Yarkhoto, the Uyghur form of the name, is the old Cheshi capital and Tang Anxi protectorate site on a teardrop island between two river gullies west of modern Turpan, a rammed-earth and cut-earth town with temples and a long main street.
By 1200 it is a minor town of the Uyghur kingdom, with its Buddhist temples still used. It was abandoned for good during the wars of the 13th and 14th centuries; whether it is already a half-ruin in 1200 is not known.
Who holds it
- Title
- A bek of the idiqut
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Nothing known.
Lord in 1200
A district officer; not named.
Overlord
The idiqut
What the town holds
- The cliff-island town
- Fields below
How it was acquired
Uyghur since the 860s.
How things stand that morning
A small walled town with working temples.
Wealth
Fields, temple rents.
Threats
- Decay, water shifts
Communities
Uyghur Buddhists.
Walls and castle
A naturally defended island plateau, cut-earth buildings; the ruins remain.
Places of note
- Jiaohe ruins: The island town
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Recalled from archaeology; not re-read this session.
On the map: A point only.
Primary sources for Qocho
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
- History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30. Read online
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
- History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
- History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
- The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
3 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.