Tang campaign against Kucha

The Tang campaign against Kucha was led by the Tang dynasty general Ashina She'er against the Tarim Basin oasis state of Kucha in Xinjiang, which was aligned with the Western Turkic Khaganate. The campaign began in 648 and ended on 19 January 649, after the surrender of the Kuchan forces following a forty-day siege of Aksu. Kuchean soldiers tried to recapture the kingdom with the assistance of the Western Turkic Khaganate, but were defeated by the Tang army.

Background

Suvarnapushpa (Chinese: 苏伐勃𫘝 Sufaboshi), the king of Kucha, 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 sect, Suvarnadeva had hosted the Buddhist monk Xuanzang when he arrived in Kucha during the same year. Kucha supported Karasahr 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 also allied with the Western Turks. Emperor Taizong responded by dispatching a military campaign led by the general Guo Xiaoke against Karasahr.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The Tang army defeated Kucha, captured its 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.^[1]^[2] Although Haripushpa sent two tribute embassies to the Tang court, Taizong had already decided to punish Kucha's pro-Turk stance by launching an expedition against the kingdom.

In 646 Irbis Seguy, ruler of the Western Turks, sought a Chinese princess for his bride. In return, Taizong asked for several Tarim Basin cities. When the proposal was refused, the Tang emperor used it as a pretext for war.^[4]

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's ruling Ashina tribe. He joined the Tang forces after his surrender in 635, and served as a general leading a campaign against Gaochang. His familiarity with the region as a former Turkic ruler contributed to his success in the campaigns against Kucha and Karasahr. Prior to his recruitment as a Tang general, he reigned from 630 to 635, governing the city of Beshbalik in the Dzungarian Basin.^[3] 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.^[3] 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.^[5]

The forces defending Kucha, consisting of 50,000 soldiers, were lured out of the city into the desert and ambushed by Ashina. They had chased after a group of 1,000 horsemen employed by She'er 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. She'er captured the King following a forty-day siege, ending with the surrender of the Kucha forces on 19 January 649. One of She'er's officers, acting as a diplomat, persuaded the chieftains of the region to surrender instead of fighting back.^[6]^[5]

644年に唐軍によるカラサール討伐の第一次遠征を指揮した郭小可は、安西護国の護国将軍としてクチャに駐在した。そのため、護国将軍の本部は元の高昌からクチャに移された。シェールがクチャ王を追跡している間、西突厥に援軍を要請するために旅をしたクチャの領主、ナリがクチャに赴いた。クチャ軍が西突厥の軍事支援を受けて王国を奪還した後、郭は暗殺された。シェールはクチャに戻り、王国の5つの都市を占領し、残りの都市を降伏させた。オアシス国家に唐の支配が再確立された。前王の弟で、ヤブグまたは副王であった人物が、唐帝国の臣下として中国人によって即位した。^{[ 5 ]}^{[ 7 ]}

クチャの王ハリプシュパは捕虜として唐の都に連行された。唐の法律では反逆罪の刑罰は処刑であったが、王は太宗によって赦免され、皇帝の祖先を祀る儀式の後釈放された。彼はまた、皇帝から左衛兵大軍司令官の称号を授けられた。彼の弟がクチャの王位に就いたが、厳重な監視下に置かれた。^{[ 8 ]}^{[ 9 ]}

余波

郭小可の死の報復として、葦名社児は1万1千人のクチャ住民を斬首刑に処した。記録には「彼は五つの大都市を破壊し、無数の男女を殺害した…西方の地は恐怖に包まれた」とある。^{[ 5 ]}クチャの敗北後、社児は薛万北を長とする軽騎兵の小部隊を、王・于池福新が統治するホータンに派遣した。侵略の脅威に王は唐の朝廷を自ら訪問し、その後、爵位と特権を与えられて帰国した。^{[ 10 ]}

It has long been claimed that the conquest of Kucha established Tang rule over the entire Tarim Basin.^[6] 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 to show that the Tang abandoned the attempt to move the headquarters of the Anxi Protectorate 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).^[11]

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.^[12]^[5]^[13] Rather, 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.^[14] 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 Ashina Helu in 657. Ashina Helu surrendered, the Western Turks were defeated, and the khaganate's former territories were annexed by the Tang.^[15] The Tang retreated from beyond the Pamir Mountains in modern Tajikistan and Afghanistan 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 Hexi 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.^[16]

References

Citations

1 2Wechsler 1979, p. 226.
1 2Grousset 1970, p. 99.
1 2 3Skaff 2009, p. 181.
↑Baumer, History of Central Asia, vol 2, 205
1 2 3 4 5Grousset 1970, p. 100.
1 2Skaff 2009, p. 183.
↑Wechsler 1979, pp. 226–228.
↑Eckfeld 2005, p. 25.
↑Skaff 2009, p. 285.
↑Grousset 1970, p. 101.
↑Zhang 張 1995, pp. 144–147.
↑Wechsler 1979, p. 228.
↑Millward 2007, pp. 41–42.
↑Schafer 1963, p. 52.
↑Skaff 2009, p. 183-184.
↑Benn 2002, p. 292.

Sources

Benn, Charles D. (2002). China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517665-0.
Eckfeld, Tonia (2005). Imperial Tombs in Tang China, 618–907: The Politics of Paradise. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-08676-6.
Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1304-1.
Hansen, Valerie (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-993921-3.
Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05462-2.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Skaff, Jonathan Karem (2009). Nicola Di Cosmo (ed.). Military Culture in Imperial China. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03109-8.
Twitchett, Denis (2000). H. J. Van Derven (ed.). Warfare in Chinese History. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-11774-7.
Wechsler, Howard J. (1979). "T'ai-Tsung (Reign 626–49): The Consolidator". In Denis Twitchett; John Fairbank (eds.). The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3: Sui and T'ang China Part I. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-21446-9.
張張、広達広達（1995）。Xiyu shidi conggao chubian 西域史地叢稿初編。上海古事出版局。ISBN 7-5325-1877-9。

[FOOTNOTEWechsler1979226-1] 1 2Wechsler 1979, p. 226.

[FOOTNOTEGrousset197099-2] 1 2Grousset 1970, p. 99.

[FOOTNOTESkaff2009181-3] 1 2 3Skaff 2009, p. 181.

[4] Baumer, History of Central Asia, vol 2, 205

[FOOTNOTEGrousset1970100-5] 1 2 3 4 5Grousset 1970, p. 100.

[FOOTNOTESkaff2009183-6] 1 2Skaff 2009, p. 183.

[FOOTNOTEWechsler1979226–228-7] Wechsler 1979, pp. 226–228.

[FOOTNOTEEckfeld200525-8] Eckfeld 2005, p. 25.

[FOOTNOTESkaff2009285-9] Skaff 2009, p. 285.

[FOOTNOTEGrousset1970101-10] Grousset 1970, p. 101.

[FOOTNOTEZhang_張1995144–147-11] Zhang 張 1995, pp. 144–147.

[FOOTNOTEWechsler1979228-12] Wechsler 1979, p. 228.

[FOOTNOTEMillward200741–42-13] Millward 2007, pp. 41–42.

[FOOTNOTESchafer196352-14] Schafer 1963, p. 52.

[FOOTNOTESkaff2009183-184-15] Skaff 2009, p. 183-184.

[FOOTNOTEBenn2002292-16] Benn 2002, p. 292.

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Tang campaign against Kucha

Background

Campaign

余波

See also

References

Citations

Sources

関連するトピック

Tang dynasty

Ashina She'er

Tarim Basin

Kucha