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0049	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

(t'ien shên 天神), which probably means Manichaeism, while at the same time believing in the
Buddhist doctrine. The statement that sheep and horses were kept in distant little-known localities
is probably to be explained by the fact that grazing grounds are to be found only in some of the
highest side valleys south of the main range and are difficult of access.²⁹ᵃ Another portion of the
account, relating to the period (557–618) of the Chou and Sui dynasties, which preceded the T'ang,
mentions sixteen towns in Kao-ch'ang, later on increased to eighteen, and gives details of the
administrative system organized after Chinese models. While the men dress as is the custom of
'the barbarians (Hu), the women in costume and hairdressing follow Chinese fashions'. Writing
was the same as in China, but the scripts of the Hu were also in use. Laws, customs and ceremonies
were in essentials those of China.

It is of interest to note that the account given by the Pei shih concludes with a reference to the Desert route
great desert stretching between Kao-ch'ang and Tun-huang ' where there is no road and travellers between
have to seek their way by the skeletons of men and animals. On the way one hears sounds of singing Tun-huang
or wailing, and if people follow these they usually come to their end. Hence travelling traders and Turfān.
ordinarily follow the route via I-wu (Hāmi).' ³⁰ I think that we can safely conclude from this
record that a direct route from Turfān to Tun-huang, leading perhaps past those easternmost
springs of the Kuruk-tāgh which Lāl Singh explored in January, 1915, to the Bêsh-toghrak
valley, was still occasionally followed by adventurous wayfarers in the seventh century.³¹

The T'ang shu's notice of Kao-ch'ang takes up the story with the death of Ch'ü Po-ya and the Kao-ch'ang
accession of his son Ch'ü Wên-t'ai 麴文泰, which occurred in A.D. 619, within a year of the after T'ang
establishment of the T'ang dynasty. The account of his reign throws a characteristic light on the accession.
position in which Turfān was necessarily placed when plans of Central-Asian expansion had
once again been resumed by China. Embassies of homage from Kao-ch'ang are recorded in the
years 619 and 620.³² Among presents offered by its king to the imperial court in the years 624 and
627 are mentioned two performing lap-dogs said to have come from Fu-lin or Syria. This is of
interest as pointing to trade connexions with the distant Byzantine Empire, confirmation of which
is afforded for this period by archaeological finds in Turfān.³³ In 630 Ch'ü Wên-t'ai personally
paid a visit of homage to the Emperor T'ai-tsung. But some time after his return, he helped the
Kagan of the Western Turks to plunder missions that were proceeding to the imperial court and
to attack Hāmi, which in A.D. 630 had come under Chinese control. The remonstrances made
thereupon by the Emperor produced no result. Ch'ü Wên-t'ai did not proceed in person to the
court, as invited; nor did he send his commander-in-chief, who had previously been summoned
there to account for the attack upon Hāmi. The family name A-shih-na 阿史那 borne by
this personage, as M. Chavannes points out, proves his Turkish origin and by itself serves to
indicate the influence then wielded by the Turks in the administration of Turfān.³⁴

Thereupon a large force was organized for the conquest of Turfān. This was to open the way Chinese
to the establishment of Chinese supremacy over the Western countries. Ch'ü Wên-t'ai appears conquest of
to have relied on the protection afforded by the difficulties of the desert crossing, and died from Kao-ch'ang
terror in A.D. 640, when the Chinese army had effected its passage through the desert. The territory.
inscription of that year set up on the Barkul pass, to which reference has been made above,
shows the care with which preparations had been made by the Chinese commanders to assure the

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