Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 51 ページ（カラー画像）

0051	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

To complete this summary of the notices in the T'ang Annals concerning Turfān, the descrip- Turfān
tion of Kao-ch'ang given in Chapter CCXXI of the T'ang shu may be reproduced here from described
M. Chavannes' translation : ⁴³ ' Kao-ch'ang is over four thousand li, as the crow flies, to the west shu.
of the capital ; it measures eight hundred li from east to west and five hundred li from north to
south ; it comprises twenty-one towns ; the king has his capital in the town of Chiao-ho, which
is the same as the Court of the Anterior king of Chū-shih at the epoch of the Han ; the town of
T'ien-ti was the administrative seat of the Wu-chi-hsiao-wei.⁴⁴ The soil is fertile ; wheat and
cereals produce there two harvests every year ; there is to be found there a plant called po-tieh
白疊 ; one picks its flower which one can spin in order to make cloth of it.⁴⁵ It is the [inhabitants']
custom to tie their hair into a plait which hangs behind the head.' ⁴⁶ The dimensions indicated
for the territory probably represent, as is usual in such cases, rough estimates of the distances to
be covered on the high roads leading through the territory from east to west and from north to
south. Taken in this sense, the measurements are reasonably correct ; for from Chik-tam where
the high road from the east first reaches inhabited ground in the Turfān basin, to Manān-chose-
dawān where it leaves it in the south-west, eight daily marches would be the present customary
estimate. Similarly five marches would be reckoned in proceeding from Hsi-yao-tzŭ, where the
most frequented road across the T'ien-shan descends from the watershed, to the outermost Kuruk-
tāgh range, which constitutes the southern rim of the basin.

The administrative absorption of Turfān into the Chinese Empire has deprived us of the Hsüan-
account which Hsüan-tsang's Hsi yü chi would otherwise have furnished of the territory. The tsang's
great pilgrim had reached it in 630 on his way westwards from Hāmi, and had been received there through
with much honour by Ch'ü Wên-t'ai.⁴⁷ The king had in fact wished to detain him altogether, and Turfān.
in the end consented to release him only on Hsüan-tsang's promise that on his way back he would
stay at Kao-ch'ang for three years. But when Hsüan-tsang was returning towards China in
644-5, Kao-ch'ang had ceased to exist as a kingdom, and he was free to travel by way of Khotan
and Lop. If Kao-ch'ang thus dropped out of his ' Memoirs of the Western regions ', Hsüan-tsang
at least bears witness to the close connexion existing at the time between its ruler and the Western
Turks ; for he tells us that a sister of Ch'ü Wên-t'ai was married to the eldest son of T'ung
Shê-hu, the supreme Kagan of the Western Turks, and that the Kao-ch'ang chief's recommenda-
tion to the Kagan had secured for him powerful support on his journey all through the latter's
vast dominion.⁴⁸

The transfer of the An-hsi Protectorate to Kuchā in A.D. 658 marked the establishment of Turfān
a new base for Chinese political activity in Eastern Turkestān. This helps to explain why the between
abundance of exact and reliable data which M. Chavannes's masterly researches have gathered A.D. 658-
from the T'ang Annals for this period of Chinese expansion in Central Asia, supplies but little 92.
information as to the events and conditions particularly affecting Turfān. Between the years
640 and 670 the district may be assumed to have remained in undisturbed Chinese occupation.
But whether this continued during the two following decades appears very doubtful. We know
that after A.D. 670 the ' Four Garrisons ' controlled by the Protectorate of An-hsi (Kuchā, Khotan,
Kāshgar, Tokmak) were overrun by the Tibetans, who had in that year won a signal victory over

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