466 the turkic tribes
Like the Eastern Turks, the chief export of the Uighurs was livestock,
in their case horses and camels. The country produced little else. It
is also clear that the number of horses is vastly underrecorded. Only
seven presentations of horses are mentioned until the collapse of the
Uighur empire, although these were forced on the Chinese regularly.
It has been seen that in 765, 782, 787, 790, 792, 822, 827, and 829
alone, the T’ang court paid for about 41,750 horses. In contrast, the
Uighur missions, chiefly from Kan chou during the Five Dynasties
and Sung brought a great variety of goods, including amber, corals,
frankincense, and castoreum from far away. The reason is, of course,
that Kan chou was situated on the Silk Route and, through the pass-
ing caravans, traded with distant lands.
The Chinese paid for these goods with gold, silver, copper cash,
silk, brocade robes, garments, caps, gold and silver belts, golden ves-
sels, silver vessels, [porcelain] vessels, and, although not mentioned,
undoubtedly also tea.
Sha chou
The Tun-huang Oasis at the western end of the Kan-su Corridor owed
its wealth to the fact that, travelling east, it was the place where the
two Silk Routes met. It was inhabited by a people of mixed Chinese,
Tibetan, and Turkic descent. The area had been the Chinese com-
mandery of Tun-huang since Former Han times. The T’ang changed
its name to Sha chou (Sha commandery), but the old name continued
at times to be used. In the middle of the 8th century, the territory
fell under Tibetan domination. In the middle of the 9th century,
the Chinese warlord Chang Yi-ch’ao expelled the Tibetans and set
up his own principality. It included Kua chou (Kua commandery)
immediately northeast of Tun-huang.
In 851, Chang Yi-ch’ao sent a mission to the T’ang court and then
visited it himself. The court regarded this as a submission and appointed
him a Military Commissioner of the non-existant Army Which Attaches
Itself to Righteousness. But in practice, Chang Yi-ch’ao and his suc-
cessors were independent. (Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 335:35a).
In the early 10th century, the Chang family died out, and the people
elected the Chief Clerk Ts’ao Yi-chin as their ruler. Like the Changs,
he was Chinese (Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 335:35a).
On Mar.14, 926, envoys from Ts’ao Yi-chin of Sha chou to the
Later T’ang court offered gifts (Hsin Wu-tai shih 5:9a).