PRELIMINARY ESSAY. IXXXVii
attach to the localities of some, enough has been made out to show that this Chinese organisation extended, at least in theory, over Farghana and the country round Tashkand, over the eastern part at least of Mawaralnahr, the country on the Oxus from Balkh upwards, Bamian and other districts adjoining the Hindu Kush, with perhaps Sejistan and part of Khorasan.'
The states of Turkestan and Khorasan were probably desirous to place themselves under Chinese protection in the vain hope of finding it a bulwark against the Saracen flood, and may themselves have originated this action of the Chinese Government. Besides the states which were thus organised on a Chinese model, others occupying a wider circle sent occasional embassies of compliment which the Chinese represent as bearing tribute, and among these are found the Khans of Khwarizm and the Khazars. The kings of Samarkand for several generations are alleged to have received investiture from China, but it does not appear that their territory was organised in the Chinese fashion.
The orders for that organisation were issued in 661, and it must remain very doubtful how far they were ever carried out, considering that in that very year, as we have seen, the Sassanian Prince Firuz was beginning to find Tokharestan too hot to hold him. The highest point of this tide of the Chinese power must have been then reached, but several of the states west of the Bolor are represented as continuing to send tribute to China with
Remusat, u.s., pp. 81 segq. This author considers Kandahar and Kabul to be included in the Chinese distribution of provinces ; but see Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde in Mem. Acad., xvii, 167-8.
One of the Chinese Pas is termed Pussé ; i.e., " Persia", which should be at least on the borders of that country. The chief city of this department was called Tsiling. Now, it seems not improbable that this department of Persia was really part of SEJI5TAN, the chief city of which in early Mahomedan times was called ZARANJ (compare the Drangiane and Zarangiane of the Greeks), a name which might be well represented by the Chinese Tsiling. This is the more probable, as near Zaranj stood the ancient city of Fars (Farrah ?), the traditional capital of Rustum, which might suggest the Persia or Pussé of the Chinese (see Edrisi, i, 445). M. Pauthier suggests Shiraz as the identification of Tsiling. But it would have been a bold step surely in 661 to naine Shiraz as the seat of a Chinese Government (see De l'Auth., p. 61).
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