Tang Campaign Against Kucha
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The Tang campaign against Kucha was a military campaign led by the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
general Ashina She'er against the
Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...
oasis state of
Kucha Kucha or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; , Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; ) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklam ...
in
Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...
, which was aligned with the
Western Turkic Khaganate The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate () was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after the split of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded in the 6th century o ...
. The campaign began in 648 and ended on 19 January 649, after the surrender of the Kuchan forces following a forty-day siege in Aksu. Kuchean soldiers tried to recapture the kingdom with the assistance of the
Western Turkic Khaganate The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate () was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after the split of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded in the 6th century o ...
, but were defeated by the Tang army.


Background

Kucha, a kingdom in the
Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...
, was a vassal of the
Western Turkic Khaganate The Western Turkic Khaganate () or Onoq Khaganate () was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century (593–603 CE) after the split of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded in the 6th century o ...
. Under the reign of Emperor Gaozu, the king Suvarnapushpa ( Chinese: 苏伐勃𫘝 ''Sufaboshi'') provided the Tang court with tribute in 618. In 630, Suvarnapushpa's successor Suvarnadeva (Chinese: Sufadie) submitted to the Tang as a vassal. A Buddhist of the
Hinayana Hīnayāna is a Sanskrit term that was at one time applied collectively to the '' Śrāvakayāna'' and '' Pratyekabuddhayāna'' paths of Buddhism. This term appeared around the first or second century. The Hīnayāna is considered as the prelim ...
sect, Suvarnadeva had hosted the Buddhist monk
Xuanzang Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making ...
when he arrived in Kucha during the same year. Kucha supported
Karasahr Karasahr or Karashar (), which was originally known in the Tocharian languages as ''Ārśi'' (or Arshi), Qarašähär, or Agni or the Chinese derivative Yanqi ( zh, s=焉耆, p=Yānqí, w=Yen-ch'i), is an ancient town on the Silk Road and the capi ...
when the oasis state made a marriage alliance with the Western Turks and ended its tributary relationship with the Tang court in 644. The king of Kucha, Suvarnadeva, renounced Tang suzerainty and allied with the Western Turks. Emperor Taizong responded by dispatching a
military campaign A military campaign is large-scale long-duration significant military strategy plan incorporating a series of interrelated military operations or battles forming a distinct part of a larger conflict often called a war. The term derives from th ...
led by the general Guo Xiaoke against Karasahr. Karasahr was besieged in 644 by Guo. Tang forces defeated the kingdom, captured the king, and a pro-Tang member of the royal family was enthroned as ruler. The new king was deposed by the Western Turks soon afterwards, and the Western Turks regained suzerainty over Karasahr. Suvarnadeva died between 646 and 648, and his brother Haripushpa (Chinese: Helibushibi) inherited the throne as Kucha's king. Although Haripushpa sent two tribute embassies to the Tang court, Tang Taizong had already decided to punish Kucha's pro-Turk stance by launching an expedition against the kingdom. In 646 Irbis Seguy of the Western Turks sought a Chinese princess for his bride. In return, Taizong asked for several Tarim Basin cities. Ibris' refusal was one of the pretexts for the war.Baumer, History of Central Asia, vol 2, 205 Most of the Tang expeditionary army was made up of 100,000 cavalry supplied by the Tang empire's Tiele allies. The commander-in-chief of the Tang expeditionary army, Ashina She'er, was a member of the
Eastern Turkic Khaganate The Eastern Turkic Khaganate ( zh, t=東突厥, p=Dōng Tūjué or Dōng Tújué) was a Turkic khaganate formed as a result of the internecine wars in the beginning of the 7th century (AD 581–603) after the First Turkic Khaganate (found ...
ruling family. He joined the Tang forces after his surrender in 635, and served as a general leading a campaign against Karakhoja. His familiarity with the region as a former Turkic ruler contributed to his success commanding the campaigns against Kucha and Karasahr. Prior to his recruitment as a Tang general, he reigned for five years between 630 and 635, governing the city of Beshbalik in the Dzungarian Basin. Ashina She'er's deputy commanders were Qibi Heli (a Tiele chieftain who had also become a Tang general) and Guo Xiaoke.


Campaign

Ashina She'er's soldiers were organized in five
columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...
. The Tang army bypassed Karasahr and struck at Kucha from the north by moving through the Dzungarian Basin, which was the territory of the Chuyue (possibly Chigil) and Chumi, two Turkic tribes allied with the oasis state. The Tang army defeated the Chuyue and Chumi before entering the Tarim Basin, upon which the king of Karasahr fled his capital city and tried to find a defensible position in Kucha's eastern territories. Ashina She'er's forces pursued the Karasahr king, took him captive, and then executed him. The forces defending Kucha, consisting of 50,000 soldiers, were lured and ambushed by Ashina. They chased after a group of 1,000 horsemen employed by Ashina as a decoy, but encountered additional Tang forces that mounted a surprise attack. The Kuchean forces were defeated and retreated to Aksu, a nearby kingdom in the Tarim Basin. Ashina captured the king following a forty-day
siege A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...
, ending with the surrender of the Kucha forces on 19 January 649. One of Ashina's officers, acting as a diplomat, persuaded the chieftains of the region to surrender instead of fighting back. Guo Xiaoke, who had led the first Tang campaign against Karasahr in 644, was installed in Kucha as protector-general of the
Anxi Protectorate The Protectorate General to Pacify the West (Anxi Grand Protectorate), initially the Protectorate to Pacify the West (Anxi Protectorate), was a Protectorate (imperial China), protectorate (640 – ) established by the Chinese Tang dynasty in 640 ...
, or the Protectorate of the Pacified West. The headquarters of the protector-general was thus moved from its original location in
Gaochang Gaochang (; Old Uyghur: ''Qocho''), also called Khocho, Karakhoja, Qara-hoja, Kara-Khoja or Karahoja (قاراغوجا in Uyghur), was an ancient oasis city on the northern rim of the inhospitable Taklamakan Desert in present-day Sanbu Town ...
to Kucha. While Ashina was in pursuit of the Kuchean king, Nali, a Kuchean lord, traveled to request the help of the Western Turks. Guo was assassinated after the Kuchean soldiers retook the kingdom with the military assistance of the Western Turks. Ashina returned to Kucha, captured five of the kingdom's cities, and forced the remaining cities to surrender. Tang control was re-established in the oasis state. The brother of the former king, a yabgu or viceroy, was enthroned by the Chinese as a subject of the Tang empire. The king of Kucha, Haripushpa, was taken to the Tang capital as a prisoner. Execution was the punishment of rebellion in accordance with Tang law. The king was pardoned by Taizong and released after a ritual venerating the emperor's ancestors. He was also named Great Army Commander for the Militant Guards of the Left, a title he received from the emperor.


