Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

After the fall of the khaganate in 840, several Uyghur groups fled to China and Tibet. New polities grew from these groups and from tribes of their union.^[1] One of them lay at Ganzhou in the Gansu corridor. By 902 it stood under the rule of the Yaglakar.^[2] Its Uyghurs could no longer interfere in Chinese affairs as their forebears had. By contrast, they gained control of the main caravan routes to the west. The collapse of the Tang and the Five Dynasties that followed helped them.^[2] They sent horses, camels, jade, amber and woollen goods to the Chinese courts. In return they received silk.^[3] The Tangut state, which rose after 982, attacked their caravans. After several failed assaults, it took the capital in 1028. The Uyghur khagan, who bore the clan name Yaglakar, killed himself.^[4] The other Uyghur lands of the corridor, among them Sha-chou (Dunhuang), fell in 1036. The Yellow Uyghurs of Gansu descend from the people of this state.^[5]

The groups that reached Gansu came by different routes. In one account, fifteen tribes of the Uyghurs fled west in 840 to the Karluks.^[6] One group of them went on to the Tibetans and then settled in the Gansu region. It founded a small kingdom there, which always kept friendly relations with China.^[7]

In 923 the khagan Renmei made an agreement with China against the Tibetans, who threatened the Uyghurs.^[8] When Renmei died in 924, his youngest brother Tegin became khagan.^[8] Disturbances among the Uyghurs followed between 924 and 928.^[8] After 933 the Uyghurs fought wars against the Tibetans, who had begun to rob their caravans.^[8] In the tenth century, according to one account, the Khitan ruler Abaoji came to Mongolia in a campaign to the Orkhon and visited the ruins of the Uyghur capital. He invited the Uyghur ruler of Ganzhou to return to the old homeland. The Uyghurs declined. Their habituation to an agricultural and urban life may explain the refusal.^[9]

Chinese notices of the tenth century name goods that the Uyghurs sent to the court, among them borax and sal ammoniac in 932, and jade and sal ammoniac in 959.^[10]^[11]^[12] The notices name the Uyghurs without a place. The senders were most probably those of Ganzhou. Other notices credit the Uyghurs with vine and wine, and with coriander among the plants they sowed. They do not say which Uyghur land they mean.^[13]

References

^ Golden 1992, p. 163
^ a b c d Golden 1992, p. 165
^ Golden 1992, p. 166
^ Golden 1992, p. 166,167
^ a b c d e f Golden 1992, p. 167
^ İzgi 1989, p. 25
^ Sümer 1972, p. 22
^ a b c d İzgi 1989, p. 28
^ Khazanov 1994, p. 199
^ Cefu yuangui
^ al. 974
^ Laufer 1919, p. 506
^ Laufer 1919, p. 223,298
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 175

Sources

Cefu yuangui (after Tongdian and Jiu Tangshu)

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)
Xue Juzheng 薛居正 et al., 舊五代史 Jiù Wǔdàishǐ (974)
Özkan İzgi, Çin Elçisi Wang Yen-te'nin Uygur Seyahatnamesi (1989)
Faruk Sümer, Oğuzlar (Türkmenler). Tarihleri, boy teşkilâtı, destanları (1972)
Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (1994)