Karluks - History - Kirghiz Period

Kirghiz Period

Prior to the Kirghiz-Uyghur war of 829–840, the Kirghiz lived in the upper basin of the Yenisei River. Linguistically their language, together with the Altai language, belongs to a separate Kirghiz group of the Turkic language family. At that time they had an estimated population of 250,000 and an army of 50,000. Kirghiz victory in the war brought them to the Karluk door. They captured Tuva, Altai, a part of Dzungaria, and reached Kashgar. Allied with the Karluks against the Uygurs, in the 840s the Kirghiz started the occupation of that part of Zhetysu which is their present home. Karluk independence ended around 840. They fell from dominating the tribal association to a subordinate position. The Kirghiz remained a power in Zhetysu until their destruction by the Kara-Khitans in 1124, when most of them evacuated from their center in Tuva back to the Minusinsk Depression, leaving the Karluks to predominate again in Zhetysu.

The position of the Karluk state, based on the rich Zhetysu cities, remained strong, despite the failures in wars in the beginning of the 9th century. Yabgu was enriched by profitable trade in slaves on the Syr-Darya slave markets, selling guards for the Abbasid Caliphs, and control over the transit road to China in the sector from Taraz to Issyk Kul. The Karluk position in Fergana, despite Arab attempts to expel them, became stronger.

The fall of the last Kagan with its capital in Ötüken, which dominated for three centuries, created a completely new geopolitical situation in all Central Asia. For the first time in three hundred years, the powerful center of authority that created opportunities for expansion or even existence of any state in Turkestan had finally disappeared. Henceforth, the Turkic tribes recognized only the high status of the clan that inherited the Kagan title, but never again his unifying authority. Several Muslim historians state that after the loss by the Uygurs of their power (840), the supreme authority among the Turkic tribes passed to the Karluk leaders. Connection with the Ashina clan, the ruling clan of the Turkic Kaganate, allowed the Karluk dynasty to dress their authority with legitimate attire, and, abandoning the old title Yabgu, to take on the new title of Kagan.