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

Mukan Khan, Issik’s younger brother and successor, fought two wars on the eastern and northern edges of his realm. He drove the Khitan off to the east. In the north he annexed the Qigu, the Kirghiz.[1] The Zhou Shu tells both wars in one sentence, together with his war in the west: Mukan “broke the Hephthalites in the west, drove off the Khitan in the east, annexed the Qigu in the north, and by his might subdued the states beyond the frontier”.[1] The western war is the Göktürk–Hephthalite war.

The khan and his first war

The Zhou Shu describes Mukan as hard and violent by nature and devoted to war.[1] His first war ended the Rouran remnant.[1] His brother had beaten Dengshuzi at Mount Mulai. Mukan led an army against him and destroyed him.[1] The wars in the east and the north follow in the same passage. The Zhou Shu gives no year for any of them.[1]

The Bei Shi repeats the sentence.[2] The Tongdian repeats it too, but adds the Rouran to the peoples Mukan broke in the west.[3] The Zizhi tongjian enters the whole passage under 555, together with the destruction of Dengshuzi.[4] One reckoning dates the annexation of the Kirghiz to about 560.[5]

The Khitan

According to the Sui Shu, the Khitan lived several hundred li north of Huanglong.[6] The Zhou Shu’s verb for what Mukan did to them is 走, to put to flight. Mukan drove them off to the east.[1] The Sui Shu’s account of Mukan names the Khitan in the same words.[6]

The Khitan chapter of the Sui Shu tells of the same pressure from the Khitan side, without naming a khan or a year. In the time of the Later Wei, the chapter says, Goguryeo attacked the Khitan. More than ten thousand Khitan asked to come under the Wei.[6] Later, pressed by the Göktürks, they placed ten thousand households under the protection of Goguryeo.[6] The identification of this pressure with Mukan’s war is an interpretation of the two passages taken together. Neither passage states it.

The Qigu

The Qigu, 契骨, appear first in the Göktürk origin legend. One of the four sons of the wolf-born ancestor founded a state between the Afu and the Jian rivers and was called Qigu.[1] In the account of Mukan, they are a people of the north. The Zhou Shu’s verb for what he did to them is 并, to annex.[1] The Qigu are the Kirghiz.[7] Their country lay in the Minusinsk basin on the upper Yenisei, in the rear of the steppe states of Mongolia.[5]

The Sui Shu’s account of Mukan does not name them. For the north, it says only that the barbarians of the north all came over to him.[6]

The annexation did not end their resistance. In an edict against the Göktürks, the first Sui emperor listed their enemies on every side.[2] North of the Göktürks, the Bei Shi’s text of the edict says that “the Qigu and their like gnash their teeth and grind their jaws, always watching their rear”.[2] The Sui Shu’s text of the same edict has the Khitan in place of the Qigu.[6] The Zizhi tongjian dates the edict to 583.[8]

The extent of the realm

After the wars the Zhou Shu describes the land that belonged to Mukan. In the east it began west of the Liao sea. In the west it reached the Western Sea, ten thousand li away.[1] From the desert in the south it ran north to the Northern Sea, five or six thousand li.[1] The Bei Shi repeats the description. The Tongdian gives the distance from east to west as more than ten thousand li.[9]

The seas are named but not located. Some scholars identify the Liao sea with the gulf of Liaodong. They identify the Western Sea with the Caspian and the Northern Sea with Lake Baikal.[10] An older view also identifies the Western Sea with the Caspian.[11] In other Chinese texts, the name Western Sea stands for the Aral Sea, the Mediterranean and the Koko Nor.[10]

Result

The Chinese histories give the two wars one sentence. What they record is the outcome. The Khitan were driven east, and the Kirghiz were taken into the realm.[1] The Zhou Shu follows the two wars with the measure of the whole realm, bounded by three seas and the desert.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b c Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99
  3. ^ Tongdian, juan 197
  4. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 166
  5. ^ a b Golden 1992, p. 179
  6. ^ a b c d e f Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  7. ^ Golden 1992, p. 127
  8. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 175
  9. ^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197
  10. ^ a b Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 19
  11. ^ Julien 1864, p. 331

Sources

Literature

  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Stanislas Julien, Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs) (1864)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)

Related

What links here3

Places
Beihai · Liaohai · Xihai

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Mukan's Eastern and Northern Wars.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/conflicts/mukans-eastern-and-northern-wars/

Last revised: 8 November 2026