04-04-2016, 05:08 PM
Hi Alanus, what you said about the Gansu still holds true. How do you cram a few hundred thousand people and their livestock into this region with scattered oases and limited fodder.To me Benjamin has not satisfactorily answered this dilemna. It seems that the Chinese historians said they lived in Gansu so to Benjamin they must have. I think that their tribal confederation covered a much larger area but the Gansu corridor would have been a very strategic region covering the Yellow River bend and the Ordos back to the Tarim Basin and they would have been very keen to protect their trade routes and the oasis centres of the Tarim Basin. Naturally enough later on after they wore down the Hsiung-nu the Chinese themselves filled the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the Yuezhi and built a military presence to protect these same routes.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"