Hi everyone, Lhasla Montgomery here bringing you part one in a brand new series introducing a topic that's been requested

over and over going back to the day I began producing the CHP

10 years ago in June 2010. Not only has the history of Xinjiang been requested

many times by listeners, I even included this subject amongst the original long

and rather comprehensive

lists of topics written down in one single stream of

consciousness back when I had this idea to present Chinese history

using this

whole series in fact covering the history of Xinjiang is to offer you a brief general

of shingang is to offer you a brief general survey of that land in its history over the past

several millennia. We've hardly mentioned Xinjiang in any of these

CHP episodes except of course in discussing the

history of the Silk Road and Xinjiang well the title of this series is a bit

misleading and I'd like to mention first and foremost that the

term Xinjiang which translates to new frontier or new borders didn't even get coined until 1884 deep in the Ching Dynasty.

And in presenting this history, you know, this being the China History Podcast and all,

I'm going to focus on this history as it related to China.

Over thousands of years going back to the Chin dynasty, China has flitted in and out of the history of Xinjiang.

From about the third century, B.C. E. until the Tang Dynasty,

Xinjiang was referred to as Shiju, the Western regions.

West of what?

West of the Yuman, the Jade Gate built during the Western Han Emperor Wu's long reign. That was the end of the road as far as China

...