Читать книгу The History of Kazakhstan from the Earliest Period to the Present time. Volume I - Zhanat Kundakbayeva - Страница 7

The heyday of the Western Turk khaganate came at the time of Shegui (609-618) and Tong Yabghu khagan (619-630) reign. It was the time of the greaControl territorial expansion of the Western Turks. So, Shegui made Altai the eastern border of the khaganate and extended his rule to the Tarim Basin and the Eastern Pemir region. Tong Yabghu (also known as T'ung Yabghu, Ton Yabghu, Tong Yabghu khagan, Tun Yabghu, and Tong Yabğu, T’ung yabghu khagan) was khagan of the Western Turkic khaganate from 618 to 63 °C.E. His name is usually translated as "Tiger Yabgu" in old Turkic. Another interpretation of his name is "sufficiency" or "completeness". He was the brother of Shegui (611-618), the previous khagan of the western GökTurks, and was a member of the Ashina clan. Tong Yabghu's reign is generally regarded as the zenith of the Western Turk khaganate3. It was the time of the greaControl territorial expansion of the Western Turks. So, Shegui made Altai the eastern border of the khaganate and extended his rule to the Tarim Basin and the Eastern Pemir region. Tong Yabghu revived active western policy of the khaganate and carried his winter residence to Suyab – a large trade-handicraft center in the Chu Valley (now close by Tokmak in Kyrgizstan), but the summer residence – to Ming-Bulak village (not far from Turkestan city). New campaigns widened the Western Turk khaganate borders to the Amu-Darya River and the Hindu Kush Himalaya mountain system. Tong Yabghu maintained close relations with the Tang Dynasty of China, and may have married into the Imperial family. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang visited the western GökTurk capital Suyab in modern Kyrgyzstan and left a description of the khagan. Xuanzang described the khagan as follows: The khan wore a green satin robe; his hair, which was ten feet long, was free. A band of white silk wound round his forehead and hung down behind. The ministers of the presence numbering two hundred in number, all wearing embroidered robes, stood on his right and left. The rest of his military retinue [was] clothed in fur, serge and fine wool, the spears and standards and bows in order, and the riders of camels and horses stretched far out of [sight]. Tong Yehu Khagan is a man of bravery and astuteness. He is good at art of war. Thus he controlled Tiele tribes to the north, confronted Persia to the west, connected with Kasmira (nowadays Kashmir) to the south. All countries are subjected to him. He controlled ten thousands of men with arrow and bow, establishing his power over the western region. He occupied the land of Wusun and moved his tent to Qianquan north of Tashkent. All of the princes of western region assumed the Turk office of Jielifa. Tong Yehu Khagan also sent a Tutun to monitor them for imposition. The power of Western Turks had never reached such a state before". Tong Yabghu's empire fought with the Sassanids of Iran. In the early 620's the khagan's nephew Buri-sad led a series of raids across the Caucasus Mountains into Persian territory. Scholarly consensus has identified Tong Yabghu as the Ziebel mentioned in Byzantine sources as having (as khagan of the Khazars) campaigned with the Emperor Heraclius in the Caucasus against the Sassanid Persian Empire in 627-628. or any Khazar ruler) and may actually have died as early as 626. These scholars point to discrepancies in the dates between Byzantine and Chinese sources and argue that definitively conflating Ziebel with Tong Yabghu is an exaggeration of the extant evidence. In 627 the Turks penetrated the Gates of Alexander and sacked the city of Derbent (The Citadel, Ancient City and Fortress Buildings of Derbent are part of a strategic Sasanian defence system from the 5th century. Derbent is situated on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, in present-day Dagestan. It was in the position to control the traffic between Europe and the Middle East, and shield the prospering agricultural peoples of the Middle East from devastating raids of nomadic tribes from the steppes of South-Eastern Europe). Movses khagankatvatsi describes the attack thus: "Like waves in the sea, the Turks fell on the town of Chora (Derbent) and destroyed it completely. Seeing the terrible threat posed by this vile, ugly, horde of attackers, with their slanting and lidless eyes, and their flowing hair like that of women, the inhabitants were seized by terror. Especially terrifying were the archers, who were skillful and powerful, and rained arrows down like hail then, like savage wolves, shamelessly through themselves on the people and mercilessly cut them down in the streets and squares of the town. They did not even take pity on the children who hugged their slaughtered mothers, but sucked the children's blood like milk". The Derbent sparked panic all over the country. Albanian forces withdrew to their capital, Partav, then headed into the Caucasus Mountains. The GökTurks and Khazars overtook them near the village of Kalankatuyk, where they were either slain or taken prisoner. The conquerors imposed upon Albania a heavy system of taxation, as reported by Movses: "The Lord of the North [one of the titles of the GökTurk khagan) wreaked havoc all over the country. He sent his wardens to deal with artisans of all kind, especially those skilled in washing out gold, extraction of silver and iron, as well as making copper items. He imposed duties on fishers and goods from the great Kura and Aras rivers, in addition to the didrachma traditionally levied by the Persian authorities". Later that year Tong Yabghu's army joined Heraclius in the siege of Tfilis. Heraclius and Tong Yabghu met under the walls of Narikala. The yabghu rode up to the emperor, kissed his shoulder and made a bow. In return, Heraclius hugged his ally, called him his son, and crowned him with his own diadem. During the ensuing feast the Khazar leaders received ample gifts in the shape of earrings and clothes, while the yabghu was promised the hand of the emperor's daughter, Eudoxia Epiphania. Tong Yabghu placed an army of 40,000 Khazar horsemen at Heraclius' disposal. The initial seige of Tfilis was unsuccessful; both leaders were ridiculed by the Georgian defenders of the city. In 628 Heraclius struck southwards into Persia while Tong Yabghu's army again besieged Tfilis, this time successfully. Many of the defenders were executed, blinded, or mutilated4. Tong Yabghu could establish stronger control in the practically independent before Central Asian states, that earlier only paid taxes. The Western Turkic khaganate had the territory from the Tashkent oasis to the territories of southern Afganistan and north-western Pakistan. Tong Yabghu appointed governors or tuduns to manage the various tribes and people under his over lordship. Besides, Tong Yabghu granted Turkic titles to local Central Asian rulers, as if including them in the administrative hierarchy of the khaganate. And with the purpose to strengthen still more relations with local rulers, he married his daughter to the most powerful of them – the Samarkand ruler. But the tribal nobility did not like despotic character of his governing and in the Western Turkic khaganate began an inter-tribal war. As a result by 630-634 the Western Turkic khaganate had already lost its Central Asian possessions to the west from the Syr Darya river. The Western Turkic khaganate entered into a protracted political crisis, the main reason of which was struggle for power between the nobility of two confederations – the tension between Dulu and Nushibi. In 634 Yshbara Elterish Shir-kagan, supported by Nushibi came to power. Ye carried out reforms, according to which the Irkins and Chors’ chief turned into the rulers appointed by him. Besides, in each area was sent a khagan tribe member- Shad, who not connected with the tribal nobility. With these reforms he wanted to restrict influence and power of local chiefs. But resources of the khaganate turned out to the insufficient to hold tribes in obedience. Thus in 638 Dulu proclaimed khagan one of the sheds, sent to them. After the war between Dulu and Nushibi the Western Turkic khaganate disintegrated into two parts, the border line between which lay along the Ili River. Intertribal dynasty war continued the following 17 years (640-657) and led to invasion of Chinese troops in Semirechye. Following the death of Tong Yabghu in ca. 630, the might of the Western GökTurks largely collapsed. Tang China tried to rule over the Western Turks relyinf upon its protégé from the Ashina clan. But the Western Turks did not stop their struggle for independence. The Turgesh khaganate seems to have come into existence towards the end of the 7th century, after a massive revolt against the Western Turks khan, a Chinese puppet. The Turgesh leader was Ushyly (Wushile), who titled himself Baga Tarkhan and led a strong army to victory, putting the puppet khan to full speed flight. His power soon spanned from the present-day Semirechye area to Turfan and Kucha. Ushyly khagan then decided to ally with Tang China and the Kyrgyz people to stem the rise of the Second GökTurk Empire, ruled by Khapghan khagan. In the Chui River и Ili River Valleys he established khagan’s headquarters, the country was divided into 20 regions. Turgesh and GökTurks/Turküts clashed in 698 in a battle fought at Bolchu (in modern Dzhungaria) where the latter side, led by Bilge Tonyukhukh, prevailed: the Yabgu (Ruler of West) and Shad (Ruler of East) of the Turgesh were killed and Ushyly Khaghan himself was taken a prisoner and had to concede vassalage. Eight years after this burning defeat, Ushyly died and was replaced by his son, Soko, who fought to retain independence from the GökTurks/Turküts. The successor of Ushyly khagan Soko defeated the rebelled tribes supported by the Chinese troops. Soko wanted to make Tang China stop invasions in Semirechye. He implemented this task. He was defeated in 701 in Transoxiana, southeast of Samarkand, again by Tonyukhukh, and finally in 711, when he was killed at Bolchu against Kül Tigin and Bilge Shad as he was trying to strike an alliance with Tang China. The Turgesh were put under the rule of Bars Bek; as we know from the Orkhon Inscriptions in those years the main subdivision in Kara (Black) and Sary (Yellow) Turgesh was established. Maybe sensing the impending disaster, Soko's brother Chenu had revolted even before the battle and fled to the court of Khapghan Khaghan. In 711 г. the Eastern Turks defeated Soko’s troops in Dzhungaria and till 715 The Turgesh khaganate stopped its existence. Three years later the Kara Turgesh elected Sulu as their Khaghan. The new ruler moved his capital to Balasagun in the Chu valley, receiving the homage of several chieftains formerly bond to the service of Bilge Khaghan of the Turküt. He had to struggle on two fronts. In the west the Arabs, who on 714-715 carried on campaigns beyond the Syr Darya threatened the Turgesh. In the east the Chinese threatened the Turgesh. Sulu took action to neutralize the eastern threat. For that in 717 г. he went to a diplomatic trip to Chang'an-the capital of Tang Empire. After that he contracted conjugal unions with three potentially dangerous rulers. He got married to a daughter of Western Turks descendant from Ashina clan, thereby, having legitimated his power. The second wife became a daughter of Bilge Khaghan – the ruler of the Eastern Turk khaganate. The Tibet Tsar’s daughter Sulu became his third wife.

Sulu acted as a bulwark against further Umayyad encroachment from the south: the Arabs had indeed become a major player in recent times, despite Islam had not made many converts in Central Asia (that would need some two or three more centuries). Sulu's aim was to reconquer all of Transoxiana from the Arab invaders – his war was paralleled, much more westwards, by the Khazar empire. In 721 Turgesh forces, led by Kül Chor, defeated the Caliphal army commanded by Sa'id ibn Abdu'l-Aziz near Samarkand. Sa'id's successor, Al-Kharashi, massacred Turks and Sogdian refugees in Khujand, causing an influx of refugees towards the Turgesh. In 724 Caliph Hisham sent a new governor to Khorasan, Muslim ibn Sa'id, with orders to crush the "Turks" once and for all, but, confronted by Sulu Khagan, Muslim hardly managed to reach Samarkand with a handful of survivors, as the Turgesh raided freely. A string of subsequent appointees of Hisham were soundly defeated by Sulu Khagan, who in 728 even managed to take Bukhara and later on still inflicted painful tactical defeats upon the Arabs, discrediting Umayyad rule and maybe putting the foundations for the Abbasid revolution. The Turgesh state was at its apex of glory, controlling Sogdiana, the Ferghana Valley It was only in 732, that two powerful Arab expeditions to Samarakand managed, if with embarrassing losses, to reestablish Caliphal authority in the area; Sulu renounced his ambitions over Samarkand and abandoned Bukhara, withdrawing north. In 734 an early Abbasid follower, Kha'ris ibn Suraidj, rose in revolt against Umayyad rule and took Balkh and Marv before defecting to the Turgesh three years later, defeated. In 738 Sulu Khaghan, along with his allies Kha'ris, Gurak (a Turco-Sogdian leader) and men from Usrushana, Tashkent and Khuttal to lauch a final offensive. He entered Jowzjan but was defeated by the Umayyad governor Ased at the Battle of Sa'n or Kharistan. The defeat meant death for Sulu – as soon as he was back in Balasaghun he was murdered at the hands of Baga Tarkhan Kül Chor, leader of the Sary (Yellow) Turgesh. This, in turn, laid the foundations for the early demise of the Turgesh Empire, who had so far challenged the might of the Caliphate. When Sulu Khaghan was killed the Kara and Sary (Black and Yellow) Turgesh began a civil war. Kül Chor of the Sary Türgish vanquished his rival Tumoche of the Kara Turgesh and ascended to khanship, not before slaying Sulu's sons. In 739 he enriched his criminal record by killing Hin of the GökTurk Ashina clan, the "legitimate" puppet-khaghan