Tag Archives: jade gate

The Turkmen Role in the Rise of China’s Tang Dynasty

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The empire during the reign of Wu Zetian, circa 700

Episode 15: The Turks: Turkmen Khagans and Tang Emperors

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

Harl begins this lecture by describing internal changes in China following the 220 AD collapse of the  Han dynasty collapse, and a mass population shift from the Yellow to the Yangtze River. Owing to better rainfall and more fertile soil, southern China provided better opportunities for cultivating rice and silk.

Simultaneously mainly Turkish speaking nomads migrated into northern China, carving out a new federation around the Yellow River. Prioritizing control of the Silk Road trade, these nomads garrisoned the Jade Gate and took the dynastic name of the former Wei kingdom (220-226 AD). They were great sponsors of Buddhism and helped it spread throughout China.

In 581 AD the Sui Dynasty reunified China, to be usurped in 618 AD by the Tang Dynasty. Under the latter, China was as large as it had ever been, relying on the Turkish Wei rulers to run northern China. Continuing the corvée* system of military construction initiated by the Han Dynasty, the formed required all males to engage in one year of construction for the emperor or one year of military service (followed by one year of garrison duty), Twenty percent of the Tang armies were nomadic cavalry and horse archers.

In 630 AD, the Tang emperor invaded the Eastern Gökturk Khanate and recruited prisoners they captured into the army. Through this process, they brought the entire Tarim Basin under Chinese control for the first time (see How the Arrival of the Turks Transformed the Steppes ).

In 660 AD, the Tang army conquered the Western Gökturk Khanate, bringing it under Chinese control.

The Tang Empire invested heavily to stimulate development (mainly stock raising) in the Tarim Basin. They resettled native Chinese settlers to better oversee the Silk Road caravan cities and cast bronze coins to pay the Chinese garrisons that maintained order.

They also invested heavily in restoring Chinese border walls and canal building to move rice, silk and troops. The Grand Canal, stretching over 1400 miles between the Yellow and Yangtze River, was constructed during this period.

In 755-763 AD, there was a massive uprising against the heavy taxes imposed to pay for all this, led by a Gökturk (Uighur) general named An Loushan. The Tang emperor eventually put down the rebellion but lost control of the Tarim Basin to Tibet.

In 907 AD the Tang Dynasty collapsed, fragmenting into smaller kingdoms run by warlords.

*Corvée is a form of unpaid, forced labor (usually for a government ruler), which is intermittent in nature and which lasts limited periods of time.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5695015

The Role of the Silk Road in Creating the First Global Economy

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Episode 8 Trade Across the Tarim Basin*

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

Between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, the Silk Road enabled the development of the first “global economy.” The West’s desire for Chinese silk was the primary driver of the Silk Road trade.

Harl traces the five main routes Silk Road traders took from China:

  • The most northern route ran through the Ganzu Corridor directly north of the wall separating China from the steppes. The Chinese posted a garrison at the Jade Gate** to tax all imports entering the country.
  • Traveling west, the Ganzu Corridor route split into a northern branch and a southern branch skirting the Taklamakan Desert
  • At Kashgar the route crossed the formidable Pamirs Mountains.
  • From there, a northern branch led north of the Aral and Caspian seas through Fergana (which traded horses along the Silk Road) to the Black Sea and a southern branch traversed Transoxiana*** south of the Caspian Sea to various Black Sea ports and (via Bactria****) to the Mediterranean.

He also discussed the complementary sea routes established by Mediterranean civilizations following the discovery of the monsoon trade winds in 116 BC. Egypt (run by the Ptolemys, a Greek dynasty) controlled the shipping around the Arabian peninsula to import silk from India.

In 31 BC, Rome secured the Mediterranean under the emperor Augustus. The Romans had an enormous appetite for Chinese silks and spices and gems from India.

*A desert area between the east Asian steppes and China, the Tarim Basin first came under Chinese control in the 1st century AD.

**The Jade Gate was a strategic Great Wall fort adjacent at the entry to the Ganzu corridor.

***Tranoxiana is the Roman’s name for a lower Central Asian region d in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan

****Bactria was also a jumping off point for routes to India.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5695002