Upper East Asia (964 – 1107 CE): 

Tangut Western Xia, Tibetan Phyi dar, and Steppe–Silk Road Crossroads

Geographic and Environmental Context

Upper East Asia comprises Mongolia, Tibet, and the western highlands of China (Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, NW Sichuan). Landscapes range from Mongolian steppe and Gobi margins to the Tibetan Plateau and Hexi Corridor oases. Key nodes: Tarim/Turfan oases, Gansu–Ningxia irrigated towns, Qinghai/Amdo pastures, and Khams passes.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

The Medieval Warm Period modestly lengthened grazing seasons and improved barley yields in Tibetan valleys. Precipitation remained variable on the steppe; multi-year droughts strained herds and shaped diplomacy. Oases prospered on steady meltwater but faced dune encroachment and salinization—managed through constant irrigation upkeep.

Societies and Political Developments

• Tangut Western Xia (1038–1227): Mi-nyag clans consolidated the Hexi Corridor, founded the Western Xia monarchy (1038), fortified frontiers, taxed caravans, and contested borders with Northern Song and Khitan Liao.

• Oasis & Uyghur polities: Khotan fell to the Kara-Khanids (1006), accelerating Islamization in the southern Tarim; the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho (Turfan) and Ganzhou Uyghurs remained Buddhist, sustaining manuscript culture and caravan services.

• Tibet (phyi dar, “Later Diffusion”): Post-imperial principalities backed a Buddhist renaissance—Guge and Purang patronized translation and temple building (e.g., Rinchen Zangpo; Atiśa’s arrival in 1042 spurred scholastic reform like Kadam). In Amdo/Qinghai and Khams, Tibetan and Qiangic groups balanced monastery estates with mixed pastoral–agrarian lifeways.

• Mongolia & the Eastern Steppe: No single hegemon; Kereit, Naiman, Merkit, and allied confederations engaged in horse-trade diplomacy with Song, Liao, and Western Xia.

Economy and Trade

• Caravan systems moved silk, tea, paper, porcelain, and copper cash westward; returning were horses, wool, falcons, silver, ambergris, and Islamic glass.

• Hexi tolls and forts under Western Xia monetized and secured routes.

• Tea–horse trade linked Song with Tibet/Amdo and Western Xia.

• Khotan–Kashgar reoriented toward Islamic markets; Qocho remained a Buddhist entrepôt mediating mixed networks.

Subsistence and Technology

• Pastoralism: mobile camps, composite bows, lamellar armor, and remount strings defined steppe warfare; diversified herds (horses, sheep, goats, camels, yaks) spread risk.

• Tibetan valleys: barley/buckwheat terraces, yak traction, monastery granaries, and salt trade.

• Oases: qanat/karez galleries, dams, trellised orchards (apricot, mulberry, pomegranate), and Buddhist woodblock printing (Turfan–Dunhuang).

• Frontier fortifications: Western Xia built rammed-earth walls, beacons, and river forts along caravan lanes and pastures.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Northern/Southern Silk Roads skirted the Taklamakan, converging through Hexi toward Song markets.

• Plateau passes (Tsang–Ngari–Purang; Qinghai Lake routes) tied Tibet to Nepal, Ladakh, and Sichuan.

• Steppe corridors linked Mongolian confederations with Liao, Western Xia, and Song horse brokers.

Belief and Symbolism

• Tibet: Buddhist phyi dar translated scriptures, built monasteries, and formed scholastic lineages; Bon persisted and hybridized locally.

• Western Xia: state Buddhism and Tangut script underpinned royal legitimacy; steles, cave shrines, and monasteries proclaimed sovereignty.

• Oases: plural religious landscape—Buddhist caves (Dunhuang), Manichaean/Nestorian enclaves among Uyghurs, and post-1006 Islamic institutions in the western Tarim.

• Steppe: sky cults, ancestor rites, and divination legitimated chieftaincy and bound camps to landscape.

Adaptation and Resilience

Pastoral mobility absorbed climate shocks; intermarriage and tribute balanced inter-tribal relations. Western Xia combined taxation with convoy protection, securing revenue without stifling flows. Tibetan monasteries acted as grain banks, schools, and diplomatic nodes; oasis irrigation and merchant diasporas kept supply chains running despite wars.

Long-Term Significance

By 1107, Upper East Asia cohered around three durable frontiers:

1. Western Xia commanding Hexi and the Ordos rim;

2. a Tibetan Buddhist renaissance radiating from Guge and Amdo/Khams;

3. Mongolian confederations refining cavalry economies ahead of 12th-century realignments.
   Xinjiang’s religious map tilted toward Islam while Qocho and Dunhuang sustained Buddhist manuscript cultures—an institutional mix that set the stage for Jin expansion, Western Xia’s apogee, and ultimately the Mongol transformations of the 13th century.

The era of Genghis Khan, the most momentous period in Mongol history, is preceded by a period of consolidation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

During these centuries, the vast region of deserts, mountains, and grazing land is inhabited by people resembling each other in racial, cultural, and linguistic characteristics; ethnologically they are essentially Mongol.

The similarities among the Mongols, Turk, Tangut, and Tatars who inhabit this region causes considerable ethnic and historical confusion.

Generally, the Mongols and the closely related Tatars inhabit the northern and the eastern areas; the Turks (who already have begun to spread over western Asia and southeastern Europe) are in the west and the southwest; the Tangut, who are more closely related to the Tibetans than are the other nomads and who are not a Turkic people, are in eastern Xinjiang, Gansu, and western Inner Mongolia.

The Liao state is homogeneous, and the Khitan have begun to lose their nomadic characteristics.

The Khitan build cities and exert dominion over their agricultural subjects as a means of consolidating their empire.

