Karashahr

Karashahr is the modern name of the oasis that the Chinese call Yanqi, 焉耆.^[1] It lies on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin. Gaochang is nine hundred li to the east, and Kucha is nine hundred li to the west, with sand and gravel between.^[2] The capital stood seventy li south of the White Mountain.^[2] Yanqi was a small settled state that lived from its fields and its lake. In the Göktürk period it served the western khans.

The oasis in Han times

The Han Shu gives Yanqi a seat at the city of Yuanqu, 4,000 households, 32,100 people and 6,000 men under arms. The state stood close to a lake with many fish.^[3] It was one of the three states between which the Xiongnu Commandant of Slaves sat and from which he taxed the oases.^[3] The later seat of the Han Protector lay four hundred li to the southwest, beside the farm colonies of Quli.^[3]

Fields and crops

The Wei Shu and the Zhou Shu describe the state under the northern dynasties. The capital was two li square, and the country held nine cities. The state was small and poor and had no firm rules or laws.^[4] The climate was cold and the soil good. It grew rice, millet, beans and wheat. It kept camels and horses, and the Zhou Shu adds cattle and sheep.^[4]

Xuanzang passed through on his way to India. He found a country six hundred li from east to west and four hundred li from north to south. The capital was six or seven li round, with mountains on four sides, a hard road and an easy defence.^[5] Springs and streams ran in a net through it, and the people led the water into their fields.^[5] The soil suited millet, winter wheat, fragrant jujubes, grapes and pears.^[5] The Xin Tang Shu says the same in fewer words. Channels watered the fields, and the soil suited millet and grapes.^[6] The Jiu Tang Shu also names the vine.^[7]

The Chinese histories add three products. The first is silk without thread. The people kept silkworms, but not to reel silk. They used the cocoons only for floss and padding.^[4] The second is wine. The people preferred grape wine and loved music.^[4] The third is the lake, ten li or more to the south. It gave the country fish, salt, reeds and rushes in plenty.^[8] Xuanzang adds that the state’s money was gold, silver and small copper coins.^[5]

The Hephthalites, the Wei and the granary

The Sui Shu tells that the Hephthalites broke Yanqi. The people could not govern themselves and asked the king of Gaochang, Qu Jia, for a ruler. He sent his second son to be king of Yanqi.^[9]

The Wei Shu records that Wan Dugui, a Wei general, later marched on the state. The king of Yanqi came out with forty or fifty thousand men and was routed. The army sacked the city and took rare goods and herds of camels, horses and cattle in great numbers.^[10] The king fled to Kucha, whose king was his father-in-law, and was well received.^[10] Wan Dugui was ordered to hold and pacify the people.^[10]

In the eleventh year of Zhenjun, 450, the king of Cheshi sent envoys to the Wei court with a petition.^[10] His country had been attacked for eight years, his people were starving, and only a third of them were left. They had fled east and had reached the eastern border of Yanqi.^[10] The Wei court comforted them and opened the granary of Yanqi to feed them.^[10]

Under the western Göktürks

The Xin Tang Shu says that Yanqi had 4,000 households and 2,000 men under arms, and that it had always served the western Göktürks.^[11] When the Tiele raised their own khan in 605, Yanqi went over to him with Gaochang and Yiwu.^[12]

In 632 the king of Yanqi first sent an envoy to the Tang court.^[6] Since the troubles of the Sui, the desert road had been closed, and the states of the west sent their tribute by way of Gaochang. The king asked that the great desert road be opened, and the emperor agreed. Gaochang was angry and raided the border of Yanqi.^[6] In 638 the Chuyue and Chumi tribes and Gaochang took five of the cities of Yanqi and carried off 1,500 people.^[11] The Jiu Tang Shu adds that Gaochang and a western Göktürk shad broke three cities of Yanqi and took men and women captive.^[7]

The end of the state

In the year that Gaochang fell, Qu Lichuo, a minister of the western Göktürks, married his brother to a daughter of the king of Yanqi. The two states were joined as lips and teeth, and Yanqi stopped sending tribute.^[11] Guo Xiaoke, the Tang protector of Anxi, asked leave to attack. He marched with three thousand foot and horse through the Silver Mountain pass, with princes of Yanqi as guides.^[13] The capital was encircled by water and thought itself safe. Guo Xiaoke’s men crossed the water at night and climbed the walls at dawn. The Tang took the king prisoner.^[13]

Qu Lichuo then set a tudun, the western Göktürk governor of a dependent state, to act as king. The emperor answered that he, the emperor, had taken Yanqi and that the tudun had no right to be its king. The tudun took fright and did not dare to rule.^[6] After the Tang had beaten Kucha, it made Yanqi a prefecture under a government general.^[6]

When the khan of the Ten Surnames asked to settle at Suyab in 719, the Anxi military commissioner proposed Yanqi to fill out the four garrisons.^[6] The court then ordered Yanqi, Kucha, Kashgar and Khotan each to levy duties on the merchants of the Western Regions and to live from them. On the northern route, Luntai was to collect the duty.^[6]

The size of the capital

The size of the capital is given three ways. The Wei, Zhou and Sui histories say it was two li square.^[8] Xuanzang says it was six or seven li round.^[5] The Xin Tang Shu says it was thirty li round, with great mountains on four sides and sea water around it.^[6] The sources do not say whether these are three cities, three ways of counting, or the same city at three dates.

Sources

Han Shu, juan 96 (after Shiji)
Wei Shu, juan 102
Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83, 84
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 221 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 198
Record of the Western Regions, juan 1

Literature

Albert Herrmann, Die alten Seidenstrassen zwischen China und Syrien. Beiträge zur alten Geographie Asiens, Bd. 1 (1910)
Heinrich Lüders, Weitere Beiträge zur Geschichte und Geographie von Ostturkestan (1930)