Source: here.
…. -۩۞۩-۩۞۩-۩۞۩-
Indic vs Han influence
Western presentation
Now we shall take a detour into the history of a neighboring nation, which shares close cultural links with our own, that in recent times has been blithely swallowed by Han imperialism. Indeed, as though to mirror the obliteration of this nation from the maps of the world, a certain strand of modern white Tibetologists tend to attribute greater than observed roles for the Han in the emergence of the Tibetan civilization. These present the Indic role as a later one, coming in the form of the Tantric state, which caused the Tibetans to lapse into a medieval la-la land from which they were awakened into modernity by the successive actions of the English and the Han conquerors under Mao Zedong. The role of the Tibetan emperor (tsenpo) in aiding the Chinese invasion of the Indian province of tirAbhukti after harShavardhana’s death is seen as evidence for subservient alignment, right from the inception of the Tibetan state, with the Han as opposed to the Hindu.
Taizong intrusion
However, in history the chIna-s were rather unbothered about Tibetan existence, until, somewhat embarrassingly for the former, they intruded into the sinosphere during the reign of Taizong, their greatest ruler since Shi Huang-di of the Chin. The rise of the Tibetans coincided in part with the revival of the chIna-s under Taizong but the two events were not causally connected in any direct way.
Taizong bio
Taizong, born of a Han father in the lineage of Laozi the founder of Taoism and a mother from a subsidiary clan of Blue Turks, through a series of victories raised the chIna-s to their greatest glory. Perhaps by virtue of the vigor of his hybrid genetics he was a tall and powerful man, said to tower imperiously above his cowering fellow chIna-s. He was also described as a rather impressive personality with a good knowledge of chIna scientific texts and artistic skill in calligraphy. The Chin Shi Huang had built the wall and combined it with the terror of genocidal slaughters [a fact much admired by Mao in recent times]; the rulers of the Han dynasty thereafter built huge infantry forces and fortified settlements; but Taizong combined all of this with the martial spirit of the Turkic side of his ancestry along with their capacity for mobile cavalry warfare.
Having reunified the chIna-s as a single empire he advanced westwards with his Turkic allies to conquer the Tarim city states, displace their Indic culture and bring them into the Han realm. Having raised the chIna-s to the peak of their power, he instituted a system with the Taoism and bauddha dharma as the outer coat for the inner core of legalism centered on his persona.
In other matters he adopted Turkic customs such as as allowing chIna women to ride horses and letting his sons live in yurts on the palace-grounds and speaking with them in Turkic. In fact Turkicisms acquired great prestige in China in this phase of the Tang empire. Finally, despite his ministers’ advice to the contrary, he clearly outlined his policy of sending the Han to settle all territory he conquered marking the beginnings of the expansive territorial claims that persist to this day.