in Tang service. The Chinese reacted by supporting the rebellious Kara Turgesh, which in 742 found in Iltutmish Khutlugh Bilge a new Khaghan, later succeeded by Tengrideh Bolmysh in 753. This last ruler declared himself a vassal of Moyun Chor, the ruling Khaghan of the recently born Orkhon Uyghur empire. The Turgesh civil war came to a sudden end only in 766, when annals record that the Qarluqs smashed the Turgesh. The Qarluqs were the forerunners of the later Karakhanid Muslim state. But the Chinese’s successes people are seriously concerned the governor of the Abbasid Caliphate in the Arab Khorasan (a region located in north eastern Iran) and called opposition from the Qarluqs. In the middle of the VII c. the Qarluqs actively showed themselves in the political life of the Western Turk khaganate, where they controlled the Dzhungar-Altai region and Tokharistan – a name which was given to Bactria (Bactriana, in Persian, was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus). They remained in the Chinese sphere of influence and an active participant in fighting the Muslim expansion into the area, up until their betrayal of the Tang at the Battle of Talas in 751. In 751 the Chinese and Arabs troops met on the Talas River and several days did not make their mind to join the battle. On the fifth day of withstanding the Qarluqs took in the rear of the Chinese, thereby having achieved a turning point in the battle in favor of the Arabs. Battle of Talas in 751 was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty for control of the Syr Darya. The Chinese army was defeated following the routing of their troops by the Abbasids on the bank of the Talas River. The defeat was partly a result of the defection of Qarluq mercenaries and the retreat of Ferghana valleys who originally supported the Chinese. The Ferghana forces successfully (though inadvertently) cut the Chinese troops off from the rest of their army and their route of retreat. The commander of the Tang forces, Gao Xianzhi, realized his defeat was imminent and managed to escape with some of his Tang regulars with the help of Li Siye. Despite losing the battle, Li did inflict heavy losses on the pursuing Arab army after being reproached by Duan Xiushi. Though Gao was able to rebuild his forces within months, he never again gained the confidence of the local tribes residing in the area. The Chinese name Daluosi was first seen in the account of Xuanzang. Du Huan located the city near the western drain of the Chui River. The exact location of the battle has not been confirmed but is believed to be near Taraz (once named Zhambyl), in present day Kazakhstan. Shortly after the battle of Talas, the domestic rebellion of An Lushan (755－763) and subsequent warlords (763 onwards), caused the decline of Tang influence in Central Asia by the end of the 700's. The local Tang tributaries then switched to the authority of the Abbasids, Tibetans, or Uighurs and the introduction of Islam was thus facilitated among the Turkic peoples. Well supported by the Ummayads, the Qarluqs established a state that would be absorbed in the late 9th century by the Kara-Khanid Khanate. With the successful cooperation of Arabs and Turkic peoples, Islam began to exert its influence on the Turkic culture. Among the earliest historians to proclaim the importance of this battle was the great Russian historian of Muslim central Asia, Barthold, according to whom, "The earlier Arab historians, occupied with the narrative of events then taking place in western Asia, do not mention this battle; but it is undoubtedly of great importance in the history of (Western) Turkestan as it determined the question which of the two civilizations, the Chinese or the Muslim, should predominate in the land (of Turkestan)." However, claims that the battle itself was significant are not well-supported by historical evidence. The dry and simplistic recounting of the battle itself in Chinese accounts shows that it may have been no more than a border skirmish. Most of the sources for this battle barely mention the Chinese defeat, leaving a duration of five days undescribed, with exception for the dialogues after the defeat. According to Barthold, for the history of the first three centuries of Islam, al-Tabari was the chief source (survived in Ibn al Athir's compilation), which was brought down to 915. (Unfortunately, this important work was only compiled and published by a group of Orientalists in 1901.) It is only in Athir that we find an accurate account of the conflict between the Arabs and the Chinese in 751, one which decided the fate of the western part of central Asia. Neither Tabari nor the early historical works of the Arabs which have come