The principal city now generally known as Chotscho seems to be identical with Kao Ch'ang[506] and Idiqutshähri and is called by Mohammedans Apsus or Ephesus, a curious designation connected with an ancient sacred site renamed the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. Extensive literary remains have been found in the oasis; they include works in Sanskrit, Chinese, and various Iranian and Turkish idioms but also in two dialects of so-called Tokharian. Blue-eyed, red-haired and red-bearded people are frequently portrayed on the walls of Turfan.
But the early history of this people and of their civilization is chiefly a matter of theory. In the Han period[507] there was a kingdom called Kü-shih or Kiü-shih, with two capitals. It was destroyed in 60 B.C. by the Chinese general Chêng-Chi and eight small principalities were formed in its place. In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Turfan had some connection with two ephemeral states which arose in Kansu under the names of Hou Liang and Pei Liang. The former was founded by Lü-Kuang, the general who, as related above, took Kucha. He fell foul of a tribe in his territory called Chü-ch'ü, described as belonging to the Hsiung-nu. Under their chieftain Mêng-hsün, who devoted his later years to literature and Buddhism, this tribe took a good deal of territory from the Hou Liang, in Turkestan as well as in Kansu, and called their state Pei Liang. It was conquered by the Wei dynasty in 439 and two members of the late reigning house determined to try their fortune in Turfan and ruled there successively for about twenty years. An Chou, the second of these princes, died in 480 and his fame survives because nine years after his death a temple to Maitreya was dedicated in his honour with a long inscription in Chinese.
Another line of Chinese rulers, bearing the family name of Ch'iu, established themselves at Kao-ch'ang in 507 and under the Sui dynasty one of them married a Chinese princess. Turfan paid due homage to the T'ang dynasty on its accession but later it was found that tributary missions coming from the west to the Chinese court were stopped there and the close relations of its king with the western Turks inspired alarm. Accordingly it was destroyed by the imperial forces in 640. This is confirmed by the record of Hsüan Chuang. In his biography there is a description of his reception by the king of Kao-ch'ang on his outward journey. But in the account of his travels written after his return he speaks of the city as no longer existent.