Central Asia in World History

by Peter B. Golden

  Hand-dug canals in Xinjiang require constant attention. Typically, villagers dig a series of narrow but deep wells, sometimes to depths of 275 feet or more. The wells are linked by channels forming a kind of grand canal from which they build branches across the areas to be irrigated. Courtesy of Justin J. Rudelson

  The Xiongnu, whose origins are obscure, emerged in the third century BCE as China was recovering from a long period of internal strife that ended when the Qin (221–206 BCE) unified the various Chinese states. The Qin and their successors, the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) pursued an aggressive northern policy. They built fortification walls that would later become the Great Wall, a means to secure newly subjugated territories and a platform for further expansion. The Xiongnu saw this as a threat and prepared for war.12 Sima Qian claimed that “plundering and marauding” was their response to crises. “Warfare,” he concluded, “is their business.”13 They organized their army in units of 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000, divided into right and left wings with the commander at the center. This form of decimal military organization was widespread across the Central Asian nomadic world.

  Eucratides I the Great, who issued numerous coins, was, according to Strabo, master of a thousand cities—probably an exaggeration. He appears to have seized power, touching off a civil war among the ever-fractious power holders in the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom and contributing, not long after his death, to its demise. www.ancientsculpturegallery.com

  Qin incursions into Xiongnu pasturelands in the Ordos (in Inner Mongolia) in 215 BCE had driven their ruler, the Chanyu (supreme leader or emperor) Touman northward, unsettling the steppe. A subordinate of the Yuezhi, another nomadic people (most probably of Scythian or Tokharian origin) controlling Gansu and parts of Xinjiang and Mongolia, Touman had sent his oldest son Modun as a hostage to the Yuezhi court, a guarantee of Xiongnu good behavior. Modun correctly feared treachery from his father, who favored his younger half-brother as his successor. Touman suddenly attacked, perhaps hoping that the enraged Yuezhi would kill Modun in retaliation. Modun managed a daring escape and, as a reward for his courage, his father gave him a troop of 10,000 cavalry. Modun trained this troop to absolute obedience, ordering them to “shoot wherever you see my whistling arrows strike!” Having tested his men by ordering them to shoot his favorite horse, favorite wife, and his father’s favorite horse, he then took aim at his father. Touman died in a hail of arrows. Modun (ruling 209–174 BCE), then “executed his stepmother, his younger brother, and all the high officials of the nation who refused to take orders from him.”14 Having eliminated domestic rivals, his conquest of neighboring northern peoples won over the Xiongnu tribal lords and legitimated his rule.

  Han-Xiongnu conflict followed. An attempt at a more pacific relationship was formalized in the Heqin (peace through kinship relations) treaty of 198 BCE. The Han sent a royal princess accompanied by substantial quantities of silk, other textiles, and foodstuffs including wine.15 The Xiongnu thus became the first of the tribute-based nomadic polities. The Chanyu would be accorded equal status with the Chinese emperor. In return, the Chanyu agreed not to raid China. It was extraordinary that the Chinese emperor, the “Son of Heaven,” would consider a leather and feltclad “barbarian” his equal, but China was hardly in a position of strength. Moreover, such ties, some Chinese officials argued, might indeed tame the “barbarian” and eventually bring him into a properly subordinate relationship.

  Royal brides and silk became a common feature of northern nomad-Chinese diplomacy. The princesses complained of their “domed lodgings” with felt walls and diets of horsemeat (still well-represented on Central Asian restaurant menus) and koumiss (fermented mare’s milk), a continuing favorite of modern Central Asian nomads, who claim that a pint of it has antibiotic properties and all the daily vitamins required for good health. The Emperor Hui dispatched another tearful bride in 192 BCE. Modun aimed higher. In a letter to Hui’s mother, the empress Lü, he noted that he was a widower who sought friendship with China and hinted that perhaps he and the widowed Empress could find pleasure in each other’s company. The empress demurred, replying that her hair and teeth had fallen out and that the Chanyu should not “sully” himself with the likes of her. Meanwhile, Modun, having defeated and driven off the Yuezhi, solidified his hold on the nomads around 176 BCE, informing the Han that he had subjugated “all the people who live by drawing the bow.”16

  The emperor Wendi established border markets for Xiongnu trade and sent a Han bride to Jizhu, Modun’s son and successor. Zhonghang Yue, a eunuch and Confucian scholar, accompanied her. He then defected to the Xiongnu and warned his new masters about the fatal allure of Chinese goods. Silk, he declared, was not as useful as leather and felt for nomads, and Chinese foodstuffs were “not as practical or as tasty as milk and koumiss.”17 Statesmen in the nomad camp who had firsthand experience of the sedentary world often expressed the fear that the adoption of too many goods from settled society would deprive the nomads of their martial prowess. Nonetheless, the nomads did make extensive use of silk for clothing, which proved even more useful as a trading commodity. In this way, Chinese silk made its way across Eurasia to Rome.

