Pan Chao despatched a certain Kan Ying on an embassy to visit Parthia and Rome; but the envoy, after safely reaching Ctesiphon, was deterred from the long voyage down the Persian Gulf, across the Indian Ocean, and up the Red Sea and the Gulf of Akaba to Aelana, by exaggerated reports that on the return journey, if the winds were adverse, the ocean might take two years to cross! According to the local belief, Pan Chao is buried inside the present city of Kashgar, on a high mound which is surmounted by an artistic temple and overlooks the springs already mentioned.

In time the power of the Celestials waned in Chinese Turkestan, and we learn from the annals of the later Hans that at the beginning of the second century a.p. the ruler of Su-le (as Kashgar was then termed) was forced to send as a hostage to the king of the Yue-chi at Peshawar one of his relatives, who was subsequently placed on the throne of Kashgar. This piece of history is corroborated by Hiuen Tsiang.

Under Kanishka, the most celebrated ruler of the Yue-chi, the tribe regained Kashgar about A.p. 125, more than two centuries after their first seizure of the province—truly a remarkable cycle of conquest.

The Huns had recovered their strength at this period, and in 138, the Chinese Emperor sent a certain Chang Kien, with a suite numbering one hundred persons, to open up relations with the Yue-chi, whom he wished to enlist as allies. Chang Kien was unfortunately captured by the Huns and kept prisoner for ten years, after which he escaped with some of his followers and reached Farghana, where he was well treated. The Yue-chi had recently conquered Tokharistan, situated in the great bend of the Oxus, where the undaunted Chang Kien at last gained touch with them. As was to be expected, he found them unwilling to quit their new conquest in order to undertake a campaign in the interests of China. Chang Kien finally returned home with the two surviving members of his mission and drew up a valuable geographical and ethnographical memoir ; he also introduced the vine into China. He will ever be famous in the annals of his country as the first Chinaman who * pierced the void.”

The Yue-chi introduced Buddhism into China after the conversion of Kanishka to that faith ; they also undoubtedly brought to India a knowledge of Chinese civilization, together with the peach and the pear tree. Moreover, they had intercourse with Rome both from India and from Central Asia, and in various ways played a distinguished réle until they finally succumbed before the onslaught of the White Huns.

About the same time that the Prince of Kashgar recognized the paramountcy of the Yue-chi the Uighur tribes in the Turfan and Hami districts revolted from China, and for five centuries Chinese control over the entire province was lost.

Buddhism reached Khotan and Kashgar from India and thence spread to China. In 399 the Chinese monk Fa-hien, * deploring the mutilated and imperfect state of the collection of the Books of Discipline,” set off on a long and successful journey to India, and to him we owe the first detailed account of the province of Khotan, which was at this period an important centre of Buddhism.

In the middle of the fifth century, not long after the journey of Fa-hien, the reigning member of the Toba Wei dynasty of China despatched an envoy to Po-sz, as Persia was then termed. The Persian monarch sent a return mission with a gift of trained elephants, which the independent Prince of Khotan detained, but in the end released. In all, ten missions are recorded as passing between Northern China and Persia, between 455 and 513; and reading between the lines we find clear indications that at this period there was considerable intercourse between China and Persia vie Khotan.

In 509, envoys from Khotan presented themselves at the Chinese Court bearing tribute. In the annals they are described as follows: “The people are Buddhists, and their women are in society as amongst other nations. They braid the hair into long plaits, and wear pelisses and loose trousers. The people are very ceremonious and polite, and curtsey on meeting, by bending one knee’ to the ground.” Except that Buddhism has given place to Islam, this description, generally speaking, stands good at the present time.

The next great wave of invasion was that of the Juan Juan, a tribe newly appearing on the stage of Manchuria. Gathering Turks and Mongols to their banners, the Juan Juan destroyed the Hiong-Nu, who were probably weakened by emigrations westward, and about 460 swept across Chinese Turkestan like a devastating tornado, without making any attempt at permanent conquest. The Hoa or White Huns, a vassal tribe, subsequently threw off their allegiance to the Juan Juan and founded an empire on the ruins of that of the Yue-Chi, embracing most of Chinese Turkestan to the east, but having its centre in the middle Oxus, whence for many generations it seriously threatened the existence of the Persian Empire.

