Kesh

Kesh is the Sogdian town that the Chinese call Shi, 史.^[1] It lay in the valley of the Kashka Darya south of Samarkand, at the foot of the road that leads over the mountains to the Iron Gate and to Tokharistan.^[2] The modern town of Shahrisabz is identified with it.^[1]

Location

The Sui Shu puts the capital ten li south of the river Dumo, in the old land of Kangju.^[3] It lay 240 li south of Kang, that is Samarkand, and 500 li north of Tokharistan.^[3] Nasebo lay 200 li to the west and Mi 200 li to the northeast.^[3] The Xin Tang Shu gives the same bearings in other distances. It puts Nasebo 150 li west, Mi 200 li north and Tokharistan 400 li south.^[4] The Tang Huiyao places the country near the north bank of the Dumo, in the same region as Kang.^[5] The sources differ on which side of the river the town stood.^[6]

Xuanzang gives the country a circuit of 1,400 or 1,500 li. Its soil and customs were those of Samarkand.^[7] From the town a road ran two hundred li southwest into the mountains. A mountain road of three hundred li to the southeast led into the Iron Gate.^[7] The Xin Tang Shu describes the pass. Steep cliffs of the colour of iron stood on both sides, and a barrier closed it and divided two countries.^[4]

The land and its people

The Sui Shu gives the town a wall two li square and more than a thousand men under arms. It says that the customs were those of Kang.^[3] The king bore the family name Zhaowu and the courtesy name Dizhe. The Sui Shu calls him a cadet of the royal house of Kang.^[3]

The Xin Tang Shu says that the country had five hundred towns. In the Daye years of the Sui, 605 to 618, Dizhe first sent an embassy to China.^[4] He was then the strongest ruler of the region, and he had built a new town, Qishi, over a land of some thousands of li.^[4] The Tang Huiyao says that the country grew stronger from the Sui on. It adds that the new town of Qishi held more than twenty thousand households.^[5]

The Xin Tang Shu describes the temple of the town. Each sacrifice there took a thousand sheep, and an army prayed there before it set out.^[4] The Tang Huiyao says that the people sacrificed the heads of cattle and sheep.^[5]

Xuanzang writes of the whole country from Suyab to Kesh as Suli, the land of the Sogdians. Its people, he says, lived by gain. Those who tilled the ground and those who sought profit were about equal in number.^[7]^[8] The Sogdians of China who bore the surname Shi took it from the town.^[1]

Under the Göktürks and the Tang

The Xin Tang Shu says that the dozens of towns west of Suyab each had their own lord and were subject to the Göktürks. It adds that from Suyab to Kesh the people wore felt, wool and fur.^[4]

In 642 the lord of Shi sent goods to the Tang court.^[9] In 658 the Tang made the country the prefecture of Qusha and its king the prefect.^[9] In 727 the king sent dancing women and a leopard, and in the years of Tianbao the court renamed the country the Kingdom of Laiwei.^[9]