  In 162 BCE, Wendi tried to reaffirm the division of power and sovereignty on both sides of the Great Wall. The peoples north of the Great Wall, “where men wield the bow and arrow,” were subjects of the Chanyu, while the peoples south of the Great Wall, who “dwell in houses and wear hats and girdles” (the Chinese), were to be in the domain of the Middle Kingdom. “We and the Chanyu must be as parents to them [all].”18 Such an arrangement, he argued, would ensure peace. It proved short-lived.

  The Xiongnu were consolidating their power in the steppe world with repercussions that reverberated across Eurasia. In 162 BCE, Chanyu Jizhu, allied with the Wusun, another (most probably Iranian) nomadic people in the Gansu Corridor, foes of the Yuezhi. He killed the Yuezhi king (making his head into a drinking goblet) and drove them further westward to Afghanistan. The Wusun, with no illusions about their Xiongnu “allies,” wisely removed themselves to the Ili river region. The Xiongnu then subjugated the oasis trading cities of the “Western Regions” (Xinjiang), establishing a special administration for this area with its rich agricultural and urban mercantile populations.

  Xiongnu conquests sparked a series of westward migrations from the Chinese borderlands. Yuezhi and Iranian nomads rolled across the steppe, ultimately spilling over into Bactria and Iran. The Graeco-Bactrian kingdom was one of the casualties, an event noted by both Chinese and Europeans. Clearly, turbulence in China’s northern tribal zone could have ramifications for peoples and states to the west.

  China was becoming less secure while the costs of buying off the Xiongnu were mounting. The Han now shifted from Heqin diplomacy to confrontation. In 138 BCE, the emperor Wudi (141–87 BCE) sent a special envoy, Zhang Qian, on a secret mission to induce the Yuezhi to join China against the Xiongnu. Zhang was captured by the Xiongnu and spent some ten years with them, gaining intimate knowledge of their society. He eventually escaped with his Xiongnu wife and son and made his way across Central Asia to the now distant Yuezhi. Although he failed to convince the Yuezhi to join in further warfare against the Xiongnu, he made his way back to China, bringing firsthand knowledge of the northern nomads and Central Asia. The Emperor Wudi had already initiated his campaign in 134–3 BCE to subjugate the strategically vital “Western Regions,” hoping to deprive the Xiongnu of this important source of tribute, manpower, agricultural, and manufactured products. It would also assure China of easier access to West and South Asia.

  Chinese expansion into these dangerous borderlands was justified strategically and economically. Of particular importance to Wudi were the “heavenly” or “blood-sweating” horses of Ferghana. These horses, which were large in comparison with the steppe ponies of the nomads, had this name because of the reddish tinge of their perspiration, probably caused by a parasite on their skin. China needed horses for its army to counter the nomads and to engage
in distant military expeditions into Central Asia.

  Armed now with Zhang Qian’s knowledge, Han campaigns between 127 and 119 BCE penetrated deep into Central Asia. China gained control of the Ordos and sent settlers to secure the region. Han armies took Gansu and advanced as far as Lake Baikal. Mindful of the risks of prolonged warfare in the steppe, China turned to diplomacy and in 115 BCE again dispatched Zhang Qian, the most important intelligence operative of his day. His mission was to win over Central Asian tribes, like the Wusun, to make common cause with China against the Xiongnu. They countered with their own diplomatic measures: the Wusun ruler ended up with both Han and Xiongnu princesses. The Han pressed on, taking Ferghana in 101 BCE. Wudi gained access to the “blood-sweating” horses and scored a major political and psychological point showing that Han power could reach into the nomads’ home turf.