In the middle of the sixth century the empire of the “ White Huns” in its turn succumbed to the attack of the Western Turks, the Tu-chueh of the Chinese, who were organized in a confederacy of ten tribes. From the centre of this new power, which lay in the rich valleys to the north of the Tian Shan, the Paramount Chiefs ruled over a vast empire, leaving the states subject to their sway to be governed by their hereditary rulers, under the control of Turkish collectors of tribute.

Such was the state of the province we are dealing with when the great traveller Hiuen Tsiang passed through the empire of the Western Turks in 630. His meeting with the Paramount Chief is described by his biographer. In that very year this chief was assassinated. His death was a signal for the breakup of the confederacy of the ten tribes, and for Chinese Turkestan it was the end of a well-defined period.

A new epoch opened with the establishment of the Tang dynasty in China early in the seventh century, and during the reign of its founder the invasions of the Northern Turks made him in the first instance seek the help of the Western Turks. The Chinese dynasty, however, rapidly became strong, and the year 630 not only marked the downfall of the Western but also the subjugation of the Northern Turks, and China once again found herself in a position to recover her lost western provinces. With this end in view a Chinese army crossed the great desert in 640 and occupied Turfan, and later on Karashahr and Kucha. The King of Khotan, presumably alarmed by these successes, returned to his allegiance, the tradition of which had probably not been forgotten, and the annexation of the entire province to China was secured in 658 by a victory won on the banks of the Ili over the revolted Paramount Chief. By this final triumph the existence of the Western Turks as a power came to an end, and China succeeded to their vast empire, which extended southwards across the Hindu Kush to Kabul and westwards to the borders of Persia.

At this period Chinese Turkestan was known as the “ Four Garrisons,” the reference being to the forces stationed at Kucha, Khotan, Karashahr and Kashgar, because Chinese power was based on this quadrilateral. Not that it remained unchallenged ; for the Tibetans seized the province in 670 and retained possession of it until 692, when the Chinese reoccupied it in force.

The consolidation of Chinese dominion in the west opened the way for the almost simultaneous introduction of Christianity and Zoroastrianism into China and Chinese Turkestan. The first Nestorian missionary reached China with sacred books and images in 635; and Yule* shows how the Nestorian sees of China formed part of a wide-spreading ecclesiastical system controlled by the Patriarchal see in Persia. The recent discovery of Nestorian cemeteries west of the Issik Kul, with dates ranging from 858 to 1339, throws interesting light on the fact that Kashgar is shown as a Nestorian see in the middle of the thirteenth century. In 621, a few years before the introduction of Christianity, the first Fire Temple was erected in China, and we learn from Chavannes that the Zoroastrian cult existed at Kashgar, Khotan and Samarcand.

A new and bewildering factor had now to be reckoned with in the rise of Islam; for its conquering spirit, which so profoundly affected the Near and Middle East and Northern Africa, even approached the confines of the distant Chinese empire. Yezdigird III, the last Persian monarch of the Sasanian dynasty, implored China for aid against the invading Arabs, but received the reply that Persia was too distant for help to be sent. Subsequently a son of the hapless Sasanian took refuge with the Chinese, but his attempt to win back the throne of his ancestors failed utterly. In 655, three years after the murder of Yezdigird at Merv, the Arabs despatched an embassy to China and thus opened up direct communication with the Celestial Empire, whose frontier officials must have watched their advance with apprehension.

