Mongols Before Genghis Khan - Tang Dynasty and Uyghur Empire

Tang Dynasty and Uyghur Empire

From 629 to 648, a reunited China—under the Tang Dynasty (618-906) --destroyed the power of the Eastern Türk north of the Gobi; established suzerainty over the Kitan, a semi-nomadic Mongol people who lived in areas that became the modern Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin; and formed an alliance with the Uyghurs, who inhabited the region between the Altai Mountains and Lake Balkash. Between 641 and 648, the Tang conquered the Western Türk, reestablishing Chinese sovereignty over Xinjiang and exacting tribute from west of the Pamir Mountains. The Türk empire finally ended in 744.

For half a century, the Tang retained control of Central Asia and Mongolia and parts of Inner Asia. Both sides of the Great Wall came under Tang rule. During this period, the Tang expanded Chinese control into the Oxus Valley. At the same time, their allies, the Uyghurs, conquered much of western and northern Mongolia until, by the middle of the 8th century, the Uyghur seminomadic empire extended from Lake Balkash to Lake Baykal.

Despite these crippling losses, the Tang recovered and, with considerable Uyghur assistance, held their frontiers. Tang dependence upon their northern allies was apparently a source of embarrassment to the Chinese, who surreptitiously encouraged the Kirghiz and the Karluks to attack the Uyghurs, driving them south into the Tarim Basin. As a result of the Kirghiz action, the Uyghur empire collapsed in 846. Some of the Uyghurs emigrated to Eastern Turkistan (the Turpan region), where they established a flourishing kingdom that freely submitted to Genghis Khan several centuries later. Ironically, this weakening of the Uyghurs undoubtedly hastened the decline and fall of the Tang Dynasty over the next fifty years.