The arrangement would be sealed by a treaty in which the nomads appear as tributaries and make the appropriate performance of allegiance in return for large subsidies. The “reverse” tribute was enormous: one-third of the annual government payroll went to buying off the nomads. Seven centuries later, under the Tang, officials were delivering half a million bolts of silk to the Uighurs annually on similar terms. On paper it may have looked as if the nomads were tributary inferiors to the Tang emperor, but the actual flow of revenue and goods suggests the opposite in practice. The nomads were, in
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