To the west and the northwest of Liao are many other Mongol tribes, linked together in various tenuous alliances and groupings, but with little national cohesiveness.

In Gansu and eastern Xinjiang, the Tangut—who had taken advantage of the Tang decline—have formed a state, Western Xia or Xixia (1038-1227), nominally under Chinese suzerainty.

Xinjiang is dominated by the Uyghurs, who are loosely allied with the Chinese.

The Khitan complete their conquest of China north of the Huang He in the eleventh century.

Despite close cultural ties between the Khitan and Western Xia that lead the latter to become increasingly sinicized, during the remainder of this century and the early years of the twelfth century, the two Mongol groups are frequently at war with each other and with the Song Dynasty (960-1279) of China.

The Uyghurs of the Turpan region often are involved in these wars, usually aiding the Chinese against Western Xia.

The people of Mongolia at this time are predominantly spirit worshipers, with shamans providing spiritual and religious guidance to the people and tribal leaders.

There had been some infusion of Buddhism, which had spread from Xinjiang, but it does not yet have a strong influence.

Nestorian Christianity also has penetrated Inner Asia.

The Northern Han is a small kingdom located in Shanxi, which ad been a traditional base of power since the fading days of the Tang Dynasty in the late ninth century and early tenth century.

With its capital located at Taiyuan, Northern Han is wedged between the two major powers of the day, the Liao Dynasty to the north and the Song Dynasty to the south.

It also shares a border with the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia.

The existence of the Northern Han is one of the two major thorns in relations between the Liao Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the other being the continued possession of the Sixteen Prefectures by the Liao Dynasty, under whom the Northern Han has placed itself in protection.

Emboldened by his success to the south, Emperor Taizong has decided to embark on a campaign to finally destroy the Northern Han.

Leading the army personally, he brings his forces to the Northern Han capital of Taiyuan, which is laid under siege in June.

An initial relief force sent by the Liao is easily defeated by the Song.

After a two-month siege of the capital, the leader of the Northern Han surrenders, and the kingdom is incorporated into the Song Dynasty.

The Tanguts, a group of partly nomadic Qiangic-Tibetan people living to the northwest of the Great Wall, had moved from place to place and eventually settled in northwestern China (Ningxia, Gansu, and Shaanxi).

From the moment they entered this region they had undergone a process of sinicization, a term meaning the adoption of Chinese cultural characteristics.

Renouncing their allegiance in 982 to China’s new Song ruler—currently preoccupied with fighting the Tanguts’ Khitan neighbors to the east—the Tangut, under Li Deming, had proclaimed themselves an independent kingdom .

Known in the Chinese language as "Xi-Xia", the Tangut people call their state "The Great State of White and Lofty."

The Khitans had immediately recognized the new state (after 1038 called the Hsi Hsia or Western Hsia).

Following a weak attempt by the Chinese to reestablish dominion, beginning in 990, the Tanguts will soon be left to their own devices.

The Tangut tribe, who speak a now-extinct Qiangic language (Tibeto-Burman), which is distantly related to Chinese, had moved from place to place and eventually settled in northwestern China (Ningxia, Gansu, and Shaanxi).

From the moment they entered this region they had undergone a process of sinicization.

Eventually, the Tangut state had been founded in the year 1031 by Li Deming.

Known in the Chinese language as "Xi-Xia", the Tangut people call their state "phiow-bjij-lhjij-lhjij", which translates to "The Great State of Whiteness and Loftiness."

Yeli Renrong, is a scholar close to the Tangut Emperor Li Yuanhao, who, according to the official History of Song, commanded him to design the complex Tangut script in 1036 or 1038, based on Chinese writing, for use in writing the Tangut language.

The Tanguts invade China from the northwest in 1040, apparently with the intention of conquering all of Song China, but the Chinese, with difficulty, repulse them.

The Song emperor agrees to a deal similar to the one struck with the Khitans at the beginning of the century: an annual tribute of silver, silk, and tea.

Incursions by the Western Xia and the threat of further Liao Dynasty military actions against the Song Dynasty force an increase in tribute payments to the Liao.

The Tanguts’ founding father, Li Deming, had not been a very conservative ruler, and thus the Tangut people have begun to absorb more and more of the Chinese culture that surrounds them, but will never lose their actual identity, as is proven by the vast amount of literature that will survive the Tangut state itself.

Li Deming's more conservative son, Li Yuanhao, seeks to restore and strengthen the Tangut people's identity by ordering the creation of an official Tangut script and by instituting laws that reinforce traditional cultural customs.

One of the laws he mandates calls for citizens to wear traditional ethnic apparel, and another requires wearing hair short or shaving the head, as opposed to the Chinese custom at the time of wearing hair long and knotted.

Rejecting the common Chinese surname of "Li" (given to the Xia-xia by the Tang) and "Zhao" (give to the Xia-xia by the Sung) he adopts the Tangut surname "Weiming".

He makes "Xingqing" (present day Yinchuan) his capital city.

At times, the Tangut kingdom operates in the shadow of the Chinese to the East.

Several times, the Chinese are able to mobilize Tibetan tribes against the Tangut state.

However, it is not until 1038 that Li Yuanhao had named himself emperor of Da Xia, and demanded of the Sung emperor recognition as an equal.

The Song court accepts the recognition of Li Yuanhao as 'governor', but not 'emperor', a title considered exclusive to the Sung emperor.

After intense diplomatic contacts, in 1043 the Tangut state accepts the recognition of the Sung emperor in exchange for annual tribute, which implies tacit recognition on the part of the Sung of the military power of the Tangut.

Li nevertheless claims the title of emperor for himself, taking the reign name Jingzong.