A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

78 A history of Inner Asia
at the expense of the other two as an increasingly Islamic city with a
Turki-speaking population.
The Uighurs who established their kingdom in Qocho by 850 did
not move to an unfamiliar territory.The qaghans already had some
control over these western reaches from their erstwhile capital of
Qarabalghasun in Mongolia.What is more, they did not come as cultural
strangers: we have mentioned their prior conversion to
Manichaeism.It does appear, however, that their elite had retained to
some degree the nomadic lifestyle once common among most Turks of
Inner Asia; and that in this respect the fusion of the newcomers with the
indigenous population proceeded only gradually.The Uighur kings
resided in Qocho, a depression to the south of the Tianshan mountains,
only in winter; summers were spent on the cooler, northern side of the
Tianshan.That was the site of a secondary capital, Bishbalik
(“Pentapolis”), also known by its Chinese name, Peiting (“Northern residence”).Located
some 100 kilometers almost due north of Turfan,
Bishbalik eventually disappeared even as a ruin, so that modern scholars
were at first tempted to identify it with today’s capital of Sinkiang,
Urumchi, until the site was proved to lie some 50 kilometers east of the
latter city.
The contrast between the lifestyle of the still partly nomadic Turks
and that of the settled natives was many-faceted, but perhaps the most
striking example is how the two groups faced the summer heat of the
Turfan depression.The natives stayed home and took refuge in the
underground structures of their houses, whereas the Uighurs moved to
the cooler northern slopes of the Tianshan, where yurts rather than
houses were their shelters.There were of course other differences: irrigated
agriculture as the main occupation of the natives in contrast to
livestock rearing as that of the Turks; consumption of agricultural products
and duck by the sedentaries versus horse meat and kumys eaten and
drunk by the newcomers; and indigenous pastimes based on the home
scene as compared with the paramilitary pursuits of the nomads,
namely, horseback riding and hunting.This atmosphere was captured in
an account written by Wang Yang-ti, an envoy from the Sung emperor
of China to the Uighur king of Qocho, who visited the kingdom in 982:
In this country it neither rains nor snows, and the heat is extreme.Every year,
when summer is at its hottest, the inhabitants move underground....Houses
are covered with white clay.... There is a river which flows from a mountain
defile called Ching-ling: it has been regulated in such a way that its waters pass
around the capital, irrigate its fields and gardens, and move its mills.The