For five days, the mighty armies clashed.
When the Qarluq Turks came in on the Arab side several days into the fighting, the Tang army's doom was sealed. Chinese sources imply that the Qarluqs had been fighting for them, but treacherously switched sides mid-way through the battle.
Arab records, on the other hand, indicate that the Qarluqs were already allied with the Abbasids prior to the conflict. The Arab account seems more likely, since the Qarluqs suddenly mounted a surprise attack on the Tang formation from the rear. (If the Chinese accounts are correct, wouldn't the Qarluqs have been in the middle of the action, rather than riding up from behind? And would the surprise have been as complete, if the Qarluqs had been fighting there all along?)
Some modern Chinese writings about the battle still exhibit a sense of outrage at this perceived betrayal by one of the Tang Empire's minority peoples.
Whatever the case, the Qarluq attack signaled the beginning of the end for Kao Hsien-chih's army.
Of the tens of thousands the Tang sent into battle, only a small percentage survived. Kao Hsien-chih himself was one of the few who escaped the slaughter; he would live just five years more, before being put on trial and executed for corruption. In addition to the tens of thousands of Chinese killed, a number were captured and taken back to Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) as prisoners of war.
The Abbassids could have pressed their advantage, marching into China proper. However, their supply lines were already stretched to the breaking point, and sending such a huge force over the eastern Hindu Kush mountains and into the deserts of western China was beyond their capacity.
Despite the crushing defeat of Kao's Tang forces, the Battle of Talas was a tactical draw. The Arabs' eastward advance was halted, and the troubled Tang Empire turned its attention from Central Asia to rebellions on its northern and southern borders.
Consequences of the Battle of Talas
At the time of the Battle of Talas, its significance was not clear.
Chinese accounts mention the battle as part of the beginning of the end for the Tang Dynasty.
That same year, the Khitan tribe in Manchuria (northern China) defeated the imperial forces in that region, and Thai/Lao peoples in what is now Yunnan province in the south revolted as well. The An Shi Revolt of 755-763, which was more of a civil war than a simple revolt, further weakened the empire.
By 763, the Tibetans were able to seize the Chinese capital at Chang'an (now Xian).
With so much turmoil at home, the Chinese had neither the will nor the power to exert much influence past the Tarim Basin after 751.
For the Arabs, too, this battle marked an unnoticed turning point. The victors are supposed to write history, but in this case, (despite the totality of their victory), they did not have much to say for some time after the event.
Barry Hoberman points out that the ninth-century Muslim historian al-Tabari (839-923) never even mentions the Battle of Talas River.
It's not until half a millennium after the skirmish that Arab historians take note of Talas, in the writings of Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233) and al-Dhahabi (1274-1348).
Nevertheless, the Battle of Talas had important consequences. The weakened Chinese Empire was no longer in any position to interfere in Central Asia, so the influence of the Abbassid Arabs grew.
Some scholars quibble that too much emphasis is placed on the role of Talas in the "Islamification" of Central Asia.
It is certainly true that the Turkic and Persian tribes of Central Asia did not all immediately convert to Islam in August of 751. Such a feat of mass communication across the deserts, mountains and steppes would have been utterly impossible before modern mass communications, even if the Central Asian peoples were uniformly receptive to Islam.
Nonetheless, the absence of any counterweight to the Arab presence allowed Abbassid influence to spread gradually throughout the region.
Within the next 250 years, most of the formerly Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Nestorian Christian tribes of Central Asia had become Muslim.
Most significant of all, among the prisoners of war captured by the Abbassids after the Battle of Talas River were a number of skilled Chinese artisans, including Tou Houan. Through them, first the Arab world and then the rest of Europe learned the art of paper-making. (At that time, the Arabs controlled Spain and Portugal, as well as North Africa, the Middle East, and large swaths of Central Asia.)
Soon, paper-making factories sprang up in Samarkand, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Delhi... and in 1120 the first European paper mill was established in Xativa, Spain (now called Valencia). From these Arab-dominated cities, the technology spread to Italy, Germany, and across Europe.
The advent of paper technology, along with woodcut printing and later movable-type printing, fueled the advances in science, theology, and history of Europe's High Middle Ages, which ended only with the coming of the Black Death in the 1340s.
Sources:
"The Battle of Talas," Barry Hoberman. Saudi Aramco World, pp. 26-31 (Sept/Oct 1982).
"A Chinese Expedition across the Pamirs and Hindukush, A.D. 747," Aurel Stein. The Geographic Journal, 59:2, pp. 112-131 (Feb. 1922).
Gernet, Jacque, J. R. Foster (trans.), Charles Hartman (trans.). "A History of Chinese Civilization," (1996).
Oresman, Matthew. "Beyond the Battle of Talas: China's Re-emergence in Central Asia." Ch. 19 of "In the tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia's path to the 21st Century," Daniel L. Burghart and Theresa Sabonis-Helf, eds. (2004).
Titchett, Dennis C. (ed.). "The Cambridge History of China: Volume 3, Sui and T'ang China, 589-906 AD, Part One," (1979).
