PRESENTATION OUTLINE
The Yuezhi, or Rouzhi, were an ancient Indo-European people who originally settled in the eastern Tarim Basin area, modern day Xinjiang and western Gansu, in China.
The name is formed from yuè (月) "moon" and shì (氏) "clan".
The Yuezhi may have been an Europoid people (whiteish people), as indicated by the portraits of their kings on the coins they struck following their exodus to Transoxiana, and especially the coins they made during the Kushan Empire.
The Yuezhi are usually identified with the Tókharoi, which Greek historians claim are among the conquerors of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in the 2nd century BCE.
The Tokharians lived in medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin.
At the start of the 20th century, manuscripts were found in the northern part of the Tarim Basin written in two unknown Indo-European languages from the 6th to 8th centuries CE. Believing the authors to be the Tókharoi, Friedrich W. K. Müller called these languages the Tokharian languages. Although few scholars now accept Müller's identification, "Tokharian" remains the standard term for the languages of the Tarim Basin where the Yuezhi used to live.
During the Warring States period, the Chinese turned to the Yuezhi for their supply of good horses. The Yuezhi maintained a profitable trade of horses and cattle for Chinese silk, which they then sold to their neighbouring tribes. Therefore, the Yuezhi began the Silk Road trade, and acted as middlemen between China and Central Asia
However, the Yuezhi were regularly in conflict with their northeastern neighbors, the Xiongnu, who also threatened the Qin empire. During this time, the King of the Xiongnu, Touman, gave his son Modu as hostage to the Yuezhi and then attacked them, in the hope that the Yuezhi would kill Modu, opening the succession to Modu's younger brother. However, Modu escaped by stealing a fast horse, killed his father, and became king of the Xiongnu.
The Xiongnu were an ancient nomadic people who formed a state centered on Mongolia. The Xiongnu were the first state of nomadic peoples.
After the Xiongnu's crushing victory of the Yuezhi in 2nd century BCE Modu sent a letter the Emperor of China stating that due to "the excellence of his fighting men, and the strength of his horses, he has succeeded in wiping out the Yuezhi, slaughtering or forcing to submission every number of the tribe." Modu's son, Laoshang Chanyu, killed the Yuezhi king and, made a drinking cup out of his skull.
Afterwards a large number of the Yuezhi fell under Xiongnu rule. However, a very small group of Yuezhi fled south to the territory of the Proto-Tibetan Qiang and came to be known as the "Little Yuezhi". They only numbered around 150 families. The Little Yuezhi were ancestors of the Jie people. Under Shi Le they established the Later Zhao state. The Jie were completely wiped out by Ran Min in the Wei–Jie war following the fall of the Later Zhao.
The majority of the Yuezhi fled west to the Ili Valley, where they displaced the Sakas.
Saka was the term used in Persian and Sanskrit for the Scythians, and were a large group of Eastern Iranian nomadic tribes on the Eurasian Steppe.
Driven from the Ili Valley soon later by the Wusun, an ally of the Xiongnu, the Yuezhi migrated to Sogdia and then Bactria.
The Wusun were nomadic steppe people who, between the 2nd century BCE and the 9th century CE, lived in the Tarim Basin, the Ili Valley, and the Pamir Mountains respectively.
The Yuezhi then expanded into northern South Asia, where one branch of the Yuezhi created the Kushan Empire. The Kushan empire stretched from Turfan in theTarim Basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain when the empire was at its largest. Kushan played an important role in the development of the Silk Road and the transmission of Buddhism to China.
