Four Garrisons of Anxi

They were stationed at the Indo-European city-states of Qiuci (Kucha), Yutian (Hotan), Shule (Kashgar) and Yanqi (Karashahr) in modern Xinjiang.

[1] The Anxi Protectorate was created in Xi Prefecture (Gaochang) after the Tang dynasty successfully annexed the oasis kingdom in 640.

[4] The full establishment of the Four Garrisons, and with them a formal Tang military protectorate over the Tarim Basin, is therefore dated to 658 after Ashina Helu's defeat.

The Western Regions were highly contested, and ownership of areas switched repeatedly between Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty.

[9] The Tibetan Empire continued to attack the Anxi Protectorate but were unable to gain a foothold until the An Lushan Rebellion occurred in 755.

In 763 a large Tibetan army managed to occupy the Tang capital of Chang'an for a brief period of time before they were forced to retreat.

[17][11] The Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited Kucha in the 630s and described it in the following manner: The soil is suitable for rice and grain...it produces grapes, pomegranates and numerous species of plums, pears, peaches, and almonds...The ground is rich in minerals-gold, copper, iron, and lead and tin.

These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvastivadas.Their doctrine and their rules of discipline are like those of India, and those who read them use the same originals....About 40 li to the north of this desert city there are two convents close together on the slope of a mountain...Outside the western gate of the chief city, on the right and left side of the road, there are erect figures of Buddha, about 90 feet high.

[18] According to the Book of Zhou, compiled around 636, Karasahr was a small and poor country composed of several walled towns: Wedlock is about the same as among the Chinese.

After the bleak and thinly populated Pamirs, how heart-warming the sight of streams of people coming and going, ponies and donkeys laden with goods, heralding an important trade center.

Xuanzang also remarks that the people have green eyes, suggesting the Sogdian or East Iranian origin of some of the population.In Kashgar, there were hundreds of Buddhist monasteries with more than a thousand monks, most of whom were of a realist Hinayana school.

The nation esteemed music and the people were fond of dance and song; a few clothed themselves in woollens and furs, the majority wearing silk and calico .. .

The system of writing had been taken from that of India, but the structure had been slightly altered by a sort of successive changes; the spoken language differed from that of other countries.