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Text: Peng Yibin
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introduction
Historically, the Uighur tribes had a deep relationship with the Central Plains Dynasty, and even during the Tang Dynasty, the Uighurs assisted the Tang army in quelling the Anshi Rebellion. Such a nomadic empire founded 97 years ago, which started as a horse archery in its early years, but later became a country that liked to do business, what role did the Uighurs play in the trade between the Central Plains and the Western Regions?
(Hui 鹘人)
1. The cavalry was brave and helped to quell the "Anshi Rebellion"
Around the 3rd century BC, near Lake Baikal there was a tribe called the Ele. By the time of the Northern Wei Dynasty, many of the other tribes of the Empire, because of their rebellion against the Turks, formed an alliance and became known as the Hui. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Hui tribe had been rebelling against the Turks, and at the same time cooperated with the Sui and Tang dynasties, and cooperated with the Tang army to eliminate the Xue Yantuo regime during the Zhenguan period.
The Uighur chieftain proclaimed himself Khan and came under the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty. In 744 AD, the Uighurs established the Uighur Khanate in Mobei, and the whole was still dominated by nomadic herding and cavalry. In 788 AD, it was officially renamed the Uighurs, and later generations also called the Uighur Khanate. Why did the Uighurs start their lives by riding and archery?
(Hui Xiao Country)
Because they are essentially a nomadic people, from the initial tribe to the later khanate, if they want to occupy a place in Mobei, mounted archery is the most basic. Even during the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty borrowed a lot of cavalry from the Uighurs, and from 56, 757, and 762 AD, the Tang Dynasty borrowed troops from the Uighurs.
Under the attack of the Uighurs, Chang'an, Luoyang, Hebei and other places were regained one after another, and even in the Battle of Xiangji Temple, the Uighur cavalry played an important role. At that time, in the battle of Xiangji Temple, hundreds of thousands of enemy troops were stationed in the north of the Tang army, and Li Siye decided to lead his troops forward to stabilize the Tang army's camp first.
(Cavalry Restoration Map)
At that time, some rebels tried to ambush the Tang army from behind, but the Tang army discovered it, so Fugu Huaien led the Uighur cavalry directly into the battlefield, eliminating all the enemy ambushes and demoralizing the enemy army.
At this time, Li Siye led the Uighur army to the rear of the enemy army, causing the enemy army to suffer from the enemy's back, and finally destroyed 60,000 enemy troops, captured 20,000 people, and recovered Chang'an.
Therefore, the Uighur cavalry was very important in the battle to conquer Chang'an, and we can also see from here that the Uighur cavalry was indeed not bad, otherwise it would be difficult to gain a foothold in Mobei. It is not an exaggeration to say that it relied on cavalry and archery to start a business, and it was precisely because it helped the Tang Dynasty to quell the Anshi Rebellion, so the Tang Dynasty rewarded the Uighurs and began a long-term silk horse trade.
(Web image)
It was in this trend of trade that the Uighurs gradually developed into traders. Relations between the Uighurs and the Tang Dynasty were also getting better, and the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs became an important medium of foreign exchange.
After the Anshi Rebellion, the trade between the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs took the form of silk horses and tea horses, with the Uighurs giving the Tang Dynasty 100,000 horses a year, and the Tang Dynasty giving the Uighurs 1 million silk horses a year, which is equivalent to 10 silk horses per horse. And these silk silks could be used as a route for the Uighurs to trade further afield with the West.
(Web image)
Although the Uighur economy developed well, it was not politically sustainable, as it only existed for 97 years.
In 840, the Uighurs were invaded by the Ngas, and eventually the Uighurs were divided into several parts, some of which were integrated into the Han Chinese, some of which established the Ganzhou Uighurs and Shazhou Uighurs in Mobei, and some of which formed the Xizhou Uighurs, now the Uyghurs, in present-day Turpan, and some of which moved westward to establish the famous Qarakhanid Dynasty.
(Uyghur)
2. An important medium in the Silk Road trade: the Uighurs
How did the Uighurs continue to trade in later times? This has to mention the Silk Road, although the Tang Dynasty was extinct, but the legacy of the Tang Dynasty still influenced the Western Regions. It can even be said that the influence of the Central Plains Dynasty on the Western Regions is profound.
For example, the Qarakhanid Dynasty we just mentioned also expressed its submission in the early Northern Song Dynasty. The towns built by the Tang Dynasty in Beiting and Anxi were also inherited by the Uighurs, who soon developed their own towns in the area. Therefore, when the envoys of the Northern Song Dynasty came to the Uighurs in Gaochang, they found many traces of the Tang Dynasty here.
(Cultural relics of the Tang Dynasty)
During the Song and Liao periods, the trade intermediaries of the Silk Road naturally became the Uighurs. The Uighurs had to focus not only on commercial trade, but also on agriculture and animal husbandry. At that time, the envoys of the Southern Song Dynasty recorded what the Uighurs were doing in this land. There was the jewelry trade, the silk trade, the swords, the silverware, the medicines, and so on, all of which they did.
Even the Uighur regimes of Gaochang and Ganzhou would continue to pay tribute to the Song Dynasty, and they also had close trade contacts with the Western Xia and Liao states. Even in many places, there were special Uighur or Sogdian settlements, and the Uighurs always passed through these countries with high-quality goods.
(Uighur trade)
An interesting account is that every time the Uighurs brought these goods, the Tanguts would blackmail them, so the Uighurs used shoddy goods to deceive them. The Uighurs were a vital medium in the trade with the Liao, Western Xia, and Song dynasties in the Western Regions, and there were even two missions to fight and the Uighurs reconciled in the middle.
If during the Tang Dynasty, the Sogdians were the intermediaries of the trade of ideas, then in the Song and Liao dynasties they became the Uighurs. The Uighurs were called the Uighurs in the Yuan Dynasty, and it can be said that from the Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, the Uighurs made important contributions to the development of the Silk Road economy.
(Uighur trade)
The Uighurs could sell silk and medicinal herbs from the Central Plains and then trade them in the Byzantine and Persian empires of Europe to earn a huge difference. There are also "dromedary camels, big-tailed sheep, jade saddles, amber, scarlets" and so on, which are all items used for sale.
Even nowadays, many of the items were actually imported by the Uighurs, such as jade, horses, camels, lions, and watermelons, which are highly prized in the summer, are not products of the Central Plains, for example, watermelons are actually products of Africa, and entered Northeast China through Uighur trade.
(Watermelon)
Third, the development of the Uighurs has endured over time
So we can see that the Uighurs were originally a nomadic tribe that made their fortunes on horseback and archery. But when they occupied a favorable position, they quickly found a new direction for development and did not stick to the rules. Therefore, in terms of religious, cultural, and economic development, the Uighurs successfully accumulated, and even developed into the later Uyghur nation.
Although the Uighur Khanate had been in existence for less than a hundred years, the Uighur tribe survived in the process, whether it was eastward or westward, or whether it merged into the Ghrigas or the Han Chinese. By the time of the Song and Liao dynasties, they naturally grew up and played an important role in the Silk Road trade.
(Hui 鹘人)
Resources
LI Zhonghe. Historical Changes of Uighur Religious Beliefs in the Tang Dynasty[J]. Gansu Social Sciences, 2009(2):209-212.
The Paper: The Overland Silk Road in the Song and Liao Periods. [OL].2021.11.09.
Chen Aifeng, Yang Fuxue.Examination of trade relations between Western Xia and Uighurs[J].Lanzhou Academic Journal, 2009(1):4.