down to us in general make any mention of this; however, Athir's statement is completely confirmed by the Chinese History of the Tang Dynasty. It must be noted that in all Arab sources, the events which occurred in the eastern part of the empire are often dealt with briefly. Another notable informant of the battle on the Muslim side was Al-Dhahabi (1274-1348). It is of interest to note that the Battle of Talas is seen as the key event in the technological transmission of the paper-making process. The Chinese court eunuch Cai Lun had invented the process in 105 CE. After the battle of Talas, knowledgeable Chinese prisoners of war were ordered to produce paper in Samarkand, and by the year 794 CE, a paper mill could be found in Baghdad, modern-day Iraq. The technology of paper making was thus transmitted to the Islamic world and later to the West. Other than the transfer of paper, there is no evidence to support a geopolitical or demographic change resulting from this battle. Several of the factors after the battle had been taken note of prior to 751. Firstly, the Qarluq never in any sense remained opposed to the Chinese after the battle. In 753, the Qarluq Yabgu Dunpijia submitted under the column of Cheng Qianli and captured A-Busi, a betrayed Chinese mercenary of Tongluo (Tiele) chief (who had defected earlier in 743), and received his title in the court on October 22. Nor did the Chinese expansion halt after the battle; the Chinese commander Feng Changqing, who took over the position from Gao Xianzhi through Wang Zhengjian, virtually swept across the Kashmir region and captured Gilgit shortly in the same year. The Chinese influence to the west of the Pemir Mountains certainly did not cease as the result of the battle; the Ferghana, who participated in the battle earlier, in fact joined among the central Asian auxiliaries with the Chinese army under a summons and entered Gansu during An Lushan's revolt in 756. Neither did the relations between the Chinese and Arabs worsen, as the Abbasids, like their predecessors (since 652), continued to send embassies to China uninterruptedly after the battle. Such visits had overall resulted in 13 diplomatic gifts between 752－798. Not all Turkic tribes of the region converted to Islam after the battle either – the date of their mass-conversion to Islam was much later, in the 10th century under Musa5. The Qarluqs with their participation in the Battle of Talas in 751 did not spoil relations with Tang China. The reason for approaching the Qarluqs and the Chinese became their common struggle against the Uighurs’ strengthening. In 752 the Qarluqs, having enlisted the Chinese support declared war on the Uighurs. The Qarluq Yabgu struggled for the Eastern Turk khaganate inheritance. His allies became the Yenisei Kyrghyz, Basmils и Turgesh. The war with variable success lasted two years and waged in the very center of the Uighurs lands. With great troubles the head of the Uighurs achieved victory. Consequences of the war were the great importance for the Qarluqs future. The Qarluq Yabgu once and for all lost hopes concerning the khaganate and stopped his struggle for the Turk inheritance. Since then his aspirations were directed on capturing Semirechye and consolidating in Dzhungar and towns of the Tarim Basin. В Semirechye the Qarluqs met with resistance not small Turgesh principalities that on the contrary became allies and vassals of Yabgu, but the Oghuz tribes. General events of the struggle with the Oghuz have been poorly reflected in sources. It is known that in the second half of the VIII в. Oghuz left Semirechye и and went to lower reaches of the Syr Darya. Their head took the Yabgu title, aspirating domination over the Western Turk tribes. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the nomadic Turkic Oghuz tribes formed a principality on the middle and lower reaches of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes), in the Aral Sea region and the area of the northern Caspian with its Yangikent, the town on the Syr Darya. The Oghuz’s power was finally consolidated in Semirechye in 766 г., when they occupied towns Taraz и Suab. Then the Qarluks began was with the Uighurs for Eastern Turkestan. Despite failures in the wars of the beginning of the IX в. the Qarluqs’s situation, supported by rich Semirechye towns was firm. Trade with Turkic slaves for Abbasids’s quad and control over transit to China on the area from Taraz to Issyk-Kul lake favoured the Yabgu’s enrichment. The futher history of the Qarluqs was absorbed in the late of the 9th century by the Kara-Khanid Khanate. In the East of the Kazakhstan in the Irtysh river steppes formed a community of Turkic tribes, which were called the