In 658 Kucha was made the seat of government for the territory known as the Four Garrisons.  During the next century it sent several missions to the Chinese and about 788 was visited by Wu-K’ung, who indicates that music and Buddhism were still flourishing.  He mentions an Abbot who spoke with equal fluency the language of the country, Chinese and Sanskrit.  Nothing is known about Kucha from this date until the eleventh century when we again hear of missions to the Chinese Court.  The annals mention them under the heading of Uigurs, but Buddhism seems not to have been extinct for even in 1096 the Envoy presented to the Emperor a jade Buddha.  According to Hsuan Chuang’s account the Buddhism of Karashahr (Yenki) was the same as that of Kucha and its monasteries enjoyed the same reputation for strictness and learning.

Turfan is an oasis containing the ruins of several cities and possibly different sites were used as the capital at different periods.  But the whole area is so small that such differences can be of little importance.  The name Turfan appears to be modern.  The Ming Annals[505] state that this city lies in the land of ancient Ch’e-shih (or Ku-shih) called Kao Ch’ang in the time of the Sui.  This name was abolished by the T’ang but restored by the Sung.

The principal city now generally known as Chotscho seems to be identical with Kao Ch’ang[506] and Idiqutshahri and is called by Mohammedans Apsus or Ephesus, a curious designation connected with an ancient sacred site renamed the Cave of the Seven Sleepers.  Extensive literary remains have been found in the oasis; they include works in Sanskrit, Chinese, and various Iranian and Turkish idioms but also in two dialects of so-called Tokharian.  Blue-eyed, red-haired and red-bearded people are frequently portrayed on the walls of Turfan.

But the early history of this people and of their civilization is chiefly a matter of theory.  In the Han period[507] there was a kingdom called Ku-shih or Kiu-shih, with two capitals.  It was destroyed in 60 B.C. by the Chinese general Cheng-Chi and eight small principalities were formed in its place.  In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.  Turfan had some connection with two ephemeral states which arose in Kansu under the names of Hou Liang and Pei Liang.  The former was founded by Lu-Kuang, the general who, as related above, took Kucha.  He fell foul of a tribe in his territory called Chu-ch’u, described as belonging to the Hsiung-nu.  Under their chieftain Meng-hsun, who devoted his later years to literature and Buddhism, this tribe took a good deal of territory from the Hou Liang, in Turkestan as well as in Kansu, and called their state Pei Liang.  It was conquered by the Wei dynasty in 439 and two members of the late reigning house determined to try their fortune in Turfan and ruled there successively for about twenty years.  An Chou, the second of these princes, died in 480 and his fame survives because nine years after his death a temple to Maitreya was dedicated in his honour with a long inscription in Chinese.