Aksu

Aksu is the modern name of the oasis that the Han Shu calls Gumo, 姑墨.^[1] It lay on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin, west of Kucha and east of Kashgar.^[2]

Gumo in the Han Shu

The Han Shu gives Gumo a seat at the South City. The state had 2,200 households, 24,500 people and 4,500 men under arms.^[3] It lay 670 li west of Kucha and bordered the Wusun on the north.^[3] The ride south to Khotan took fifteen days.^[3] The Han Shu says that Gumo produced copper, iron and orpiment.^[3] Its neighbour Wensu had 2,200 households and shared the land and the products of Shanshan and the other states of the south.^[3]

Some scholars put the residence of Gumo at Yangishahr, ten kilometres south of Aksu, because the Han Shu calls it the South City. Earlier readers had placed it at Aksu itself.^[1]

Under Kucha

The Wei Shu counts Gumo among the states that were subject to Kucha. Wensu and Weitou stood in the same relation, and all three lay to the west and north of Kucha.^[4] Under the western Göktürks Kucha was itself a subject state.^[5]

Felt and wool

Xuanzang came to the country after crossing a small desert west of Kucha. He gives its extent as six hundred li from east to west and three hundred from north to south. The capital was five or six li round.^[6] Its soil, climate, customs and script were like those of Kucha, and its speech differed slightly.^[6] The neighbouring states prized the fine felts and fine woollen cloth of the country.^[6] The Xin Tang Shu calls the state small and says that it produced fine felts and woollens. It names the Han state of Gumo as the same country.^[5]

The two reports show a country that made fine cloth from the wool of its herds. The sources do not say whether the felt and the woollens of Baluka reached the Göktürks.^[7]

The road to the north

From Baluka a road led west over a stony desert, three hundred li long, to the Ice Mountain on the northern flank of the Pamirs. Beyond the mountain the road ran on to Suyab, where merchants from many countries lived together.^[7]