Kimeks, by contemprory authors. Up to the middle of the eighth century, they lived with the Turkic tribes of the southern Altai and the Tarbagatay to the south and the Kyrgyz of the Yenisei to the east. At some time during the second half of the eighth century or at the beginning of the ninth, the Kimek clans and several tribes moved to north-eastern Semirechye and the foothills of the Dzhungar range, while at the same time, the Kipchak tribes of the Irtysh migrated southwards and westwards. From the ninth to the eleventh century, the Kimek were more densely concentrated in the basin of the middle Irtysh and in north-eastern Semirechye. Individual Kimek groups and a large proportion of the Kipchak occupied the steppes of central Kazakhstan and the northern Lake Balkhash region, extending as far west as the Aral Sea region and the southern Urals. On the middle reaches of the Syr Darya, they roamed the area of Sawran and the town of Turkistan, while their eastern borders stretched to the Tarbagatay Mountains and the Dzhungarian Alatau. Up to the middle of the seventh century, the Kimek, along with other steppe peoples, had been part of the Khaganate of the Western Turks. After its collapse in 656, they gradually developed into an independent tribal confederation. This process received considerable impetus during the ninth century from the fall of the Uighur Khaganate. The head of the Kimek, who had previously held the modest title of shad tutuk, was subsequently called the Khagan. According to Arab and Persian writers of the ninth to the twelfth century, the Khagan enjoyed considerable power appointing the leaders of tribes, referred to in the sources as muluk (kings). According to al-Idrisi, power in the clan of the Kimek rulers was transmitted on a hereditary basis. The supreme ruler, the Khagan, had eleven ‘stewards’ whose duties were also transmitted from father to son and he and his court nobles resided in a capital situated in the valley of the Irtysh The Kimek principality, formed at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, was divided into a number of domains like the later ulus. The rulers of these appanages, who were the descendants of hereditary tribal rulers, received their lands from the Khagan in return for military service. Some Kimek groups moved for the winter to the steppes between the Ural and the Emba and spent the summer as nomads in the area of the Irtysh, especially when there were severe winters in what is now eastern and central Kazakhstan. Some of the Oghuz also moved to pastures in the Kimek country near Lake Mankur, probably in the foothills of the Alatau. Like the Kipchak and the Oghuz, the Kimek bred horses, sheep, goats, oxen, cows and camels. Sheep, in particular, played an important part in their economy. al-Idrisi, describing the life of the nomads, writes that they ‘used fat instead of vegetable oil and tallow for lighting’. The horses of the steppe-dwellers were noted for their hardiness and their ability to adapt to the harsh conditions of the arid zone. Gardızı refers to the huge herds of horses raised by the Kimek, and al-Idrisi notes that the nomads preferred horsemeat to beef or mutton and made koumiss (a drink of fermented mares’ milk). The Kimek also possessed cattle, i.e. cows and oxen; these tended to be owned by semisedentary elements, although oxen were also used as draught animals. The steppe-dwellers usually harnessed them to carts on which they placed their yurts (wooden-framed tents covered with felt). Like the Oghuz and the Kipchak, the Kimek hunted furry animals such as the fox, marten and beaver, and further took the pelts of sable, ermine and predators like tigers and snow leopards. The fur and hides of wild animals and the meat and skins of domestic livestock were sold or exchanged at points adjacent to the settled lands in the south. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Kimek state was one of the strongest nomadic powers in Central Asia, but it gradually began to decline when the system of semi- independent domains sapped the authority of the Khagans, so that the Kimek tribal entity collapsed, unable to withstand the pressure of neighboring nomadic peoples6.

Control questions:

1. Prove that in the first quarter of the VII century the Western Turk khaganate was at the height of its military-political might.

2. What was a foreign-political activity of Tong Yabghu khagan (618-630)?

3. How did Tong Yabghu khagan institute stronger political control over the Central Asian possessions of the Turks?

4. Depict the political history of the Turgesh state, the end of the 7th –the middle of the 8th centuries)?

5. Define the historical significance of the Battle of Talas in 751.