Xueyantuo
Years: 600 - 647
The Xueyantu (Seyanto, Se-yanto, Se-Yanto) or Syr-Tardush are an ancient Tiele people and khanate in central/northern Asia who are at one point vassals of the Gokturks, later aligning with China's Tang Dynasty against the Eastern Gokturks.
Xueyantuo starts from the Selenga River/Xueyanhe Rive, so the tribe name is Seyanto/Xueyantuo, Chinese Han characters undergo considerable revisions by the rises and falls of Chinese dynasties, so have many names, such as Xueyantuo, Xueyanhe, Xienianhe, Seyanto, Selenga, Selyanha, etc.
[NOTE: Loriano Belluomini claims that the correspondence Xueyantuo = Syr Tardush was rejected by modern historians.
It seems also ingenuous to link the name Xue-yantuo (according to Tongdian two different tribal names) with the Selenge river name].
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The Xue and the Yantuo were initially two separate tribes.
The Xue appeared earlier as Xinli but were not referred to again until the seventh century.
After Yishibo, the Xueyantuo establish a short-lived Qaghanate over the steppe under Zhenzhu Khan, his son Duomi Khan and nephew Yitewushi Khan, the last of which will eventually surrender to the Chinese.
The Xueyantuo ally with the Chinese on March 27, 630, to defeat the Eastern Qaghanate in the Yin Mountains.
Ashina Duobi, Eastern Gokturk Illig Qaghan, escapes but on May 2 is handed over to the Chinese by his subordinate qaghan.
The Tang dynasty in 630 defeats Illig Qaghan, and the Xueyantuo effectively take over control of the Eastern Gokturks, former territory, at times submissive to Tang and at times warring with Tang and the subsequent khan of the Eastern Gokturks that Tang supports, the Qilibi Khan Ashina Simo.
The Aru-Kagan (Chinese Helu) of the Eastern Turkic Kaganate is captured in 630 by the Chinese.
His heir apparent, the "lesser Khan" Khubo, escapes to Altai with a major part of the people and thirty thousand soldiers.
He conquers the Karluks—a branch of the Turgesh or aboriginal Altaians—in the west and the Kyrgyz in the north, and takes the title Ichju Chebi Khan.
Li Jing commands the main prong of the Tang dynasty’s attacks against the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, with the generals Li Shiji, Xue Wanche, and Chai Shao commanding the other prongs, but with Li Jing in overall command.
In spring 630, Li Jing's forces, surprising Ashina Duobi's, capture Dingxiang (in modern Hohhot, Inner Mongolia), approaching Ashina Duobi's imperial tent.
He then sends spies to Ashina Duobi's camp and persuades a number of Ashian Duobi's close associates, including Kangsumi, to surrender (along with Sui's Empress Xiao and her grandson Yang Zhengdao).
Ashina Duobi withdraws to the Yin Mountains and offers to submit to Tang—but at the same time he is negotiating with the Tang envoy Tang Jian, whom Emperor Taizong had sent to negotiate with him, he is considering withdrawing further, north of the Gobi Desert.
Li Jing and Li Shiji, believing that Ashina Duobi is merely stalling for time, join their forces and attack Ashina Duobi, defeating him and killing his wife (the Sui Dynasty's Princess Yicheng).
Ashina Duobi flees further to his subordinate khan Ashina Sunishi), but is soon captured by the Tang general Zhang Baoxiang and delivered to Chang'an.
Turkic nobles largely surrender to Tang, while the Turkic Khaganate's people scatter in three directions—either surrendering to Tang, surrendering to Xueyantuo, or fleeing west to the Western Turkic Khaganate and the nearby kingdoms.
Emperor Taizong sends envoys to the Xueyantuo, vassals of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, bearing gold and silk in order to persuade the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners who had been captured during the transition from the Sui to the Tang Dynasty from the northern frontier.
The embassy succeeds in freeing eighty thousand men and women who are safely return to China.
The Xueyantuo repulse an army of Si Yabgu Qaghan from the Western Qaghanate in 632, then subjugate the Karluks at the Ulungur and Irtysh River, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz tribes.
Emperor Taizong requests opinions from his officials as to what to do with the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people, and it is said that the majority opinion was to move them to the modern Shandong and Henan region and scatter them within Tang prefectures to sinicize them, making them unable to reorganize.
