century. Derbent is situated on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, in present-day Dagestan. It was in the position to control the traffic between Europe and the Middle East, and shield the prospering agricultural peoples of the Middle East from devastating raids of nomadic tribes from the steppes of South-Eastern Europe). Movses khagankatvatsi describes the attack thus: "Like waves in the sea, the Turks fell on the town of Chora (Derbent) and destroyed it completely. Seeing the terrible threat posed by this vile, ugly, horde of attackers, with their slanting and lidless eyes, and their flowing hair like that of women, the inhabitants were seized by terror. Especially terrifying were the archers, who were skillful and powerful, and rained arrows down like hail then, like savage wolves, shamelessly through themselves on the people and mercilessly cut them down in the streets and squares of the town. They did not even take pity on the children who hugged their slaughtered mothers, but sucked the children's blood like milk". The Derbent sparked panic all over the country. Albanian forces withdrew to their capital, Partav, then headed into the Caucasus Mountains. The GökTurks and Khazars overtook them near the village of Kalankatuyk, where they were either slain or taken prisoner. The conquerors imposed upon Albania a heavy system of taxation, as reported by Movses: "The Lord of the North [one of the titles of the GökTurk khagan) wreaked havoc all over the country. He sent his wardens to deal with artisans of all kind, especially those skilled in washing out gold, extraction of silver and iron, as well as making copper items. He imposed duties on fishers and goods from the great Kura and Aras rivers, in addition to the didrachma traditionally levied by the Persian authorities". Later that year Tong Yabghu's army joined Heraclius in the siege of Tfilis. Heraclius and Tong Yabghu met under the walls of Narikala. The yabghu rode up to the emperor, kissed his shoulder and made a bow. In return, Heraclius hugged his ally, called him his son, and crowned him with his own diadem. During the ensuing feast the Khazar leaders received ample gifts in the shape of earrings and clothes, while the yabghu was promised the hand of the emperor's daughter, Eudoxia Epiphania. Tong Yabghu placed an army of 40,000 Khazar horsemen at Heraclius' disposal. The initial seige of Tfilis was unsuccessful; both leaders were ridiculed by the Georgian defenders of the city. In 628 Heraclius struck southwards into Persia while Tong Yabghu's army again besieged Tfilis, this time successfully. Many of the defenders were executed, blinded, or mutilated4. Tong Yabghu could establish stronger control in the practically independent before Central Asian states, that earlier only paid taxes. The Western Turkic khaganate had the territory from the Tashkent oasis to the territories of southern Afganistan and north-western Pakistan. Tong Yabghu appointed governors or tuduns to manage the various tribes and people under his over lordship. Besides, Tong Yabghu granted Turkic titles to local Central Asian rulers, as if including them in the administrative hierarchy of the khaganate. And with the purpose to strengthen still more relations with local rulers, he married his daughter to the most powerful of them – the Samarkand ruler. But the tribal nobility did not like despotic character of his governing and in the Western Turkic khaganate began an inter-tribal war. As a result by 630-634 the Western Turkic khaganate had already lost its Central Asian possessions to the west from the Syr Darya river. The Western Turkic khaganate entered into a protracted political crisis, the main reason of which was struggle for power between the nobility of two confederations – the tension between Dulu and Nushibi. In 634 Yshbara Elterish Shir-kagan, supported by Nushibi came to power. Ye carried out reforms, according to which the Irkins and Chors’ chief turned into the rulers appointed by him. Besides, in each area was sent a khagan tribe member- Shad, who not connected with the tribal nobility. With these reforms he wanted to restrict influence and power of local chiefs. But resources of the khaganate turned out to the insufficient to hold tribes in obedience. Thus in 638 Dulu proclaimed khagan one of the sheds, sent to them. After the war between Dulu and Nushibi the Western Turkic khaganate disintegrated into two parts, the border line between which lay along the Ili River. Intertribal dynasty war continued the following 17 years (640-657) and led to invasion of Chinese troops in Semirechye. Following the death of Tong Yabghu in ca. 630, the might of the Western GökTurks largely collapsed. Tang China tried to rule over the Western Turks relyinf upon its protégé from the Ashina clan. But the Western Turks did not stop their struggle for independence. The Turgesh khaganate seems to have come into existence towards the end of the 7th century, after a massive revolt against the Western Turks 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 the present-day Semirechye area to Turfan and Kucha. Ushyly khagan then decided to ally with Tang China and the Kyrgyz people to stem the rise of the Second GökTurk Empire, ruled by Khapghan khagan. In the Chui River и Ili River Valleys he established khagan’s headquarters, the country was divided into 20 regions. Turgesh and GökTurks/Turküts clashed in 698 in a battle fought at Bolchu (in modern Dzhungaria) 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 a 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 GökTurks/Turküts. The successor of Ushyly khagan Soko defeated the rebelled tribes supported by the Chinese troops. Soko wanted to make Tang China stop invasions in Semirechye. He implemented this task. 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. In 711 г. the Eastern Turks defeated Soko’s troops in Dzhungaria and till 715 The Turgesh khaganate stopped its existence. 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 Turküt. He had to struggle on two fronts. In the west the Arabs, who on 714-715 carried on campaigns beyond the Syr Darya threatened the Turgesh. In the east the Chinese threatened the Turgesh. Sulu took action to neutralize the eastern threat. For that in 717 г. he went to a diplomatic trip to Chang'an-the capital of Tang Empire. After that he contracted conjugal unions with three potentially dangerous rulers. He got married to a daughter of Western Turks descendant from Ashina clan, thereby, having legitimated his power. The second wife became a daughter of Bilge Khaghan – the ruler of the Eastern Turk khaganate. The Tibet Tsar’s daughter Sulu became his third wife.
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 had not made many converts in Central Asia (that would need some two or three more centuries). 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, defeated 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 defeated 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 Samarkand and abandoned 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. The defeat meant death for Sulu – as soon as he was back in Balasaghun he was murdered at the hands of Baga Tarkhan
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