Kangju

Kangju lay on the middle Syr Darya and reached the Talas, in the country the Sogdian city-states later occupied. It appears in the Chinese sources from the first Han contact with the west. In the Han Shu it is a great state that did not answer to the Han Protector General.^[1]

In the Shiji

The Shiji describes Kangju as a nomadic state some two thousand li north-west of Dayuan, with the same customs as the Yuezhi and eighty to ninety thousand archers.^[2] The text calls it a small country. Kangju paid homage to the Yuezhi in the south and to the Xiongnu in the east.^[2] Zhang Qian passed through it on his first journey. The king of Dayuan gave him guides to Kangju. Kangju sent him on to the Great Yuezhi.^[2] The route may be explained by the double homage. The king of Dayuan rid himself of the envoy by passing him to a king who owed allegiance to both the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu and now had to choose between them.^[3]

In the Han war against Dayuan, Kangju stood behind the besieged. The nobles of Dayuan threatened the Han general that the relief of Kangju was on its way. Kangju watched the Han army, found it still strong and did not dare to advance.^[2] The king of Yucheng, who had killed the Han envoys, fled to Kangju. When Kangju heard that Dayuan had fallen, Kangju handed him over.^[2]

Zhizhi in Kangju

Kangju’s best-known decision came in the middle of the first century BC. The Wusun repeatedly pressed Kangju hard, and its king reasoned with his nobles. The Xiongnu, he said, were a great state to which the Wusun had always been subject, and Zhizhi was in difficulties outside. If Zhizhi were brought to the eastern border of Kangju and their forces joined, the Wusun could be taken. Then Kangju would be free of the Xiongnu problem for good.^[4]

An embassy went as far as Jiankun to put the plan to Zhizhi. Kangju sent nobles with several thousand camels, asses and horses to fetch him. Zhizhi came west. His people died of the cold on the road, and three thousand of them arrived.^[4] In 36 BC the Han Protector General Gan Yanshou and his deputy Chen Tang raised troops, went into Kangju and killed him there.^[4] This was the deepest recorded Han military operation into Central Asia. Kangju’s invitation had made it necessary.

In the Han Shu

The Han Shu gives Kangju a size the Shiji does not: 120,000 households, 600,000 people and 120,000 men under arms.^[1] The king had a winter seat and a separate summer residence. Five lesser kings with their own towns were subject to him. The country had the same customs as the Great Yuezhi and paid homage to the Xiongnu in the east.^[1] It now bordered Parthia as well as Dayuan.^[1] This may mean that Kangju had come to dominate Sogdiana between the mission of Zhang Qian and the turn of the era. The Hou Han Shu places Sogdiana within the kingdom of Kangju.^[3]

In the reign of Emperor Cheng, Kangju sent a son to attend at the Han court and brought tribute.^[1] The Protector General Guo Shun protested in repeated memorials. Kangju was arrogant, he wrote. It would not bow to Han envoys. Its king and nobles ate and drank before they fed the Protector’s officers. “Why then does it send a son to attend? It wants to trade, and its words are a pretence.”^[1] He advised sending the hostage home and ending relations. The Han valued the newly opened contact with distant peoples. They kept Kangju on a loose rein and did not break with it.^[1]

The embassy of the son dates to 11 BC. A commentator records a similar one in 29 BC.^[5] If Kangju then held Sogdiana, these embassies were probably conducted by Sogdian merchants. Long-range Sogdian commerce would then have begun a few decades before the common era, under diplomatic cover.^[3]

Later history

In 227 the hu lords of the Yuezhi and of Kangju in Liangzhou, in the middle of Gansu, vied with each other to be first to receive the army of the Wei.^[6] At that date the hu of Kangju can only have been Sogdians.^[6] Embassies from Kangju came regularly under the Wei. The Jin Shu records one between 265 and 274.^[7] The name survived the state. Kang, an abbreviation of Kangju, became the family name by which Sogdians were known in China. The monk Kang Senghui of the third century is an example.^[8]