However, there are several officials who held differing opinions whose opinions are recorded in historical records: Yan Shigu opined that the Eastern Turkic people should continued to be settled north of the Yellow River, to remain in tribal form, as vassals.
Li Baiyao opined that, specifically, letting the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people remain north of the Yellow River but be scattered, with a member of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's Ashina clan serving as khan, but only over the Ashina, while other tribes within the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people be given their own chieftains, with positions equivalent to the Ashina khan; he also opined that a protector general be placed at Dingxiang to govern over them.
Dou Jing opined that the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's chieftains and people should be scattered, and that daughters of imperial clan members be given to the chieftains as wives, to better control them as vassals.
Two key opinions, given by two chancellors, emerge from the discussion: Wen Yanbo opined that the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people should be settled in the northern prefectures within Tang borders, remaining in tribal form, on lands that were currently not settled.
Wei Zheng opined that the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people should be outside of Tang boundaries on their own lands.
Emperor Taizong eventually accepts Wen's opinions, establishing four nominal prefectures over Ashina Shibobi's people and six nominal prefectures over Ashina Duobi's people, with two commandants governing over the people.
Ashina Sunishi and another Eastern Turkic Khaganate's prince, Ashina Simo (who, in particular, is given the Tang imperial surname Li and therefore also known as Li Simo), are created princes, and a large number of other chieftains are given general ranks; they are settled in or near Chang'an.
Emperor Taizong also gives the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's people who possess Han people as slaves ransoms and has them return those Han slaves to Tang.
Hereafter, Emperor Taizong will often requisition Turkic cavalry soldiers to supplement regular Tang troops on various campaigns, such as the 634 campaign against Tuyuhun under Li Jing, resulting in the murder of their leader (khan) Murong Fuyun in 635.
Xueyantuo has meanwhile largely taken over the Eastern Turkic Khaganate's former territory, with most of Eastern Turkic Khaganate's former vassals submitting to it.
Yi'nan remains nominally submissive to Tang, remaining formally respectful to Emperor Taizong, while at the same time trying to affirm Xueyantuo's control over the region.
Former Eastern Turkic Khaganate's vassals Khitan, Xí, and Xĩ tribes directly submit to Tang, as does the city kingdom of Yiwu.
Ashina Jiesheshuai had not been favored by Emperor Taizong of Tang because he had falsely accused his brother Ashina Shibobi of treason, which Emperor Taizong found despicable.
He has by late spring 639 formed a conspiracy with Ashina Shibobi's son Ashina Hexiangu to assassinate Emperor Taizong at his summer palace, Jiucheng Palace (in modern Linyou County, Shaanxi).
They had planned to wait for Li Zhi the Prince of Jin to depart from the palace in the morning and use that opportunity to attack the palace.
Li Zhi does not leave the palace on the day they plan, May 19, however, due to a storm and heavy rain immediately afterwards.
Ashina Jiesheshuai attacks the palace anyway, engaging the palace guards, but the palace guards are supported by other nearby troops.
Ashina Jiesheshuai and his comrades go to the stable and steal some twenty horses.
They flee to the north but are arrested by pursuers near the Wei River and killed.
Ashina Hexiangu is exiled to Lingbiao.
After this incident, however, the officials begin advocating sending Turks (or Tujue as they are known to the Chinese) away from the heart of the state.
Emperor Taizong in autumn 639 creates Li Simo (né Ashina Simo), a Göktürk-Tujue prince who had served him faithfully, as the khan of a newly recreated Eastern Tujue state (as Qilibi Khan), giving him all of the Tujue and Hu who had surrendered as his subordinates, to be settled north of the Great Wall and the Yellow River.
The Tujue people are fearful of Xueyantuo however and initially refuse to head to their new location.
Emperor Taizong issues an edict to Xueyantuo's khan Yi'nan that he and Li Simo will keep their peace and not attack each other, and after receiving from Yi'nan the assurance that he will not attack, the Tujue people advance to the new location.
Emperor Taizong of Tang, after subjugating the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, begins to exert his military power toward the Western Regions, at this time dominated by the Western Turkic Khaganate as well as a number of city-states loosely allied with the Western Turks.
Emperor Taizong destroys the Xueyantuo state during the campaign in the summer of 646 against them.