Junayd seems to have been content with saving Samarqand and Bukhārā. As no further expeditions are recorded of his two remaining years of office it must be assumed that the situation in _S_ughd remained unchanged and that the Türgesh irruptions also were suspended. Though the Arabs still held Samarqand and the territories of Bukhārā and Kish, they were in all probability confined to these, while in the southern basin their authority hardly extended beyond Balkh and Chaghāniān. Both sides may have awaited the first move by the other, but were surprised by the appearance of a new factor, which threatened the existence of Arab sovereignty in the Far East more seriously than any external danger. It is noteworthy that in his last year of office (115/733) Junayd resumed relations with the Chinese court. The Turkish title of the leader of the embassy, Mo-se-lan Tarkan, suggests that none of the ambassadors were actually Arabs, but that the governor had commissioned some dignitaries from the subject states to represent the Arab government. The only embassy recorded in this year from a native state, however, came from Khuttal. In the same year Khurāsān was visited by a severe drought and famine, and to provide for the needs of Merv, Junayd commandeered supplies from all the surrounding districts. This, added to the military disasters of the last few years and the insinuations of Shīʿite propaganda, provoked open discontent in the district which had hitherto been outwardly faithful to Merv, namely the principalities of Lower _T_ukhāristān. The leader of the malcontents was Al-_H_ārith b. Surayj, who was flogged in consequence by the governor of Balkh. The discontent flared into open revolt on the death of Junayd in Mu_h_arram 716 (Feb. 734). _H_ārith, assisted by the princes and people of Jūzjān, Fāryāb, and _T_ālaqān, marched on Balkh and captured it from Na_s_r b. Sayyār. The versions leave it uncertain whether _H_ārith defeated Na_s_r and then captured the city or whether he entered the city first and beat off an attempt at recapture by Na_s_r. (Wellhausen’s reference to the Oxus is due to his so misunderstanding the “river of Balkh” in _T_ab. 1560. 2. That it refers here, as frequently, to the Dehas river is clear from the distance to the city (2 farsakhs, whereas the Oxus lay twelve farsakhs from Balkh) as well as from the mention of the bridge of ʿA_t_ā.) From Balkh he moved against the new governor ʿĀ_s_im b. ʿAbdullah al-Hilālī, at Merv, capturing Merv-Rūdh on the way. ʿĀ_s_im found a large section of the inhabitants in league with _H_ārith, but on his threatening to evacuate Merv and to call for Syrian troops, the local forces rallied round him. At the first reverse, the princes of Lower _T_ukhāristān deserted _H_ārith, whose army fell from sixty thousand to three thousand. He was thus reduced to making terms with ʿĀsim, but early in the following year renewed his revolt. ʿĀsim, hearing that Asad b. ʿAbdullah