The Abbasid court, especially during the reign of the caliphs of the ninth century ‘Golden Age’, established a pattern for slavery in royal and elite households that would be copied from al-Andalucía to Central Asia for the next millennium. To understand slavery in this era, it is useful to understand the motivation behind the acquisition of numerous enslaved concubines, talented courtesans, and eunuchs. Why did the Abbasid dynasty use huge numbers of slaves to project prestige, power, and wealth? The usual answer references the adoption of Persian cultural patterns. This paper, however, argues that both the Persians and their Abbasid descendants sought legitimacy for their imperial ambitions by their imitation of, and relations with the much larger T’ang Chinese court. The influence of T’ang China on Abbasid culture consisted of more than just porcelain and paper. Five types of Abbasid literature notably mention China. The question asked of these texts is not the Arabs’ knowledge of China, but rather, is there evidence of their desire to emulate the T’ang. Rihla travelogues, real and imaginary, by Marwazi, the unknown editor of Akhbar a-Sin wal-Hind, Sirafi, etc. show that China proved to be a popular topic. Belles lettres by Jahiz and al-Biruni praise Chinese imports in Baghdad. Texts by all the major historians and geographers, Tabari, Mas’udi, Ibn Khurdadhbih, Al-Maqkisi, Al-Istakhri copy from each other and lost ancient sources to describe China. Traditions of conjectured sayings by Mohammad about China could have been used to quiet Arab traditionalists. These Arabic sources show the place that the T’ang had in the imagination of the Iraqi elite. They reveal that one influence promoting the caliphs’ accumulation of elite slaves might have been their desire to replicate ancient Asian royal traditions to the level set by the T’ang where royal households reached 30,000 members. Perhaps the Abbasid caliphs who bragged about their two to four thousand concubines were attempting to show that they were players in the global competition for prestige. They were not just competing with the Persians that they had conquered, but more importantly, with the almost mystical wealth and mystique of the T’ang dynasty. Abbasid literature supports the theory that China was a powerful influence on Baghdadi culture, an influence that increased demand for slave women from across the known world but also gave slaves access to elite roles in society.