Lü Guang takes Kucha and carries off Kumārajīva

In 382 the kings of Shanshan and of Nearer Jushi (Turfan), who had come to Fu Jian’s court, offered to guide an army against the states of the Western Regions that did not submit, and in the ninth month Fu Jian, master of all northern China since 376, gave the command to Lü Guang; the Zizhi tongjian puts his force at 100,000 men with 5,000 armoured horsemen, the Book of Jin at 70,000 and 5,000. According to the Book of Jin, Fu Jian had also heard of Kumārajīva, a famous monk of Kucha, and told Lü Guang to send him at once by the post relays if he captured him. The army left Chang’an early in 383 with the two kings as guides and marched by way of Gaochang across the desert; Karasahr and other states submitted, but Bo Chun, king of Kucha, shut himself up in his city.

In 384 Bo Chun called in the Guai Hu and the kings of Wensu and Weitou, whose combined forces the chronicles put at more than 700,000 men; Lü Guang routed them west of the city. Bo Chun fled, more than thirty kings and lords submitted, and Lü Guang entered Kucha, a city, according to the Zizhi tongjian, like Chang’an, with splendid palaces; he made Bo Chun’s brother Bo Zhen king. Among the captives was Kumārajīva, then about forty; the Book of Jin says that Lü Guang, treating him as an ordinary man, forced him to marry a daughter of the king of Kucha. Fu Jian named Lü Guang commander of all forces west of the Jade Gate, but the road was already cut.

In 385 Lü Guang set out for home with more than 20,000 camels laden with foreign treasures and rarities and over 10,000 fine horses. After its defeat at the Fei River in 383 the Former Qin was falling apart: returning by way of Gaochang and the Jade Gate, Lü Guang defeated the army that Liang Xi, the Former Qin governor of Liangzhou, sent against him, entered Guzang, the provincial capital, and on learning of Fu Jian’s death proclaimed his own era in 386, founding the Later Liang. Kumārajīva remained at Guzang until 401, when the Later Qin brought him to Chang’an, where he led the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese.