Before 1864, there was no concept of the outer northwest, and it and the Xinjiang region of China today were collectively called the Western Regions. After 1864, with a series of unequal treaties, the area around Jaisanpo, the Seven Rivers Valley south of Lake Balkhash, the area around Lake Issyk-Issyk-Kul, and most of the Pamir Plateau were ceded to Tsarist Russia. Later, this part of the country that was cut off was called the "Outer Northwest".
Today's outer northwest, which includes all of Kazakhstan's Almaty Oblast, part of East Kazakhstan Oblast and a small part of Jambul Oblast, as well as most of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, covers an area of about 540,000 square kilometers.
In the last article, I have shared with you that with the advent of the Tang Dynasty, a vast area, including the outer northwest, was re-incorporated into the territory of the Tang Empire, and belonged to the Anxi Capital Protectorate and the Beiting Capital Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty. The sound of the Tang Dynasty soldiers' jingo iron horses reverberated on the grassland desert; the afterglow of the sunset shone on the body of the silk ancient road camel caravan, leaving a long shadow...
However, with the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, the lives of the Central Plains were destroyed and they were in ruins. In order to quell the rebellion, the elite Anxi army was heavily transferred internally, resulting in hexi being attacked by Tubo, and the remaining soldiers of Anxi and Beiting capitals were also trapped in the Jedi. Since then, the Western Regions, including the Outer Northwest, have gradually moved towards their own development trajectory, and have gradually drifted away from the Central Plains Dynasty. It was not until 1758, after the Qing Dynasty pacified the Dzungar Khanate, that the region returned to the embrace of its mother. This distinction is almost a thousand years!
01 Datang Enclave
In 755, the Anshi Rebellion broke out, and a large number of elite soldiers from the frontier areas entered Guanguan to suppress the rebellion, and the Anxi soldiers formed the "Anxi Xing Battalion" and helped the Tang to recover the two capitals. However, due to the internal transfer of most of the garrisons in Anxi, Beiting and Hexi and Longyou, Tubo took the opportunity to occupy Longyou and Hexi, so the passage between The Protectorate of Anxi and Beiting and the Tang Dynasty was interrupted, becoming an enclave of the Tang in the western region.
Tubo has always been the bitter lord of the Tang Empire. It should be said that the Tang Dynasty never instigated the powerful Turkic and Arab Empires, but only faced Tibet, always losing more than winning. Even in 763, Tubo took advantage of Tang's weakness to capture the capital Chang'an, and only withdrew half a month later.
The decline of the Tang Dynasty coincided with the time when Tubo was strong, and Tubo was determined to win the two capital protectorates in a desperate situation. Faced with difficulties, Anxi and Beiting, could only fight back-to-back and fight hard, repelling Tubo's invasion many times.
However, there were some old, weak and disabled soldiers left in both capitals, and the strength of the troops was seriously insufficient, and if they did not contact the interior as soon as possible, they would be in danger of collapse at any time. Therefore, in 781, that is, in the second year of Emperor Dezong of Tang's jianzhong, Guo Xin, who remained behind in the Anxi Capital Protectorate, contacted Li Yuanzhong, the envoy of the Beiting Jiedu, and tried his best to get in touch with the interior.
However, the imperial court felt that the whip was beyond its reach, and only rewarded Guo Xin and Li Yuanzhong, and did not provide substantial assistance in terms of troop strength. In this case, the fate of The Protectorate of Anxi and Beiting was irreversible.
02 finally fell
In 793, at the head of Guizi City, the soldiers of the Anxi Capital Protectorate, who were trapped in the western region, once again repelled the Tubo attack. Exhausted, the soldiers took off their helmets and bulky armor and snuggled up to each other to rest. Amazingly, they were all gray-haired old men, and they all looked to be around seventy years old. It was they, in the thousands of miles of the realm, guarding the last shred of dignity of the Tang Empire.
"Guo Dadu, the army of the Tang Dynasty, can it return to the Western Regions?" The Heavenly Khan of Chang'an, hasn't he forgotten us? ”
"No, one day, Datang's army will return here, it will!"
Three years ago, Li Yuanzhong's Beiting Capital Protectorate was completely destroyed by Tubo, and he and more than 7,000 of his soldiers were killed in battle, and the Anxi Capital Protectorate became the only existence of the Tang in the Western Regions. At this time, the white-haired soldiers led by Guo Xin were engaged in a deadly battle with Tubo in Guizi.
After that, the Anxi Capital Protectorate was isolated by Tubo and completely lost contact with the Tang Dynasty. Khotan, one of the four towns of Anxi, first fell in the sixth year of the Zhen Dynasty, that is, in 790 AD. Some scholars have also deduced that the last fall of Anxi was in the winter of The Third Year (808) of Tang Xianzongyuan.
Consider that from the Anshi Rebellion in 755 AD to the complete fall of the Anxi Capital Protectorate in 808 AD, a full 53 years have passed. For such a long time, nothing new was added to it, except for natural old age and combat attrition. The strong boy who was more than twenty years old at that time is now also the age of white hair. They were old until they could not move their guns or open their bows, and finally they were all martyred.
03 The Rise and Fall of Gelug
At a time when the Tang Empire was in a state of disarray, there was a nation in the present-day Outer Northwest region, and it was Ge Lulu. Ge Lulu originally belonged to Hui, later from Liyehu, and nominally belonged to the Tang Dynasty. After the Tang Dynasty defeated Tuqishi, Ge Lulu gradually replaced Tuqishi and occupied the Western Turkic homeland in the Chu River Valley in the outer northwest, including the famous Shanye City and The City of Qiluosi.
In 751, the famous Battle of Qiluo broke out, and when the fierce battle between the Tang and the Arab Empire was in full swing, Gelulu mutinied on the spot, resulting in the collapse of the Tang army.
After the Outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, most of the elite of the Tang army were transferred into Guannei, and Ge Lulu gradually became stronger, occupying most of the outer northwest. In 789, Ge Lulu joined forces with the Tubo people to defeat the Hui people in the Area of Beiting. Not long after, however, the Uighurs marched into the western region and defeated the combined forces of Gelug and the Tubo at Beiting, Guizi, and Bakhana (present-day Fergana, Uzbekistan).
After entering the ninth century, the situation in the Outer Northwest underwent major changes.
04 Qarakhanid Dynasty
In 840, the Uighur Khaganate in northern Mobei was defeated and destroyed by the Uighurs, and the Uighurs left their homeland and began a great escape, the largest of which fell under the leadership of the leader Pang Teqin and defected west to Gelulu. He built his tent near Shanye City in The Upper Chu River at Balashagun (present-day Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan), one of the original four towns of Anxi in the Tang Dynasty, and PonteQin gradually gained a foothold in the Seven Rivers region.
Later, these westward-moving Uighurs, in conjunction with the Gelug and other tribes, established the powerful Qarakhanid Dynasty, also known as the Black Khanate, around the middle of the ninth century, and the founder was said to be Vijaya Khadir Khan. At the beginning of the founding of the country, the Qarakhanid Dynasty, like the previous Turkic Khanates, was also a fairly loose multi-ethnic federation, with a territory limited to the Seven Rivers Region, and later merged into the Ili River Valley, Fergana and Kashgar regions, basically including most of the original Tang Anxi Protectorate and the Beiting Capital Protectorate.
Around 880 AD, after the death of Qadir Khan, the second son divided his people according to the tradition of the double kingship of the steppe nomadic empire.
The eldest son, Bazar, built his capital at Barazagon, and called himself Aslan Qarakhan (meaning Lion Khan), who was the Right Khan; the second son, Ogurchak, built the capital of the city of Qiluosi, and called himself Bugera Qara Khan (meaning Gongtu Khan), as the deputy khan, to whom the area around Kashgar at that time also belonged.
In 893, the Qarakhanids lost the war against the powerful Samanid dynasty in Western Asia, and the vice-capital, Qiluosi, fell, so the capital was moved to the city of Kashgar.
At this time in the East, the Tang Empire, which had lasted for nearly three hundred years, had run out of qi. In 907, the great warlord Zhu Wen deposed the last emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Li Tao, and the Tang Dynasty officially collapsed, and China entered the five dynasties and ten kingdoms of political turmoil. As in the Period of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, because the various regimes in the Central Plains attacked each other and did not have the strength to manage the affairs of the Western Regions, the culture and influence of the Central Plains gradually receded in the Western Regions. So, in the western region, which is in a cultural vacuum, who will fill it?