  China’s advances westward, its use of silk for diplomatic and commercial purposes,19 followed by its securing of Central Asian markets, gave firmer shape to the Silk Road, now a series of intersecting overland trading networks that continued to bring goods across Eurasia. This stabilized the means by which Chinese silk, which had been making its way to Greece and Rome via a complicated series of routes and irregular exchanges since ancient times,20 now regularly reached the Mediterranean world.

  The grueling struggle for control of the “Western Regions,” lasting until 60 BCE, produced internal divisions in Xiongnu society. Although sometimes termed a “state,” or even an “empire,” the Xiongnu realm was first and foremost a tribal confederation. The Chanyu was the chief executive officer, combining military, diplomatic, judicial, and even priestly functions. Beneath him were the twenty-four “wise kings” of the left and right and twenty-four other leaders, each in command of 10,000 troops. This “imperial confederation”21 was flexible and consultative, and it allowed for considerable autonomy in tribal and clan matters.

  The Chanyu’s precedence was most notable in foreign affairs. The Xiongnu tribes, at least in theory, spoke in one voice through him in their dealings with the outside world. In subject sedentary regions, the Xiongnu collected tribute and required labor from the population. Nomads and their herds were subject to an annual census conducted in autumn, but otherwise faced little government interference. The flexibility of nomadic society was both a strength and weakness. It allowed for quick responses to changing situations, but also easily degenerated into factional strife. As long as the central authority provided military and diplomatic success, securing access to the markets of the sedentary world on terms that were favorable to the nomads, the system worked, but disruption of access produced domestic turmoil.

  Formerly subject peoples inflicted humiliating losses on the Xiongnu in 72–71 BCE. The Han emperor Xuandi established a Chinese Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60–59 BCE. Prolonged warfare with China had taken its toll, and the Xiongnu were in decline. China encouraged and exploited the growing divisions in Xiongnu society, in particular within the ruling house. The Xiongnu split into two factions: northern and southern. The northern tribes under the Chanyu Zhizhi, under pressure from China, moved northward and ultimately westward toward Kangju (the Syr Darya region). China, again risking a campaign deep in the steppe, defeated and killed him. Those tribes that did not drift back remained in Kangju, creating the base for another tribal union that would later move westward toward Europe: the Huns.

  Meanwhile, the southern Xiongnu tribes under Zhizhi’s brother, the Chanyu Huhanye, and remnants of the northern grouping submitted and were rewarded with access to Chinese markets. As the Xiongnu further divided into warring factions, the brilliant Han general Ban Chao unleashed a series of campaigns into Central Asia that reached the Caspian Sea, securing control over this part of the Silk Road. Further attacks in 87–93 CE and 155 CE by nomadic allies of China, the Wuhuan and Xianbei peoples from Manchuria, who were speakers of early Mongolian,22 spurred new Xiongnu migrations to the west. The northern confederation now faded. The southern confederation remained on the Chinese borderlands and was drawn into various statelets in the north of China that were created by Xianbei and Qiang (Tibetan) peoples after the fall of the Han in 220. The nomads of the eastern steppes were fragmented and lacked overall leadership.

  To the west, two nomad-derived political formations were taking shape: the Kushan Empire and the Huns. In the course of the first centuries BCE and CE, the Kushan dynasty under Kujula Kadphises emerged as the ruling house of the Yuezhi nomads who had overrun the Graeco-Bactrian state. At its height, the Kushan Empire included Bactria, parts of eastern Iran, western and eastern Turkestan, as well as Pakistan (Peshawar served as one of its capitals). Although one of the most powerful and important states of its age, Kushan political history, which has been largely reconstructed from coins and archaeological finds, is murky. Scholars remain divided on the dates of the reigns of the known Kushan rulers. They appear to have reached the apogee of their power sometime in the mid-second century CE, in particular under Kanishka I (ruling, perhaps, about 120–143 CE), possibly a great-grandson of Kujula Kadphises, or Huvishka, who ascended the throne some four years after Kanishka’s death and appears to have ruled for thirty-two years. Kanishka, like his ancestor Kujula Kadphises, styled himself “king of kings” and devaputra, an Indian title meaning “son of god,” an indication that the dynasty was either claiming divine origin or imitating the imperial ideologies of China, India, and Rome.