Aftermath

In retribution for the death of Guo Xiaoke, Ashina She'er ordered the execution of eleven thousand Kuchean inhabitants by decapitation. It was recorded that "he destroyed five great towns and with them many myriads of men and women... the lands of the west were seized with terror." After Kucha's defeat, Ashina dispatched a small force of light cavalry led by the lieutenant Xue Wanbei to Khotan, ruled by the king Yuchi Fushexin. The threat of an invasion persuaded the king to visit the Tang court in person. The Tang expeditionary army replaced Haripushpa with his younger brother (the "yabgu"), erected an inscribed stele to commemorate its victory, and returned to Chang’an with Haripushpa, Nali, and Kucha's top general as captives. All three men were given sinecures and kept at the imperial court until 650, when they were sent back to Kucha after it became clear that the vacuum of power created by their absence had reduced the kingdom to a state of civil war and anarchy. The Kucha expedition also killed the pro-Turk king of Karasahr and replaced him with a cousin, but there is no evidence that a Tang military garrison was stationed in Karasahr between 648 and 658. Likewise, the Khotan king's coerced trip to Chang'an does not seem to have resulted in a Tang garrison being sent to Khotan. It has long been claimed that the conquest of Kucha established Tang rule over the entire Tarim Basin. This is in part due to a number of inaccurate Chinese sources linking the expedition to the establishment of the Four Garrisons of Anxi, which comprised Kucha, Karasahr, Khotan, and Kashgar. However, Zhang Guangda has used excavated texts from
Gaochang Gaochang (; Old Uyghur: ''Qocho''), also called Khocho, Karakhoja, Qara-hoja, Kara-Khoja or Karahoja (قاراغوجا in Uyghur), was an ancient oasis city on the northern rim of the inhospitable Taklamakan Desert in present-day Sanbu Town ...
(Karakhoja or Turfan) to show that the Tang abandoned the attempt to move the headquarters of the Protectorate of the Pacified West to Kucha after Guo Xiaoke's assassination. Instead the headquarters returned to Gaochang until 658, when it was moved back to Kucha following a Tang army's suppression of a local pro-Turk revolt against Haripushpa (who died from an illness during the revolt). The Tang only gained a loose suzerainty over the Tarim Basin states in 649, and did not establish military garrisons in the Tarim Basin. Most of the Tarim Basin states transferred their vassalage to the new Western Turk qaghan, Ashina Helu, in 651, reflecting the fact that they regarded the Western Turks as their traditional overlords. The establishment of the Four Garrisons, and with them a formal Tang military protectorate over the Tarim Basin, should be dated to 658 (after Ashina Helu's defeat) or even to 660, since Kashgar remained allied with the Western Turk leader Duman until Duman's defeat in later 659. It has also been claimed that the fall of Kucha led to the decline of Indo-European culture in the Tarim Basin and its replacement by first Chinese and then Turkic culture. In fact, the opposite is true. Kuchean culture flourished during the seventh and eighth centuries and Kuchean music was popular in the Tang capital, in part due to the movement of Kuchean musicians to the Tang court. The Turkicization of the Tarim Basin is a later development that came after the end of the Tang dynasty and had no relation to the earlier Tang protectorate in the Tarim Basin. After 649, the Tang dynasty continued their war against the Western Turks under the reign of Emperor Gaozong, Taizong's successor. Gaozong conducted a campaign led by general Su Dingfang against the Western Turk qaghan, Ashina Helu in 657. The qaghan surrendered, the Western Turks were defeated, and the khaganate's former territories were annexed by the Tang. The Tang retreated from beyond the
Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a Mountain range, range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya ...
in modern
Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...
and
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
after a Turkic revolt in 662, and lost the Tarim Basin to local revolts and Tibetan incursions in 665–670. The Tang regained the Tarim Basin in 692 and again lost it to the Tibetans in the 790s, the Four Garrisons having already been cut off from the rest of the Tang empire by a Tibetan conquest of the Gansu Corridor. Although the Tibetan empire collapsed in the middle of the ninth century, the Tang dynasty lacked the means to regain dominance in the Tarim Basin and itself ended in 907 with the abdication of Emperor Ai.


See also

* Turks in the Tang military


References


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * {{Tang dynasty topics Wars involving the Tang dynasty Battles involving the Tang dynasty History of the Chinese in Central Asia Military history of the Göktürks 648 640s conflicts 7th century in Xinjiang 7th century in China 649 Emperor Taizong of Tang