Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Inner Asia has a range of meanings among different researchers and in different countries. Denis Sinor defined Inner Asia broadly as the homelands of the Altaic peoples and the Uralic peoples .German makes a distinction between "Zentralasien", meaning Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and...

in the 7th and, to a lesser degree, 8th centuries AD was marked by the expansion of the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

's realm in the Tarim Basin

Tarim Basin

The Tarim Basin is a large endorheic basin occupying an area of about . It is located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far west. Its northern boundary is the Tian Shan mountain range and its southern is the Kunlun Mountains on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The...

, across the Gobi Desert

Gobi Desert

The Gobi is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the...

and into Middle Asia

Middle Asia

Middle Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west, to Mongolia in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north. The geographical term has appeared sometime prior to the 20th century in the Russian Empire and was closely associated with the Russian Turkestan and the...

. Wars were fought against the Gokturk Empires

Göktürks

The Göktürks or Kök Türks, were a nomadic confederation of peoples in medieval Inner Asia. Known in Chinese sources as 突厥 , the Göktürks under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan The Göktürks or Kök Türks, (Old Turkic: Türük or Kök Türük or Türük; Celestial Turks) were a nomadic confederation of...

and Xueyantuo

Xueyantuo

The Xueyantuo ' or Syr-Tardush were an ancient Tiele people and khanate in central/northern Asia who were at one point vassals of the Gokturks, later aligning with China's Tang Dynasty against the Eastern Gokturks....

, but also against the states of the Tarim basin. This expansion was not steady; for example, the Tang did lose control of the Tarim basin temporarily to the Tibetans in the 680s, and their expansion north of the Gobi was thwarted in 682. Emperor Taizong

Emperor Taizong of Tang

Emperor Taizong of Tang , personal name Lǐ Shìmín , was the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China, ruling from 626 to 649...

's military success was, in part, a consequence of changes he initiated in the Chinese army, including improved weaponry. The emperor placed a new emphasis on cavalry, which was very important because his non-Chinese opponents used the horse effectively in warfare.

Tang expansion

The Tang Dynasty was one of the Golden Ages of Chinese history. Coming out of the devastation of the late Sui, Tang emperors were eager to secure China's borders by defeating the Gokturks who were the primary military threat to North China. As a result, Tang forces mounted several campaigns against the Gokturks in order to neutralize them and secure China's borders in the process. Securing the Tarim Basin, which contained key trade routes, was also a secondary objective.

Tang Conquest of the Eastern Gokturks

The Eastern Gokturks were the primary threat to the Tang dynasty..Following Liang Shidu

Liang Shidu

Liang Shidu was an agrarian leader who rebelled against the rule of the Chinese dynasty Sui Dynasty near the end of the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui...

's defeat and death, the Tang dynasty prepared to march against the Eastern Gokturks. In 630, the Tang army marched against the Gokturks and defeated them in Southern Mongolia, sending them to flight. However, the real victory came when Li Jin, regarded as one of China's best generals, surprised the Eastern Gokturk Khan with a fast force of 3,000 Cavalry at the battle of Ying shan, which also involved a rear guard of over 100,000 Tang troops. This battle destroyed the Gokturk army, resulting in the capture of the Khan and over 120,000 Gokturks. Thus ended the Eastern Gokturk Empire. Emperor Taizong of Tang took up the title of Tian Kehan

Tian Kehan

Tian Kehan also translated as Heavenly Khagan, Celestial Khagan or Tengri Khagan, was a title addressed to Emperor Taizong of Tang by various Turkic nomads...

, or "Heavenly Khan" of the Gokturks.

Tang conquest of Xueyantuo

Xueyantuo had helped Tang armies defeat the Eastern Gokturks, but after the demise of the Eastern Gokturks, Xueyantuo-Tang relations turned hostile because Xueyantuo kept on making attacks on Gokturks who were now Tang subjects.

In 642, Taizong sent an army to attack Xueyantuo and destroyed it.

Tang Conquest of the Western Gokturks

The Western Gokturks were not an initial threat to the Tang, so initially relations were peaceful.However, Civil war and dispute in the Western Gokturks gave the Tang the opportunity to expand into Central Asia..From 642 to 645, the Tang army defeated the Western Gokturks and drove them out of Dzungaria

Dzungaria

Dzungaria, also called Zungaria, is a geographical region in northwest China corresponding to the northern half of Xinjiang. It covers approximately , lying mostly within Xinjiang, and extending into western Mongolia and eastern Kazakhstan...

..

In 657, the Tang defeated the last Western Gokturk Khan and took over all Western Gokturk territory..

The second Göktürk Kaghanate

In what has been described as "a response to a surge of something like national sentiment", the Eastern Türkish Kaghanate was restored in 682 by Elterish (a.k.a. Qutlugh) . In the Orkhon inscriptions

Orkhon inscriptions

"Orkhon inscription" may refer to:*two monuments in the Orkhon valley, see Khöshöö Tsaidam Monuments*inscriptions in the Old Turkic "Orkhon alphabet" in general, see Old Turkic epigraphy...

, Elterish's son describes the modest beginnings of Elterish's struggle against the Tang Dynasty thus:

My father the kaghan set out with seventeen men, and as the word spread that he had set out and was advancing, those who were in the towns went up into the mountains and those who were in the mountains came down, they gathered, and there were seventy-seven men. Because heaven gave them strength, the army of my father was like wolves and his enemies were like sheep. [...] When they were seven hundred, in accordance with the institutions of my ancestors my father organized those who had been deprived of their state, those who had been deprived of their kaghan, who had become slaves and servants, who had lost their Türk institutions"

The new Kaghanate was centered on the upper Orkhon river and in the Ötükän, presumably the Khangai mountains. After decades of war and border raids with China, peace was made in 721-22.
The second Gokturk Khanate remained a tributary and vassal of the Tang Dynasty. It then survived until the 740s, when it fell due to internal conflicts and was succeeded by the Uighur Kaghanate

Retrenchment of Tang influence post-763

In 755, the Tang Dynasty was subject to the devastating Anshi Rebellion and lost much influence in Inner Asia, which came to be dominated by the Ughyurs. Tang influence and rule over the Northwestern regions, however, continued until the dynasty's fall in 907, at which time these areas were taken over by the Tanguts, who later established Xi Xia.

Tang-Ughyur relations

Although they now controlled most of the Mongolian region, the Ughyur Khans still maintained relatively cordial relations with the Tang Dynasty, accepting many titles from the Tang emperors. in 788, the Ughyur Khan pleaded the Tang emperor to change the title of the Ughyurs from Huihe (回紇) to Huihu (回鶻).

Fall of the Ughyur Khanate

By the mid-800's, the power of the Ughyur Khanate was on the wane. Attacked on all sides, the Ughyurs retreated to the Xinjiang area and their Khanate collapsed, to be replaced by other peoples