  Sitting astride the crossroads of Central Asia, the Kushan realm displayed a remarkable blending of cultures. Early coins used Greek as their official language, following the traditions of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. Later coinage switched to Bactrian, a local East Iranian language, which they wrote using Greek letters. Their coins, usually of gold or copper, have images of Iranian, Indian, and Greek gods on one side and depictions of the ruler on the other. These coins and figurines of various deities found in archaeological sites indicate the coexistence of a broad range of religions: Zoroastrianism, local cults, and Buddhism. Some Kushan rulers patronized and promoted Buddhism, which spread across southern Central Asia to China. Buddhist temples and monasteries were very much a part of the landscape of pre-Islamic Afghanistan.

  The art of the Kushan realm combines the realistic representations of the human form typical of Graeco-Roman art with the curvaceous and flowing Indian style and the more formal indigenous Iranian tradition. The Buddha was portrayed wearing a flowing Roman toga. Bodhisattvas (in Buddhist belief, humans who forego entering nirvana and accept reincarnation in order to help humanity and other creatures) were portrayed in the clothing and styles of real people of their time, probably patrons. This sculpture not only continued the earlier Graeco-Bactrian tradition, but also reflected continued contacts with the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean world. Indeed, artisans and artists from the latter made their way to Gandhara (today southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan). Some even left their names on the works they created.

  The art, especially of the later Kushan period, was largely Buddhist in subject matter. Some works, however, depicted rulers, attired in long coats (often with gold decorations), trousers, and boots that reflected their nomadic heritage. The emphasis is on the expression of power. The Gandharan style later spread to western and eastern Turkestan. The remains of Kushan monumental art, such as the temple of Surkh Kotal (in Baghlan province, Afghanistan), with its four flights of stairs leading up to a temple devoted to the cult of the heavenly kings, underscore the grandeur of this empire. Inscriptions, often in a variety of languages and scripts, attest to its imperial, universal claims.

  Domestically, Kushan kings expanded agriculture through the organization of irrigation projects. As middlemen, they had a significant economic impact on international trade, sending goods by caravan through Central Asia and by sea from Indian ports. They received goods from Egypt, China, and India and were vital to the Silk Road, the fur trade (coming from the Urals), and the commerce in precious stones. Finds of Chinese and Roman goods i
n the remains of the rulers’ palaces give ample evidence of the range of their commercial contacts. As trade and pilgrimage routes often intertwined, the Kushans encouraged Buddhist pilgrimages, promoting international commerce at the same time.

  In a process that probably lasted from the 230s to around 270 CE, the Kushan Empire fell to the Sasanids, the newly established rulers of Iran. Sasanid control of this realm was contested in the fourth century CE by new waves of nomads who were called Hyaona or Hyon in Persian and Chionitae in Greek and Latin. Both of these names have been viewed as transcriptions of the same term masked by the Chinese Xiongnu. Subsequently, this word appears in Europe as “Hun.” Are the Chionitae, Huns, and others bearing similar-sounding names simply the Xiongnu of the Chinese borderlands? Scholars disagree on this matter. The most recent studies argue for a connection.23 The rise and fall of the Xiongnu had pushed various nomadic peoples, in particular Turkic groupings, away from the Chinese and Mongolian borderlands and brought them westward to the Kazakh steppes. What seems most likely is that a tribal union containing some core elements associated with the original Xiongnu and continuing to bear this very prestigious name among the steppe nomads, made its way into Kazakhstan. In the Kazakh steppes, additional tribes joined, forming a new tribal union: the Huns.

  In 375 CE, perhaps again under pressure from tribal movements in Central Asia, these “Huns” crossed the Volga River, smashing the Alans, a powerful Iranian people residing in the Caspian-Pontic steppes since the first century CE (the Osetins of Caucasia are their descendants) and their neighbors, the Gothic tribal unions. These dislocations contributed to waves of migrations in which the mainly Germanic tribes of the Roman borderlands pushed into a crumbling Roman defense system. The Hun raids, much like those that had struck China, harassed the Roman borderlands. In the 440s, Attila, a Hunnic chieftain, took power over a large grouping of Huns and subject Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples in Pannonia (Hungary) and adjoining lands. He plundered Roman lands, seeking loot and tribute, not territorial conquests. The Roman Empire, however feeble it may have been due to internal discord, was never really in danger from him. When Attila died at his wedding feast in 453 CE, perhaps poisoned by his bride, his confederation quickly collapsed. The Huns melted back into the steppe, occasionally appearing as Roman mercenaries.