Battle of Talas

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Battle of Talas
Date May-September, 751 AD Location Talas, Kyrgyzstan[1] Result Abbasid victory
Belligerents
Abbasid Caliphate	Tang Dynasty
Commanders
Ziyad ibn Salih[2][3]	Gao Xianzhi Li Siye Duan Xiushi[2]
Strength
The number of troops from Arab protectorates was not recorded by either side but estimated to be 200,000[4]	30,000 (10,000 troops of Chinese protectorate + 20,000 Qarluq mercenaries who switched to the Arab side in the middle of the battle). All military units either infantry or cavalry was not indicated.[5]
Casualties and losses
more than 20,000	more than 8,000

The Battle of Talas(怛羅斯會戰) in 751 AD was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty for control of the Syr Darya. On July 751, The Abbasides started a massive attack against the Chinese on the backs of the Talas river; 200,000 Muslim troops met the combined army of 10,000 Tang Chinese and 20,000 Karluks mercenary. Although the Chinese cavalry seemed to initially overwhelm the Arab cavalry, the Arab army was much bigger and the battle dragged on for five days. The tide of the battle turned when Karluks mercenaries betrayed the Tang troops and attacked it from the rear. Out of 10,000 Tang troops, only 2000 managed to return to Central Asia. The defeat was due to the defection of Karluk mercenaries and the retreat of Ferghana allies who originally supported the Chinese. The Karluks forces, which composed of two third of the Tang army, deserted the Chinese coalition and changed to the Muslim side while the battle was ongoing. With the Karluk troops attacking the Tang army from the rear and the Arab attacking from the front, the Tang troops were unable to hold their positions. The commander of the Tang forces, Gao Xianzhi, recognized that defeat was imminent and managed to escape with some of his Tang regulars with the help of Li Siye. Despite losing the battle, Li did inflict heavy losses on the pursuing Arab army after being reproached by Duan Xiushi. After the battle, Gao was prepared to organize another Tang army against the Arabs when the devastating An Shi Rebellion broke out in 755. When the Tang capital was taken by rebels, all Chinese armies stationed in Central Asia were ordered back to China proper to crush the rebellion^[6]

The Chinese name Daluosi (怛罗斯, Talas) was first seen in the account of Xuanzang. Du Huan located the city near the western drain of the Chui River.^[7] The exact location of the battle has not been confirmed but is believed to be near Talas in present day Kyrgyzstan.

Contents 1 Background 2 Aftermath 3 Historical significance 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References

[edit] Background

Prior to the battle, there were other indirect encounters between the combatants. The first occurred in 715 when Alutar, the new king of Ferghana, was installed with the help of the Arabs and Tibetans. The deposed king Ikhshid fled to Kucha (seat of Anxi Protectorate), and sought for Chinese intervention. The Chinese sent 10,000 troops under Zhang Xiaosong to Ferghana. He defeated the Arab-puppet Alutar at Namangan and reinstalled Ikhshid. The inhabitants of three Sogdian cities were massacred as a result of the battle.^[8] The second encounter occurred in 717, when Arabs and Tibetans were guided by the Turgesh and besieged two cities in the area of Aksu. The Chinese Tang Jiahui responded by sending an army composed of Qarluq mercenaries and Ashina Xin (client qaghan of Onoq) to attack them.^[8] And according to Chinese sources the battle resulted in a Tang victory, and according to a memorial by Tang Jiahui, one of the two generals who led the battle (the other being Ashina Xin).^[9]

[edit] Aftermath

Shortly after the battle of Talas, the domestic rebellion of An Lushan (755–63) and subsequent warlordism of the jiedushi (763 onwards) caused the decline of Tang influence in Central Asia by the end of the 700s. The local Tang tributaries then switched to the authority of the Abbasids, Tibetans, or Uighurs and the introduction of Islam was thus facilitated among the Turkic peoples. Well supported by the Abbasids, the Qarluqs established a state that would be absorbed in the late 9th century by the Kara-Khanid Khanate.

With the successful cooperation of Arabs and Turkic peoples, Islam began to exert its influence on the Turkic culture.