05 Islamization
In 893 AD, the Samanid Emperor Ismaili bin Mahmud attacked Henglusi, and the Qarakhanid emperor Ogurchak was defeated, killing some 10,000 warriors and capturing his wife and 15,000 men. Ogurchak was forced to move the capital to Kashgar and continue the struggle against the Samanid dynasty.
In accordance with the tradition of the steppe nomadic tribes, Ogurchak took his wife after the death of his brother Bazir and took in his brother's son, who would later become the famous Satuq Bogra Khan. Satuq, who had been the heir to the Qarakhanid Khanate throne, was disqualified, much to his displeasure, and satuq was secretly accumulating strength in order to regain the Khan's throne.
In order to fight the Samanid dynasty, Ogurchak sheltered a prince, Nasser Samani, who had fled from the river region, and let him live in Artush. At the instigation of this man, Satuq converted to Islam and worked hard to study the Quran, secretly developing believers throughout the country. After converting to Islam, he gained the support of Muslims and his strength increased greatly.
In 915, loyal to his Ghulam Guards and with the support of the Samanid dynasty, he staged a military coup in Kashgar, killing his uncle Orguchak and seizing the Khan's throne as Bogra Khan.
After succeeding to the throne, Satuq encouraged his people to abandon their original Buddhism, shamanism, etc., and converted to Islam, and set up religious courts to fund the mission of sharia scholars, and Islamic forces soon occupied an important position in the khanate.
In 960, Satuq's son Bajtash ordered 200,000 Turks to enter Islam. If you count 4 to 5 people in 1 account, it can be seen that nearly one million Turks are religious, which greatly deepens the Process of Islamization in the Western Regions. In this way, the Qarakhanid dynasty gradually became an Islamic dynasty. In a sense, the Qarakhanid dynasty was the first Islamic dynasty established within China.
06 Heyday and division
After Satuq Bogra Khan seized the throne, he exerted great efforts to centralize power, abandoning the traditional aristocratic hereditary official system and adopting the method of military merit, which made the country quickly stronger and expanded.
In order to avenge the arrow, the Qarakhanid Dynasty first targeted the Persian Samanid Dynasty. In 999 AD, Nasser, the Lion King of the Qarakhanid Dynasty, joined forces with the Afghan Ghazni Dynasty to defeat the Samanid Dynasty and capture the Persian Emperor, and the Qarakhanid Dynasty has since occupied Central Asia north of the Amu Darya River.
In addition, in the name of jihad, he also began to wage a holy war against the Khotanese kingdom of Khotan, which believed in Buddhism in the East. In 999, the main Qarakhanid army led by Yusuf Kadir Khan and volunteers from Central asia and West Asia captured Khotan at the end of that year, forcing the king of Khotan to lead the remnants of his army to retreat to the Kunlun Mountains. In 1004, Yusuf Qadir Khan, then the Great Khan, was completely destroyed in Khotan. Shortly after the fall of Khotan, the Qarakhanid Dynasty went to war with its half-brother, the Uighurs of Gaochang.
At this time, the Qarakhanid dynasty reached its peak and became the hegemon of Central Asia. Its territory stretches from Kucha in the Aksu region in the east, to the dry steppe area near the Aral Sea in the west, to the Amu Darya River, the Puchi River, the Karakoram Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains in the south, to the grasslands of Lake Balkhash, the Ili River Valley and the Seven Rivers Basin in the north, and to the Lop Nur Desert in the southeast. Outside the entire dynasty, in the northwest of the Seven Rivers valley and the valley of the Ili River, a large number of new cities were built, and a large number of Turkic-speaking peoples were transferred from nomadism to settlement, and the economy and culture were very developed.
But when the water is full, it is profitable, and when the moon is full, it loses, and no dynasty can change this fate. After more than a century of its heyday, the Qarakhanid Dynasty was divided by internal struggles for power and profit.
From about 1041 onwards, the Qarakhanid Dynasty was officially divided into two, the Western Khan was a descendant of Ali, commonly known as the Ali lineage, covering the hezhong region and western Fergana, with Samarkand and Bukhara as the capital; the Eastern Khan was a descendant of Harun Bugla Khan, commonly known as Harun or Hasan, and the territorial scope included The Lois, Baishuicheng, Shicheng, Eastern Fergana, the Seven Rivers Valley and Kashgar, with Balakasagun as the capital and Kashgar as the religious and cultural center.
Due to the internal intrigue of the Qarakhanid dynasty, it gave the opportunity for external forces to intervene. In 1089, the Seljuk dynasty that rose up in West and Central Asia conquered Bukhara, and the western khanate was politically dependent on the Seljuk dynasty. The Eastern Qarakhanids also submitted to the Seljuks in 1130. At this time, a remnant brigade from the Liao Dynasty in the east had also passed through the desert, and it would become an important force in changing the geopolitical structure of Central Asia.
07 Xiliao
In the same year that the Qarakhanid Dynasty declared Islam the state religion, Zhao Kuangyin added his yellow robes to establish the Song Dynasty and unify the Central Plains. The Song Dynasty was an extremely economically and culturally developed dynasty, but weak in force, and in the history of the Song Dynasty for hundreds of years, it repeatedly paid tribute to the Liao, Western Xia, and Jin in the north. In the eyes of the Central Plains people, the Liao state has always been very powerful, but the Jurchen people who did not want to rise in the White Mountains and Black Water secretly calculated it from behind. In 1125, the Liao state fell.
In 1124, Yelü Dashi, as a nobleman of the Liao State, led a small number of his followers to flee west and reached the city of Kedun, the stronghold of the Northwest Road Zhaosi, an important town in the northern frontier of the Liao Dynasty. He then summoned the governors and tribes of the various military states to a meeting, determined to expel the enemy and revive the Liao.
After establishing a base in Kedun City, Yelü Dashi rested and gathered strength, and then "raised troops to move from time to time." Five years later, his strength was already quite strong, and he decided to expand outward. But at this time, the Golden State was in its heyday, and it was difficult to compete with it. So he set his sights on the Qarakhanid dynasty, which was in decline in the west.
The Great Stone of Yerushalayim falsely passed through the Gaochang Uighurs, and after crossing the Tianshan Mountains, advanced westward, but was defeated miserably. The retreating Yelü Dashi continued to accumulate strength, first defeating the invasion of the Jin Kingdom, and then on February 5, 1132, Yelü Dashi ascended the throne at Yemili City as emperor, with the title of Ju'er Khan, also known as the "Emperor of Heavenly Blessings", and jianyuan "Yanqing". At this point, the founding of the Western Liao Dynasty was completed.
Yerushalayim claimed the title of empress dowager and began to expand outward on a large scale. In the past ten years, it has annexed the Uighur kingdom of Gaochang, the Eastern Qarakhanid Dynasty, the Western Qarakhanid Dynasty and the Khwarazm Kingdom, as well as the Kangli Province, forming a vast empire.
In 1134, Yelü Dashi decided to establish the capital of Bala shagun, which was later renamed Hu Si Hui'er, and changed the third year of Yanqing to the first year of the Kang Kingdom, and the outer northwest became the center of the Western Liao Empire.
In 1141 AD, the Western Liao and the Seljuk Turks fought a historically famous battle in the Katwan steppe north of Samarkand, and the Western Liao won more with less, and the entire river region became the sphere of influence of the Western Liao, and the Western Liao reached the peak of history.
08 Conclusion
After the Retreat of the Tang Empire from the Western Regions, the rising Gelulu, Qarakhanid Dynasty and Western Liao Dynasty all used Balasagun as their capitals, which was mainly due to the abundant conditions of water and grass in the Outer Northwest Region, and the Seven River Valleys and Ili River Valleys in the Outer Northwest also became the center of the entire Western Regions. The trend of Islamization in the Outer Northwest and the entire Western Regions was irreversible, and even in the 13th century, the strong Mongolian whirlwind blowing from the Mongolian plateau did not change all this. (To be continued)
History of the Outer Northwest: Sheng Tang Dynasty
History of the Outer Northwest (5): From the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, you sang and I appeared
History of the Outer Northwest (IV): Three absolute and three links
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