Turgesh
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The Turgesh (also Turgish or Türgish - known as Tuchishi in Chinese) were a Turkic tribal confederation who emerged from the ruins of the Western Turkic Khaganate. In time, the Turgesh, themselves a branch of the greater Tardush (Tulu, Dulo) subdivision of the On Okh (Onoq, Ten Arrows) or Western Turks, managed to build up a considerable if short-lived khanate. Their name first appears in Chinese sources in 651 - by that time they dwelt in Ili Valley - and disappears after 766.
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[edit] Foundation of the Turgesh Qaghanate
Türük (singular form of Türküt) rule was shaky at best, since the entire Onoq quadrant teemed with rebellion. Despite defeating the rebels again in 714, the Göktürks/Türküt couldn't subdue them. Three years later the Kara Turgesh elected Sulu as their Khaghan. The new ruler moved his capital to Balasagun in the Chu valley, receiving the homage of several chieftains formerly bond to the service of Bilge Khaghan of the Türküt. Sulu acted as a bulwark against further Umayyad encroachment from the south: the Arabs had indeed become a major player in recent times, despite Islam hadn't still made many converts in central Asia (that would need some two or three centuries still).
[edit] Tang China
The Turgesh Qaghanate seems to have come into existence towards the end of the 7th century, after a massive revolt against the Western Turkic khan, a Chinese puppet. The Turgesh leader was Ushyly (Wushile), who titled himself Baga Tarkhan and led a strong army to victory, putting the puppet khan to full speed flight. His power soon spanned from present-day Zhetysu area to Turfan and Kucha.
Ushyly Khaghan then decided to ally with Tang China and the Kyrgyz people to stem the rise of the Second Göktürk Empire, ruled by Khapghan Khaghan. Turgesh and Göktürks/Türküts clashed in 698 in a battle fought at Bolchu (in modern Dzungaria) where the latter side, led by Bilge Tonyukhukh, prevailed: the Yabgu (Ruler of West) and Shad (Ruler of East) of the Turgesh were killed and Ushyly Khaghan himself was taken prisoner and had to concede vassalage.
Eight years after this burning defeat, Ushyly died and was replaced by his son, Soko, who fought to retain independence from the Göktürks/Türküts. He was defeated in 701 in Transoxiana, southeast of Samarkand, again by Tonyukhukh, and finally in 711, when he was killed at Bolchu against Kül Tigin and Bilge Shad as he was trying to strike an alliance with Tang China. The Turgesh were put under the rule of Bars Bek; as we know from the Orkhon Inscriptions in those years the main subdivision in Kara (Black) and Sary (Yellow) Turgesh was established. Maybe sensing the impending disaster, Soko's brother Chenu had revolted even before the battle and fled to the court of Khapghan Khaghan.
[edit] Umayyad Caliphate
Sulu's aim was to reconquer all of Transoxiana from the Arab invaders - his war was paralleled, much more westwards, by the Khazar empire. In 721 Turgesh forces, led by Kül Chor, defated the Caliphal army commanded by Sa'id ibn Abdu'l-Aziz near Samarkand. Sa'id's successor, Al-Kharashi, massacred Turks and Sogdian refugees in Khujand, causing an influx of refugees towards the Turgesh. In 724 Caliph Hisham sent a new governor to Khorasan, Muslim ibn Sa'id, with orders to crush the "Turks" once and for all, but, confronted by Sulu Khagan, Muslim hardly managed to reach Samarkand with a handful of survivors, as the Turgesh raided freely.
A string of subsequent appointees of Hisham were soundly defetaed by Sulu Khagan, who in 728 even managed to take Bukhara and later on still inflicted painful tactical defeats upon the Arabs, discrediting Umayyad rule and maybe putting the foundations for the Abbasid revolution. The Turgesh state was at its apex of glory, controlling Sogdiana, the Ferghana Valley It was only in 732, that two powerful Arab expeditions to Samarakand managed, if with embarrassing losses, to reestablish Caliphal authority in the area; Sulu renounced his ambitions over Samrakand and abanoned Bukhara, withdrawing north.
In 734 an early Abbasid follower, Kha'ris ibn Suraidj, rose in revolt against Umayyad rule and took Balkh and Marv before defecting to the Turgesh three years later, defeated. In 738 Sulu Khaghan, along with his allies Kha'ris, Gurak (a Turco-Sogdian leader) and men from Usrushana, Tashkent and Khuttal to lauch a final offensive. He entered Jowzjan but was defeated by the Umayyad governor Ased at the Battle of Sa'n or Kharistan.
[edit] Decline and internecine strife
The defeat meant death for Sulu - as soon as he was back in Balasaghun he was murdered at the hands of Baga Tarkhan Kül Chor, leader of the Sary (Yellow) Turgesh. This, in turn, laid the foundations for the early demise of the Turgesh empire, who had so far challnged the might of the Caliphate. When Sulu Khaghan was killed the Kara and Sary (Black and Yellow) Turgesh began a civil war. Kül Chor of the Sary Türgish vanquished his rival Tumoche of the Kara Turgesh and ascended to khanship. In 739 he enriched his criminal record by killing Hin of the Göktürk Ashina clan, the "legitimate" puppet-khaghan in Tang service. The Chinese reacted by supporting the rebellious Kara Turgesh, which in 742 found in Iltutmish Khutlugh Bilge a new Khaghan, later succeeded by Tengrideh Bolmysh in 753. This last ruler declared himself a vassal of Moyun Chor, the ruling Khaghan of the recently born Orkhon Uyghur empire. The Turgesh civil war came to a sudden end only in 766, when annals record that the Qarluqs smashed the Turgesh. Their name simply disappears from history.
