Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
From: liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu)
Subject: Re: How Turkic are the "Uygurs" (Was Re: Russian in Xinjiang)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Distribution: na
Date: 11 Dec 92 19:18:57 GMT

In article <1g9s0oINNl1m@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk> rap@doc.ic.ac.uk writes:
>From article <92Dec10.165619est.54@orasis.vis.toronto.edu>, by liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu):
>> I got a question, besides the "turkistan from Agean Sea to Great Wall"
>> rhetoric, how close are Uygurs and Turkish people related?  I really
>> don't think their blood line was that close.
>
>If you mean genetically, the people of Turkey are not that different
>from their neighbours in the eastern Mediterranean.  As for language,
>I understand that Turkish and Uighur are about as different as Cantonese
>and Mandarin.
>
>> I remember Uygur was "Hui2Hu2" during Tang dynasty, which was
>> nomadic and under control of "Tu1Jue2" like everyone else
>> in central asia and current day inner & outer mongolia.
>
>They were Tu1Jue2 (Turk); they took over the eastern Turkish empire,
>early in the 8th century, I think.
>
I don't think Hui2Hu2 was exactly Tu1Jue2, Tu1Jue2 controlled everyone
while they were strong and when China was divided and later under
the chaotic situation under the short lived Sui2 dynasty.  Tu1Jue2
later divided into east & west, and east TuJue was completely
defeated and its two brother Khans captured shortly after Li ShiMing
(Tang Tai Zong) took the Tang throne,

the Hui2Hu2 always had their own Khan, and had been a Tang "ally-vessel"
after they got lose from the control of both Tu1Jie2 tribes.  

>> [...]
>> "Hui2Hu2" and other tribes became Tang's vessel.
>
>That may be the Tang story, but I expect the Uighurs would say "ally";
>they certainly were a valuable one.
>
Well, when Tang was strong, Hui2Hu2 and others had to pay symbolic tribute
to the Tang Emperor, and succession to the Khan title had to be confirmed
by Tang, there's numerous times when civil war broke out for succession
or border dispute with other tribes Tang has to either mediate, or send an 
imperial order, or send army out quell people down, but on the other hand, 
the Tang court never imposed any tax on its vessels, or had an official 
policy of assimulation, and their war-effort in aiding the Empire was
pretty much voluntery.  So "ally" or "vessel", or "nominal vessel" is 
really arguable, but the relationship was a quite typical one in Imperial 
China history.  

>> [...]
>> It seems to me that at that time Hui2Hu2 had not settled in XinJiang
>> and was totally nomadic, in current day XinJiang there were a bunch of
>> city-states under the protection/occupation of Tang's army, it's also
>> pre-dominately buddhaist territory.  Further west the Arabs(Da4 Shi2 as
>> they were called) was beating the living day lights out of the Persians,
>
>They also beat the Tang, leading to the loss of XinJiang, completed by
>the Tibetan invasion of Gansu.

Tang really lost XinJiang to the Tibetans, with an exhausting civil
war in Chinese Heart land and a successions of not so great  Emperors,
Tang simply cannot afford to fight hard and no longer has the resources to
defend central Asia, they really abandoned the frontier.  

Tang rose almost at the same time as the Arabs, they did indirectly
supported the Persians to resist the Arabs(Da4 Shi2), and from the
name given you can tell they didn't like the Arabs, and realized
the threat, but they always consider them to be too far away to be
worried about, they were busy digging down and putting down rebellions
and make allies in XinJiang,  for a while, Tang's grip on its central
asia territory was almost unchallengable, and there was no direct
confrontation with the Arabs.  When Tang went into decline after
the "AnShi" rebellion in mid-late 8th century, the Arab expansion 
was also pretty much stopped.  
>
>> [...]  I guess when Tang's power diminished in central asia later,
>> and after the Tibetans retreated, Islam started to spread and take over
>> there, and Hui2 Hu2 settled down in XinJiang, at least they are no
>> longer completely nomadic.
>
>The Uighurs moved from Mongolia to XinJiang around 840 when their empire
>was destroyed by another Turkish tribe (the Kirghiz?).  This was almost a
>century after the Tang lost XinJiang.  Islam got there some time later.
>Their lifestyle in XinJiang was agricultural; I'm don't know about when
>they were in Mongolia.  They didn't become part of the Chinese empire
>until the 18th century.
>
well, they were under the mongolians, and had a higher cast number than
the Chinese. ;->

>Ross