Rouran epochGöktürk epochUyghur epochKirghiz epoch
RouranFirst GöktürkTang ruleSecond GöktürkUyghurKirghizHunsWestern GöktürkTürgeshKarlukKhazar
  • 400
  • 500
  • 600
  • 700
  • 800
  • 900

Kapgan took over his brother’s state and made it the strongest power on the steppe since Ilig. The Chinese chapter says so in those words: from Ilig’s time onward, the most powerful.[1] It gives him four hundred thousand men who could draw a bow and a territory of more than ten thousand li from end to end.[1]

The marriage refused, 698

The war of 698 began over a Tang princess.[1] The Zhou court of Wu Zetian had courted Kapgan with titles and gifts. In the same negotiation, the court handed over six prefectures of surrendered Göktürks. This was the single largest transfer of people in the whole period.[1]

Then the court sent a bridegroom. He was Wu Yanxiu, a member of the empress’s own family, and the general Yan Zhiwei escorted him.[2] Kapgan had meant his daughter for a son of the Li house, the house of the Tang emperors.[1] He seized Wu Yanxiu and his companions.[1] He named Yan Zhiwei a khan.[1][3] With a hundred thousand men he attacked the Tang frontier armies.[2]

The campaign took him into Hebei.[1] He plundered Zhao and Ding and carried off eighty to ninety thousand people.[1][4] The Tang generals stood in sight of the Göktürks and did not dare to fight. Kapgan withdrew before the army that the empress raised under her heir could march.[1]

Kapgan gave his reasons in a letter to the empress. The seed millet that she had sent was cooked. The gold and silver of her gifts was of low standard. She had confiscated the robes that he had given to Chinese officials. His daughter was to marry not a prince of the dynasty but a member of the empress’s own family. For these reasons, he wrote, he would attack again and take Hebei.[5]

Yan Zhiwei, whom Kapgan let go, returned to China. The empress had him and his whole family put to death.[4]

Raids and a second proposal, 700 to 705

In 700 the Göktürks took more than ten thousand horses from the government studs of Longyou.[1] The court named Wei Yuanzhong commander of the Lingwu route to guard against them.[1]

In these years Kapgan’s army also met a Chinese army in battle. The Kül Tegin inscription tells of a Chinese governor, Ong Tutuk, who came with an army of fifty thousand. Kül Tegin attacked on foot and took a prisoner, whom Tekin translates as the brother-in-law of the governor. He brought the man to the khan, and the Göktürks destroyed the army.[6] Another translation renders the prisoner as the governor’s nephew.[7] Modern accounts identify the governor with Wei Yuanzhong and set the clash in the Ordos in 701.[8]

In 703 Kapgan sent Baga Tarkan with a new proposal.[2] This time the bridegroom was to be a son of the crown prince.[2] The empress accepted. Kapgan sent a high officer with a thousand horses to thank her, and she gave him a banquet in the Suyu pavilion.[2][9]

Wu Yanxiu was still among the Göktürks.[10] He came home early in the Shenlong era, which began in 705.[10] Kapgan then sent him ahead to carry his submission.[10]

After the accession of Zhongzong, 705 to 708

Soon after Zhongzong took the throne, Kapgan attacked Mingsha in Lingzhou. The Lingwu commander Shatuo Zhongyi fought him for a long time and lost.[2] Zhongzong then cancelled the marriage that the empress had accepted. He offered a princedom to anyone who killed Kapgan.[2]

Kapgan killed a Chinese envoy, Zang Siyan, who would not bend before him.[2] The court promoted the dead man posthumously and appointed Zhang Renyuan to the Shuofang command against the khan.[1]

The Cities of Surrender

The Tang did not answer eighteen years of raiding with a field victory. Zhang Renyuan became commander of the Shuofang route in 707.[11] In the following year the Tang began to build three fortified cities beyond the Yellow River, the Cities of Surrender.[12][11] The cities closed the road south.[1] They are the only thing on the Chinese side of this war that outlasted it.

The princess of Jinshan, 711 to 714

When Ruizong came to the throne, Kapgan asked for a bride once more. The court named a daughter of Prince Chengqi of Song the Princess of Jinshan.[2] The escort, He Fengyao, met Kapgan’s envoys on the road. They objected that she was not of the Tang house. The number of gifts and the envoy’s courtesy quieted Kapgan.[13]

The two Tang histories tell the sequel differently. According to the Jiu Tang Shu, Kapgan sent his son Yangwozhi Tegin to court once the princess was named. The marriage failed when Ruizong handed on the throne.[1] According to the Xin Tang Shu, Xuanzong ended the marriage talks first. Only then did Kapgan send his son to serve at the court and press for a bride. The court offered a daughter of the Prince of Shu.[12]

In 714 Kapgan’s son Yinie Khan attacked Beiting with Tong’e Tegin and Huoba Jielifa, the husband of Kapgan’s sister.[1] The Tang commander held the city and killed Tong’e Tegin under its walls.[1] Huoba did not dare to go home. He came over to the Tang with his wife, and the court gave him a general’s rank and a princedom. It gave his wife the title Princess of Jinshan, a house, ten slaves, ten horses and a thousand bolts of cloth.[1][14]

End of the wars

The wars did not stop because either side won. In his last years Kapgan was old. The chapter says that his following was steadily slipping away, because he had used his people harshly, trusting in his own strength.[1] The subject peoples rose from 714. The western war cost more than it returned. In 716 a straggler of the Bayirku killed him in a willow wood on the road home.[1]

The counsellor of Kapgan’s successor drew the lesson at once. When Bilge Khan proposed to invade the south, Tonyukuk told him that the Tang ruler was able, the harvests were good and the people were content. There was, he said, no opening.[1] The Göktürks, he said, were newly gathered and still weak. They should feed themselves for three years and watch.[1] The khan took the advice. The wars of 698 to 716 were not resumed.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  3. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 25
  4. ^ a b Taşağıl 2004, p. 27
  5. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 26
  6. ^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin o. J., p. 47
  7. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 40
  8. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 29, 38
  9. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 29–30
  10. ^ a b c Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 183
  11. ^ a b Taşağıl 2004, p. 32
  12. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  13. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 33
  14. ^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 34

Sources

Literature

  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Ahmet Taşağıl, Gök-Türkler, Bd. III (2004)
  • Talât Tekin, Orhon Yazıtları. Kül Tigin, Bilge Kağan, Tunyukuk (o. J.)

Related

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Persons
Zhang Renyuan
Places
Hebei · Xiazhou · Youzhou
Institutions and Titles
Tutuk
Customs & Pastimes
Turkic Songs at the Tang Court

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Kapgan's wars with the Tang, 698–716.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/conflicts/kapgan-tang-wars/

Last revised: 8 November 2026