The great Arab conqueror of Central Asia was Kutayba ibn Muslim, who made his headquarters at Merv, and, in a series of campaigns waged for a decade, subdued Bokhara, Samarcand and Farghana. About 715 he actually raided as far as Kashgar, described by the Arab historian as “ a city near the Chinese frontier.” A curious legend of this campaign has been preserved, according to which Kutayba swore to take possession of the soil of China, and the ruler enabled him to fulfil his oath by the gift of a load of soil to trample on, a bag of Chinese money to symbolize tribute, and four youths to be stamped with his seal. Two years later the Arabs and Tibetans, taking advantage of the rebellion of the Western Turks, again penetrated into the “ Four Garrisons.” This was the farthest east reached by the Arab armies, and the exploit is a signal proof of their marvellous initiative and warlike prowess.

Based on their garrison in Chinese Turkestan, the Chinese mainly devoted their energies to preventing the Tibetans from stretching out their hands to the Arabs through Gilgit and Yasin, in which districts the Celestials built forts; and we read of more than one campaign successfully conducted in these icebound highlands in pursuance of this policy. But the power of China in this distant province was short-lived. One of her generals, who had successfully conducted two campaigns to the south of the Hindu Kush, treacherously seized and put to death the tributary King of Tashkent. Under this king's son the country rose, the Arabs were called in, and the

Chinese, owing to the defection of their native allies, were annihilated. A few years later internal troubles broke out in China, and the Tibetans, taking full advantage of them, overran the province of Kansu and interrupted communications with the heart of the Empire. About this time, too, in 751, a Chinese army 30,000 strong was annihilated in the Gobi.

The deserted officials with consummate skill maintained Chinese authority for a whole generation after being thus cut off from China, as the Chinese traveller Wu Kung testifies. Returning home by way of the *“ Four Garrisons ”’ after a long residence in India, he reached Kashgar in 786 ; and, remaining in the province for a considerable period, noted that everywhere he found Chinese governors. By 791, however, the Tibetans had destroyed this paper government, and their own, which took its place, and at one time even threatened their old allies the Arabs, lasted until, in turn, it was broken by the Uighurs. The complete disappearance of China from the scene marks the end of another period in the history of the province.

The Uighurs, whose ancestors claimed descent from the Huns, originally lived in north-west Mongolia and, when they were expelled by the Hakas from their homeland, two of their sections founded states in the eastern Tian Shan. A third section, with which we are more especially concerned, broke the power of the Tibetans about 860 and became the masters of Kashgar, although Khotan remained independent for some years. The rulers of this section of the Uighurs—known also ag the Karluks or Karakhani—were termed the Ilak Khans, and the part they played on the stage of Central Asia was important, The career of these Uighurs was chequered, as in 840 Karakoram, their capital, was captured by the Kirghiz and their Paramount Chief was killed. This led to the dispersal of the tribe but not to its downfall, as Bishbaligh, the modern Urumchi, was occupied about this period and remained one of their chief centres for many centuries. They held sway under the designation of the Arslan or ““ Lion ” Khans for many generations, and in the notices of the various embassies exchanged with China there is evidence that a comparatively high stage of civilization was reached in the country. Indeed their culture influenced Central Asia more than that of any other race, the script of the Mongols being adopted from the Uighurs, who in their turn had learnt it from the Manichaeans, or perhaps from the Nestorians.

The remarkable growth of the Persian creed of Manichaeism in Central Asia is closely connected with the Uighurs, whose chief became a convert to this faith in the eighth century. Among the manuscripts discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in the course of his excavations is a book of their omens, which makes curious reading : “ A gambler staked his son and his servants. He went away after having won the hazardous game. Without losing his son and his servants, he won again ninety stray sheep. His son and his attendants all rejoice. Know ye this. This is good.” And again: “An old ox was being eaten by ants, by their gnawing around its body. It stands without being able to move. Know ye this. This is bad.” Manichaeans took part in the Uighur embassy gent to China in 806 and their religion existed in Chinese Turkestan until the thirteenth century.

