The Yugur people were very important for the construction of late Dunhuang caves. In the period of the Shazhou Uighur(1036—1068) and the later part of the Gui-yi-jun regime ruled by the Cao family, cave construction at Dunhuang reached a peak under the leadership of the Uighur people with 27 caves newly built or renovated. In the late Yuan dynasty, under the support of Lord Bin and his family, cave construction at Dunhuang reached another climax in which the Yugur Buddhists(descendants of the Uighur) again played a vital role. Most of the so-called Western Xia caves generally accepted in the academic community should be regarded as being from the Yuan dynasty, with the exclusion of cave 29 at the Yulin Grottoes. The northern area caves at Mogao and the Eastern Thousand-Buddha Grottoes might have been constructed respectively as the royal cave temples of the King of Xining at Shazhou and the King of Su at Guazhou, both having come from the family of Lord Bin.
