Chinese into the Uighur and other Turkish tongues, and into Tibetan,
Korean, and Japanese.

The attitude of the Turks can only be understood when we realize that
the background of events during the time of empress Wu was formed by the
activities of groups of the eastern Chinese gentry. The northern Turks,
who since 630 had been under Chinese overlordship, had fought many wars
of liberation against the Chinese; and through the conquest of
neighbouring Turks they had gradually become once more, in the
decade-and-a-half after the death of Kao Tsung, a great Turkish realm.
In 698 the Turkish khan, at the height of his power, demanded a Chinese
prince for his daughter--not, as had been usual in the past, a princess
for his son. His intention, no doubt, was to conquer China with the
prince's aid, to remove the empress Wu, and to restore the T'ang
dynasty--but under Turkish overlordship! Thus, when the empress Wu sent
a member of her own family, the khan rejected him and demanded the
restoration of the deposed T'ang emperor. To enforce this demand, he
embarked on a great campaign against China. In this the Turks must have
been able to rely on the support of a strong group inside China, for
before the Turkish attack became dangerous the empress Wu recalled the
deposed emperor, at first as "heir to the throne"; thus she yielded to
the khan's principal demand.

In spite of this, the Turkish attacks did not cease. After a series of
imbroglios within the country in which a group under the leadership of
the powerful Ts'ui gentry family had liquidated the supporters of the
empress Wu shortly before her death, a T'ang prince finally succeeded in
killing empress Wei and her clique. At first, his father ascended the
throne, but was soon persuaded to abdicate in favour of his son, now
called emperor Hsüang Tsung (713-755), just as the first ruler of the