The movement in favour of conversion to Islam began in Chinese Turkestan in the middle of the tenth century of our era, Boghra! Khan, a scion of the Karluk stock, being the first convert. The legend, as given in the fantastic hagiology known as the Tazkirat or “ Chronicles of Boghra,” runs that the young Satok Boghra Khan, at the age of twelve, was secretly converted by a certain Abu Nasr, Samani. His stepfather, who was the reigning monarch, suspected this, and, in order to test his fidelity to the old religion, invited him to help in laying the foundation-stone of a new idol-temple. In despair the young prince sought the advice of Abu Nasr, who replied that, if he worked with the intention of building a mosque, he would obtain merit in the presence of Allah and be delivered from the evil designs of the infidels. Having escaped this danger, the young convert decided to make an end of his stepfather, and breaking into his apartment by night, he awoke him, being unwilling to kill a sleeping man. The monarch refused to accept Islam at the point of his nephew’s sword, but upon the prayer of Satok the earth opened and swallowed up the infidel, whose fate resembled that of Korah. As the chronicle runs: “The earth devoured Harun Boghra Khan, and he was not.”

Batok Boghra Khan enjoyed considerable power and captured Bokhara. His last campaign was undertaken against Turfan, where in 993 he fell ill and whence he was carried back, a dying man, to Kashgar. His son and successor, Hasan, is known to history as having ended the Samanid dynasty by the capture of Abdul Malik. In Chinese Turkestan he is still better known for having waged a desperate campaign with the “infidel” Prince of Khotan, whom he defeated ; not, however, without first suffering a disaster, in which Ali Arslan, his nephew and the Kashgar champion, was killed. The body of the latter is buried on the field of battle at Ordam Padshah, to the east of Yangi Hissar, but his head is preserved at a shrine in the Dolat Bagh, near Kashgar. A few years later both Hasan and his brother were killed by the Princes of Khotan, but this province, after a series of campaigns lasting twenty-four years, was ultimately annexed to Kashgar. From this period what we now call Chinese Turkestan was definitely occupied by the Turks. Turki became the universal language ; and Grenard aptly draws attention to the fact that the oldest Kashgar book which has reached us, and which dates from 1068, is written in a pure Turki dialect.

In 1125 a new dynasty made its appearance in the Tarim basin. Yelui Tashi, a near relation of the head of the Kara Khitai or Leao dynasty of China, realizing that his position in the homeland was hopeless in view of the military superiority of the Nuchens, who subsequently founded the Kin dynasty, decided in that year to seek his fortune elsewhere. Collecting a force in Shensi, he marched into the valley of the Tarim and annexed it, thereby ending the dynasty of the Ilak Khans. He next invaded Western Turkestan, upon which he imposed an annual tribute of 20,000 pieces of gold, and later he assumed the title of Gur Khan or ‘Universal Lord.” He died in 1136. His successor, in alliance with Atsiz of Khwarazm or Khiva, inflicted a crushing defeat on the great Seljuk, Sultan Sanjar, in 1141. The Seljuk losses were estimated at one hundred thousand, and the Kara Khitai temporarily occupied Merv and Nishapur.

It is of special interest, as illustrating the wide range of S8adi’s travels, to note that the great Persian poet visited Kashgar at this period. He commences one of his stories as follows: ‘In a certain year Mohamed Khwarazm Shah, for some good reason, chose to make peace with Cathay. I entered the chief mosque of Kashgar and saw a boy with beauty of the most perfect symmetry,” etc.

1 There is considerable uncertainty about this date, which good authorities give as some decades earlier. In 1200 the tables were turned on the Gur Khun by Mohamed of Khwarazm, who was joined by Guchluk son of the Naiman chief whose defeat by Chengiz is recounted in the next chapter. Escaping from the field, he arrived, after great privations, at the court of the Gur Khan, where he was treated kindly, received a daughter of the monarch in marriage, and was converted to Buddhism. But, with base ingratitude, he gradually collected a force of his tribesmen, and with Mohamed of Khwarazm and the Prince of Samarcand formed a plot against his benefactor. The nefarious scheme was successful, and by 1212 the Gur Khan was a prisoner, and the usurper ruled over the Tarim basin. During the few years of his power he persecuted the followers of Islam and massacred the mullas at Khotan, hanging their leader head downwards from a tree in front of the chief mosque. But the reign of this detestable traitor was short, and the avenger of the Gur Khan was at hand.