Farming and Taxes in Gaochang

Gaochang lay in the Turfan basin, a hot and stony country with almost no rain. It lived from irrigated fields. The Chinese histories of the sixth and seventh centuries describe a state that grew its grain on the oasis, kept a field office in every town and levied taxes in money and cloth.^[1]

Land and harvests

The Zhou Shu says that Gaochang was a land of sand and gravel with a warm climate. Grain and wheat ripened twice a year. The oasis suited the silkworm and grew many fruits.^[2] The Sui Shu repeats the sentence.^[3] The Jiu Tang Shu calls the soil good and fertile and gives the same double harvest.^[4] The Xin Tang Shu says that the soil was rich and that wheat and millet both ripened twice.^[5]

The Liang Shu describes the country in the first half of the sixth century. The land was high and dry. The people built their towns of pounded earth and their houses of timber roofed with earth. They planted the nine grains and ate parched flour, mutton and beef.^[6] The land gave good horses, grape wine and rock salt.^[6] The Sui Shu adds red salt like cinnabar and white salt like jade, and much grape wine. It also names a thorny plant, yangci, on which honey formed.^[7]

In the years of Datong, between 535 and 546, the king Qu Zijian sent the Liang court gifts that show the produce of the oasis.^[6] They were pillows of singing salt, grapes, good horses and rugs.^[6] The Tang histories add the cotton plant, called baidie. See Baidie Cotton.^[8]

The offices of the towns

The Zhou Shu gives the offices of the king’s court. Below the chief minister stood two dukes, both sons of the king. One was the Duke of Jiaohe and the other the Duke of Tiandi. Eight chief secretaries followed, among them those of the storehouse, the granary and the people.^[2] The Zhou Shu then says that every town had its own household office, water office and field office, and that the king sent a sima and a shilang to each town to inspect it. The pair was called the city magistrate.^[2]

The Zhou Shu gives no further detail on how the water and field offices worked.^[2] The offices show that the state gave a bureau to water and to fields. They fit a country that lived from canals.

Taxes

The Zhou Shu says that taxes were counted in silver coin. Those who had none paid in hemp cloth.^[2] The Sui Shu notes that Gaochang’s flocks and horses were pastured in hidden and out-of-the-way places so as to escape raiders. Only the nobles knew where they were.^[3]

The Sui Shu also records a toll that went outside the state. The king Qu Boya had earlier been a subject of the Tiele, and the Tiele kept a high official at Gaochang at all times. When foreign merchants came and went, this official taxed them and sent the tax to the Tiele.^[3] In the winter of 612 Qu Boya came home from the Sui court and ordered his people to undo their braids and take up Chinese dress.^[3] The Sui Shu says that in the end he feared the Tiele and did not dare to make the change.^[3] In 590 the Göktürks broke four towns of Gaochang.^[3] Two thousand of its people went over to China.^[3]

After 840

The oasis lived on under the Uyghurs of Qocho. A Song envoy travelled there between 981 and 984.^[9] He found a river that ran down from the mountains, circled the capital, watered the fields and orchards and drove water mills. Five grains grew there, and only buckwheat did not. There was no rain or snow, and in the summer heat the people dug hollows in the ground to live in.^[10]

Sources

Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83
Liang Shu, juan 54
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 198
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 221 (after Jiu Tangshu)

Literature

Özkan İzgi, Çin Elçisi Wang Yen-te'nin Uygur Seyahatnamesi (1989)

What links here1

Institutions and Titles: The Economy of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Farming and Taxes in Gaochang.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/gaochang-farming-and-taxes/

Last revised: 7 November 2026