Chuban - History

History

Between 155 and 166 a former vassal tribe Syanbi (Ch. Xianbei) of the Huns (Ch. Xiongnu), known collectively as Huns, united under Tian-Shih-huai conducted a series of campaigns against Northern Huns, eventually defeating them and forcing them to flee west, which started a series of the Hun's westward migrations (93-c.380) to the S. Siberia and Middle Asia

The defeat ended the prominence of the Eastern Huns (Ch. Xiongnu) as a major power in inner Asia. Tian-Shih-huai expelled the Huns from Dzungaria to beyond the Tarbagatai Mountains, and pushed the Dingling beyond the Sayan mountains. The defeat had cost the Xiongnu their revenue from the Silk Road in the agricultural dependencies in the Tarim Basin ("Western Territories", Xiyu or Xinjian of the Chinese annals), forcing them to find new dependencies, and the Xiongnu split again.

The Chuban tribes, or "Weak Huns", took advantage of Uar (Hephthalites) weakness and conquered Zhetysu, where they established the principality of Chuban (in Chinese literature commonly called Yueban), which existed until the 480es CE. Later, some Uar returned to Zhetysu, and in cooperation with the Mukrins, a Xianbei tribe, occupied the Tianshan slopes in the 2nd century AD, retaining their independence for some time as the Western Xianbei Horde.

The "Strong Huns" migrated westward, conquering the Iranian Alans and Germanic Goths, and later attacking the Roman Empire. This Hunnic invasion of Europe led to severe upheavals among European peoples, giving the Huns a reputation in Europe as bandits and robbers, while the Chinese authors characterized them as the most cultured of all "barbarians".

In literature, the Chu tribes of the Late Antique period are also called by the generic appellation Central Asian Huns.

In the 5th century the Chuban were conquered by the Uigurs and split into four tribes: Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun, and Chuban. The Chuyue branch, intermixing with Turkuts, formed the Shato tribe in Southern Dzungaria, west from the lake Barkul.

The Zhetysu was also populated by remnants of the Yuezhi tribes, the Tukhsi and Azi, whose armies had conquered Bactria centuries before. The Azi lived between Suyab and Uzket. Mahmud Kashgari, who can be named a founder of comparative linguistics science, in the 11th century listed Tukhsi, a male dynastic tribe of the Az-Tochar composition, as a group of tribes with pure Turkic language.

In 448 the Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei received an envoy from the Chuban to negotiate a war with the Rouran. If the Chubans would pressure them from the west, the Rourans would lose any freedom to maneuver. Though no direct records exist about the war in Dzungaria, by the course of the events, there was no peace, and the nomadic empire of Rouran began to decline.

Based on his reconstructions of the events of Chuban history, Lev Gumilev argued against a widespread view that the Rouran were the "Abars" who attacked the Sabirs, starting a "Great Migration of people", because the Chuban state separated the Rouran Empire from the Sabirs.

By the 6th century CE the Chuy Huns, Uar Hephthalites, and Mukrin tribes merged to form the Turgesh people.

The Chuban state survived to the end of 480s, until its independence was destroyed by the Teleuts, who had split from the Rouran in 487. But the Teleuts' dominance was short-lived, first the Hephthalite conquered them in 495-496, then Rouran crushed them, and finally in 547, the Turkut Uyghur people conquered the Teleuts. But the Chuban lived on, forming four tribes - Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun and Chuban. These tribes became major players in the later Turkic Khaganate and thereafter