the ‘outside’ other 61
broke into the prison, set their tribesmen free and slaughtered most of
the guards; with some only beaten and released aft er that.
In 778 A.D., the throne of the Middle Kingdom was taken by the same
Chinese crown prince whose courtiers and counselors were humiliated
and caned by the Uighurs in 762 A.D. He was the one who successfully
expelled quite a large number of the Uighur “guests” from the capital
city who were indeed parasites on the Chinese treasury. Some of them
were killed by the Chinese aft er Tun Bagha-tarkhan’s coup d’etat in
779 A.D. Th e latter wanted peace with China and for that reason in
781 A.D. accepted ransom for the death of the “guests”. A couple of
years later the Uighurs and the Chinese signed a peace treaty that put
an end to the Uighurs’ hegemony in the Chinese capitals and their
humiliating attitude towards the Middle Kingdom. According to the
clauses of the treaty, the khagan accepted to be called a Chinese vassal
and promised not to send more than 200 Uighurs in an embassy; the
Uighurs also accepted to limit to a 1 000 the number of the horses they
had to bring to the compulsory auctions and not to kidnap Chinese
beyond the state boundaries.^176
Th e Turk khagans took the same measures, especially in the 620s,
when the T’ang dynasty had to pacify China and to restore order in
the Middle Kingdom. ‘Tang shu’ provides information about the yearly
attacks of the khagan and his contempt towards China. He noted in
detail, for example, the humiliation of the Chinese emperor when he
was compelled to answer the constantly increasing demands of the
Turkic ruler and to send higher tributes to the khaganate.^177 Even the
Emperor himself admitted that his father, the founder of the T’ang
dynasty, had to humiliate himself in front of the Turks during the
hard times immediately aft er 618 A.D. and to call himself a vassal of
the Turks.^178
Th e words of Tobo/Taspar/Tatpar khagan (572–581) also confi rm
the contemptuous attitude towards China and especially towards the
two northern Chou and Qi dynasties that experienced serious diffi cul-
ties in the 570s resulting in each of them asking for an alliance with
the powerful Turks of the period. He was so happy that he used the
following strong words in front of the people from his entourage:
(^176) Gumilev 2004, 450–452.
(^177) Bichurin 1950, 247.
(^178) Bichurin 1950, 255.