After the king Sseu (409-423), the state of
Tabgaç lived its brightest age in the epoch of the great ruler T'a-o (T'ai-wu) who
possessed the capitals of China, Lo-yang and Cha'an-an (Si-nganfu) and expanded his
sovereignty to the region of Yellow River and united the whole North of China under one
administration. In 427, T'ai-wu who captured the Huns' kingdom of Hia, defeated the Juan
Juans, and invaded today's Central Mongolia (436), annihilated the last kingdom of Huns
(Pei-Liang) in Kansu in 439 and patronized the cities of Kuça and Karaşar in Central
Asia (448). In this manner, the route of the famous Silk Road again was under the
sovereignty of the Turks.
T'ai-wu thought that Chinese soldiers were
"no different than the foals and heifers" and he had the title of "Börü"
(wolf, Chinese Fo-li). T'ai-wu, who kept the center of the emperorship in the steppe
region (north Şan-si), which had been most suitable for the Turkish way of laying, tried
to prevent the spread out of the in China diffusing Buddhist religion among the Turkish
population and even controlled the religious activities of the Buddhists on Chinese lands
which were under his domination. He published a decree that forbade any religious
propaganda in temples except for religious ceremonies (438) and ordered in 446 the
persecution of those who didn't obey the order. The meaning and the value of the conduct
of T'ai-wu, who had the aim of protecting the Turkish structure and character from the
Buddhism's demolishing effects, is understood lately.
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