Karasahr - History

History

The Kingdom of Yanqi (Karashahr) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Route that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. During the Han dynasty it was a relatively large and important kingdom. According to Hanshu, the various states of the Western Regions, including Yanqi, were controlled by the Xiongnu, but later came under the influence of the Han Dynasty after its show of force when it attacked Dayuan (Fergana) late 2nd century BC.

According to Hou Hanshu, General Ban Chao went on a punitive campaign against Yanqi in 94 AD after they attacked and killed the Protector General Chen Mu and Vice Commandant Guo Xun in 75 AD. The king of Yanqi was decapitated and his head displayed in the capital. Later rebellions were subdued by Ban Chao's son Ban Yong in 127.

In 644, in his campaign in the Western Regions, Emperor Taizong of Tang attacked Yanqi after the kingdom allied itself with the Turks. The Four Garrisons of Anxi was established and one of them at Yanqi.

Karashahr become known to Europeans (as Cialis - an Italianized transcription of the Turkic Chalish) in the early 17th century, when the Portuguese Jesuit Lay Brother Bento de Góis visited it on his way from India to China (via Kabul and Kashgar). De Góis and his traveling companions spent several months in the "Kingdom of Cialis", while crossing it with a caravan of Kashgarian merchants (ostensibly, tribute bearers) on their way to the Ming China. The travelers stayed in Cialis City for three months in 1605, and then continued, via Turpan and Hami (all parts of the "Kingdom of Cialis", according to de Góis), to the Ming Empire border at Jiayuguan.

An early-20th-century traveler described the situation of Karashahr as follows:

"The whole of this district round Kara-shahr and Korla is, from a geographical and political point of view, both interesting and important; for whilst all other parts of Chinese Turkestan can only be reached either by climbing high and difficult passes—the lowest of which has the same elevation as Mont Blanc—or traversing extensive and dangerous waterless deserts of sand-hills, here we find the one and only convenient approach to the land through the valleys of several rivers in the neighbourhood of Ili, where plentiful water abounds in the mountain streams on all sides, and where a rich vegetation makes life possible for wandering tribes. Such Kalmuck tribes still come from the north-west to Tal. They are Torgut nomads who pitch their yurts round about Kara-shahr and live a hard life with their herds. . . .

Just as these Mongols wander about here at the present day, so the nomadic tribes of an earlier period must have used this district as their entrance and exit gate. The Tochari (Yue-chi), on their way from China, undoubtedly at that time passed through this gate to get into the Ili valley. . . ."