The Ten Steeds of 647

In the eighth month of 647 the Kurykan, whom the Tang histories call Gulikan, sent an embassy to the Tang court.^[1] They brought horses.^[1] The Tongdian counts ten horses.^[2] The Cefu Yuangui says that the ten were especially fine, and that the emperor marvelled at them.^[3] The emperor Taizong gave each horse a name and called the group the Ten Steeds.^[4]

The people and their horses

The Kurykan lived north of the Uyghurs, beyond the Hanhai desert. Two chiefs with the title irkin ruled them together.^[2] The Tongdian counts 4,500 fighting men, and the Xin Tang Shu counts 5,000.^[5] Their pastures were rich in lily grass.^[5]

The Chinese describe the horses of the country in the same words. The head was like that of a camel, and the bones and sinews were thick and strong.^[5] The best of them ran several hundred li in a day.^[5]

The Kurykan were the most distant of the Tiele peoples from China.^[6] The Chinese record that in their country the day was long and the night short. After sunset, they say, a sheep’s shoulder blade was hardly cooked before the sun rose again.^[7]

The embassy

The Jiu Tang Shu and the Zizhi Tongjian date the embassy to the day xinwei of the eighth month.^[1] The Xin Tang Shu says that the great chief, the irkin, offered horses through his envoys. The emperor chose the most unusual and named them.^[8] He sent the general Kang Sumi to answer the envoys with thanks, and he gave them rich gifts.^[9]

The Cefu Yuangui and the Xin Tang Shu give the ten names.^[4] The first part of each name is a phrase. The last character is a word for the horse or its coat, and it is kept in Chinese below.

Tengshuang bai, “Rising Frost”.
Jiaoxue cong, “Bright Snow”.
Ninglu cong, “Congealed Dew”.
Xuanguang cong, “Hanging Light”.
Juebo hui, “Cleaving Waves”.
Feixia piao, “Flying Rosy Clouds”.
Fadian chi, “Flashing Lightning”.
Liujin, “Flowing Gold”.
Xianglin zi, “Soaring Qilin”.
Benhong chi, “Racing Rainbow”.

The last character of the eighth name is not legible in the text of either history that is available here.

The prefecture

Later in the same month the emperor made the Kurykan country the prefecture of Xuanque and appointed their irkin its prefect.^[6] In the twelfth month of 647 the Dubo sent envoys to the court.^[3] The Cefu Yuangui says that they had heard that the Kurykan had made contact with the court.^[3] The embassy follows the submission of the Tiele tribes after the fall of the Xueyantuo, which is told in The Wine Fountain banquet.

In the years of Longshuo (661 to 663) the prefecture was renamed Yuwu and placed under the governor-generalship of Hanhai.^[8] The Kurykan came to court again in the seventh month of 694.^[3]

Gaps in the sources

The sources do not say what the Kurykan received for the horses beyond “rich gifts”. They do not describe the horses’ breed or their size in numbers, and they say nothing of how the horses were brought south.