What if the Chinese won the Battle of Talas? Obviously, Central Asia would be Chinese instead of Islamic but what else?
What if the Chinese won the Battle of Talas? Obviously, Central Asia would be Chinese instead of Islamic but what else?
What if the Chinese won the Battle of Talas? Obviously, Central Asia would be Chinese instead of Islamic but what else?
By far the most important result of Talas was that the Arabs captured some Chinese who understood how to make paper. These POWs set up a workshop in Samarkand, and some soon moved to Baghdad. By 900 there were over 100 shops in Baghdad making and selling books. Paper later spread via Spain and Sicily to western Europe. It has an enormous advantage over parchment - you can make it from rags, so it's cheap. No paper, much slower growth of European literacy and universities, no Renaissance or moveable type printing press, no European industrial revolution or Great European Land Grab. So: the decisive battle of history?
Ran Exilis - Well, possibly, but both the Tang and Caliphate armies were at or near the edge of their states' spheres of influence - they never met in battle again. The reason for Tang China's loss of influence in Central Asia was surely not the defeat at Talas, but the An Shi Rebellion (755-763), which broke out in the North-East. Following that, China withdrew from Central Asia, and it and the Caliphate were separated by Tibetans and Uighurs. Would they have been interested in paper-making at that time, or capable of transmitting this fairly complex technology?
Ran Exilis - Well, possibly, but both the Tang and Caliphate armies were at or near the edge of their states' spheres of influence - they never met in battle again. The reason for Tang China's loss of influence in Central Asia was surely not the defeat at Talas, but the An Shi Rebellion (755-763), which broke out in the North-East.
Following that, China withdrew from Central Asia, and it and the Caliphate were separated by Tibetans and Uighurs.
Would they have been interested in paper-making at that time, or capable of transmitting this fairly complex technology?