In 629 AD, that is, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Hui Hui "began to come to the dynasty and offered things", thus opening up diplomatic relations with the Tang Dynasty. Seventeen years later, the Hui hui united their ministries and annihilated the Xueyantuo Khanate with the help of the Tang army, and established its own state, the Hui Han State. As the exchanges between the Tang Dynasty and the Hui Hui deepened, trade exchanges between the two sides became frequent. Logically, the increase in trade exchanges should be a good thing for both sides, but the later Tang Dynasty government hated hui merchants to the extreme.
Ōko man image
The Uighurs were originally a branch of the Tiele and were the direct ancestors of the Uyghur people. In the early tang dynasty, and even the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, the relationship between Hui and the Tang Dynasty was relatively good. Especially when the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Hui Hui not only did not take advantage of the danger of people, but also attacked the Tang Dynasty when the central strength of the Tang Dynasty was weak and expanded its territory, but instead sent troops three times to assist the Tang army in quelling the rebels, so that the Tang Dynasty regained the lost land of Chang'an, Luoyang, and Hebei. The Tang Dynasty also helped hui to jointly resist Tubo's attack, and the two sides once reopened the east-west land communication that was cut off by Tubo after the Anshi Rebellion. During the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang, the Uighurs were renamed Uighurs under the grace of Emperor Dezong, and the Khan of the Uighurs also married Emperor Dezong's daughter, Princess Xian'an, and the exchanges between the two sides deepened further.
An important reason why the Uighurs and the Tang Dynasty were able to maintain such a good relationship was the trade between the two sides. There are two main forms of trade between the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs: silk horse mutual market and tea horse mutual market, that is, the Uighurs use their own horses to exchange cloth or tea for cloth or tea in the Tang Dynasty, of which the silk horse mutual market is the mainstay. The fourth princess of the Tang Dynasty, Princess Taihe, was introduced by a delicate silk carpet and the finest silk and Sogdian silk of the Tang Dynasty when she went to the interior of the Uighur tent with her relatives, and a considerable part of these fabrics came from the exchange with the Tang Dynasty. It was in such a good trade atmosphere that a special group of Uighur merchants were born, uighur loan sharks.
Ancient usury deeds
When it comes to lending usury, there are prototypes in China's Warring States era, and Meng Tianjun, one of the "four princes of the Warring States", relied on the usury loans placed in his fiefdom to feed his "three thousand disciples". Therefore, the existence of Uighur loan sharks is not unusual in itself, after all, merchants are seeking profits, and both sides are willing to do it. Since Uighur merchants were more influential among the Hu people, Han Merchants who were heavily indebted due to failed businesses would borrow from the Uighurs. In addition, some profligate Han chinese children who have no money will also borrow money from Uighur loan sharks. This caused the resentment of the Tang government, why?
This has to talk about the local loan shark merchants of the Tang Dynasty. As mentioned earlier, there were usury loans in China during the Warring States period, and the usury market became more and more prosperous during the Tang Dynasty, so Uighur merchants could lend money to the Tang Dynasty. The private usury institutions of the Tang Dynasty were mainly composed of temples, nobles, and the rich, because only these people had surplus assets to lend. The nobility itself was part of the Tang dynasty's power system, and temples and the rich, especially the temples, seemed to have little to do with the Tang government, but their lending activities were dominated by the Tang government. Therefore, compared with the local mortgage merchants of the Tang Dynasty, the existence of Uighur loan sharks is tantamount to robbing the Business of the Tang Government. The better the business of the Uighur loan sharks, the more naturally the Tang government was disgusted.
Uighurs who moved west to the western region
On the other hand, the general environment at that time was very unfavorable to the wind evaluation of loan sharks. The business of lending merchants itself is easy to cause the disgust of others, in the late Tang Dynasty, the government gradually weakened, the political situation was unstable, which made the price of the market soar, and many people fell into a debt crisis. Therefore, the Tang Dynasty people's antipathy towards money-lending merchants also deepened. With the expansion of their business, the activities of Uighur loan sharks in the Tang Dynasty also became more and more arrogant, which further aggravated the rejection of Uighur loan sharks by the Tang Dynasty. In the first year of Emperor Wenzong's reign, the Tang government stipulated that Tang dynasty people were not allowed to borrow money from Hu people privately, and during this period, the Tang Dynasty even broke out xenophobic and persecution of foreign religions.
The relationship between the Tang Dynasty and the Uighurs has always been relatively contradictory. On the one hand, the two are allies who help each other and maintain an alliance with each other. On the other hand, the Uighurs would have various conflicts in their trade with the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, the Tang Dynasty's attitude toward the Uighur contradiction is also a microcosm of the relationship between the ancient Central Plains subjects and foreign ethnic groups.