Yecheng - History

History

During the Han Dynasty it was known as Xiye and also Piaosha or 'Drifting Sands'. It was noted for producing baicao (白草 literally "white grass") which gave a very poisonous substance used on arrow tips - probably the sap of Aconitium napellus, a plant of the poisonous Aconitum family known in English as monkshood or wolfsbane.

During the Former Han period it was described as having 350 households, 4,000 people, and 1,000 men able to bear arms, while in the Later Han period it is recorded (in the Hou Hanshu - circa 125 CE) as having 2,500 households, more than 10,000 people, and 3,000 men able to bear arms. The people were said to make an arrow poison from a local bush (probably a species of aconite).

The Chinese pilgrim monk, Song Yun, passed through the kingdom ("Zhujuban") on his way from Khotan in 519 CE. He described it as being 5 days' journey around, and that it produced lots of cereals, which they made into cakes. The inhabitants did not allow the slaughter of animals and only ate those which had died a natural death. Many of them lived in the mountains. They resembled the people of Khotan in their language and customs while their writing was like that of the Brahmans from India.

Xuanzang, travelling through the country in 644 CE, described it as being very fertile, with abundant grapes, pears and plums. He said it was more than 1,000 li in circuit, with a capital city measuring more than 10 li around. The writing was like that of Khotan but the spoken language was different. Although he says the people were sincere Buddhists, they had little culture or education and he found them rude and deceitful. Many monasteries were in ruins and the 100 or so monks left were of the Mahayana school. He added that the Mahayana canonical texts were more numerous here than in any other country Buddhism had reached.

It apparently sent an embassy to China at the beginning of the Taiyan period (435-439 CE) and tribute was sent regularly after that. It later fell under the power of the Hephthalites and then the Western Turks. In 639 the ruler sent an embassy to the Chinese court and by 659 was included as part of the region called the "Four Garrisons" by the Chinese after their defeat of the Turkish chief, Duman.

The population were presumably converted to Islam soon after the new religion arrived in the Tarim Basin about 1006 CE.

In earlier times it was important as the usual starting-point for caravans to India, through the Pamirs, via Tashkurghan, or through Ladakh by the Karakoram passes.

Kargalik held a large number of foreign slaves who integrated into the Chinese state. After being freed, many slaves such as Gilgitis in Xinjiang cities like Tashkurgan, Yarkand, and Karghallik, stayed rather than return Hunza in Gilgit. Most of these slaves were women who married local slave and non slave men and had children with them. Sometimes the women were married to their masters, other slaves, or free men who were not their masters. There were ten slave men to slave women married couples, and 15 master slave women couples, with several other non master free men married to slave women. Both slave and free Turki and Chinese men fathered children with Hunza slave women. A freeman, Khas Muhammad, was married with 2 children to a woman slave named Daulat, aged 24. A Gilgiti slave woman aged 26, Makhmal, was married to a Chinese slave man, Allah Vardi and had 3 children with him.

Today there is a small town with a market, some shops and a bank. The Yecheng oasis is one of 11 counties, known as the Kargilik County, included in the Kashgar Prefecture. Large-scale irrigation has transformed huge areas of desert into productive agricultural land. Yecheng is the main centre for Chinese immigration into western Xinjiang and it has become quite a large, sprawling town.

On February, 28, 2012 ethnic Uyghurs, wielding knives, attacked a market in Yecheng, killing 13 people, mostly ethnic Han. The police shot 7 attackers.