[edit] Historical significance

Among the earliest historians to proclaim the importance of this battle was the great Russian historian of Muslim Central Asia, Vasily Bartold, according to whom, "The earlier Arab historians, occupied with the narrative of events then taking place in western Asia, do not mention this battle; but it is undoubtedly of great importance in the history of (Western) Turkestan as it determined the question which of the two civilizations, the Chinese or the Muslim, should predominate in the land (of Turkestan)."^[3]

However, claims that the battle itself was significant are not well-supported by historical evidence. The dry and simplistic recounting of the battle itself in Chinese accounts shows that it may have been no more than a border skirmish. Most of the sources for this battle barely mention the Chinese defeat, leaving a duration of five days undescribed, with exception for the dialogues after the defeat. The loss of 8000 troops to the Tang empire was also minimal since Tang had a troop strength of more than 500,000 before the Anshi rebellion^[10] According to Bartold, for the history of the first three centuries of Islam, al-Tabari was the chief source (survived in Ibn al Athir's compilation), which was brought down to 915. (Unfortunately, this important work was only compiled and published by a group of Orientalists in 1901.) It is only in Athir that we find an accurate account of the conflict between the Arabs and the Chinese in 751. Neither Tabari nor the early historical works of the Arabs which have come down to us in general make any mention of this; however, Athir's statement is completely confirmed by the Chinese History of the Tang Dynasty.^[11] It must be noted that in all Arab sources, the events which occurred in the eastern part of the empire are often dealt with briefly.^[12] Another notable informant of the battle on the Muslim side was Al-Dhahabi (1274–1348).^[13]

It is of interest to note that the Battle of Talas is often seen as the key event in the technological transmission of the paper-making process. After the battle of Talas, knowledgeable Chinese prisoners of war were ordered to produce paper in Samarkand, or so the story goes.^[14] In fact, high quality paper had been known – and made – in Central Asia for centuries; a letter on paper survives from the fourth century to a merchant in Samarkand. But the Islamic conquest of Central Asia in the late seventh and early eighth centuries opened up this knowledge for the first time to what became the Muslim world, and so by the year 794 AD a paper mill could be found in Baghdad, modern-day Iraq. The technology of paper making was thus transmitted to and revolutionised the Islamic world, and later the West.^[15]

Other than the transfer of paper, there is no evidence to support a geopolitical or demographic change resulting from this battle. Several of the factors after the battle had been taken note of prior to 751. Firstly, the Qarluq never in any sense remained opposed to the Chinese after the battle. In 753, the Qarluq Yabgu Dunpijia submitted under the column of Cheng Qianli and captured A-Busi, a betrayed Chinese mercenary of Tongluo (Tiele) chief (who had defected earlier in 743), and received his title in the court on October 22.^[16] Nor did the Chinese expansion halt after the battle; the Chinese commander Feng Changqing, who took over the position from Gao Xianzhi through Wang Zhengjian, virtually swept across the Kashmir region and captured Gilgit shortly in the same year. The Chinese influence to the west of the Pamir Mountains certainly did not cease as the result of the battle; the Ferghana, who participated in the battle earlier, in fact joined among the central Asian auxiliaries with the Chinese army under a summons and entered Gansu during An Lushan's revolt in 756.^[17] Neither did the relations between the Chinese and Arabs worsen, as the Abbasids, like their predecessors (since 652), continued to send embassies to China uninterruptedly after the battle. Such visits had overall resulted in 13 diplomatic gifts between 752–98.^[18] Not all Turkic tribes of the region converted to Islam after the battle either — the date of their mass-conversion to Islam was much later, in the 10th century under Musa.^[19]

[edit] See also

• Du Huan
• History of Arabs in Afghanistan
• Islam during the Tang Dynasty
• Muslim conquests

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Bartold, W [1928] (1992). (Western) Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. ISBN 81-215-0544-3.
• Bai, Shouyi et al. (2003). A History of Chinese Muslim (Vol.2). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. ISBN 7-101-02890-X.
• Xue, Zongzheng (1998). Anxi and Beiting Protectorates: A Research on Frontier Policy in Tang Dynasty's Western Boundary. Harbin: Heilongjiang Education Press. ISBN 7-5316-2857-0.