Rouran civil war (520–521)

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

In a single year the Rouran had four rulers and lost two of them to the Chinese. A court official was present at every stage. The Wei Shu tells this episode in more detail than any other episode of Rouran history.^[1] Anagui’s article tells his side; the whole sequence stands here.

Murder of Chounu (520)

At the beginning of the Zhengguang era, Chounu’s mother had the shamaness Diwan strangled.^[1] The Azhiluo, the western Gaoche, beat Chounu in the field. On his return, his mother and the great ministers killed him. They set up his younger brother Anagui.^[1] Ten days later, Anagui’s cousin Shifa, an elteber, attacked him with several tens of thousands. Anagui was beaten. He fled south to the Wei with his brother Yijufa and a few horsemen.^[1] Soon afterwards Shifa killed Anagui’s mother and two of his brothers. Anagui did not yet know this.^[1]

Anagui at Luoyang

In the ninth month of 520, Emperor Xiaoming sent officials to meet him on the road and give him a feast.^[1] In the tenth month, the emperor received him in the Xianyang hall before the assembled court. He seated Anagui below the vassal princes, and Anagui’s brother and two uncles below the officials.^[1] Anagui asked that a cousin who had outranked his uncles in the north be seated too. The request was granted.^[1] At the end of the feast, he stood behind his seat with a petition. He was called to the front of the hall and prostrated himself.^[1] He said that his ancestors had come out of the great Wei and had moved north of the desert in search of grazing. The Gaoche rebels, he said, had kept his country in turmoil and had prevented his brother from sending envoys.^[1] He said that a traitor had killed his brother and made him ruler. After barely ten days, he had come, trusting in the emperor’s mercy, to ask for troops and horses to go back.^[1] He would punish the rebels and gather the scattered. If his old mother lived, he would see her again; if she was dead, he would avenge her. Thereafter he would serve the Wei with the tribute of the four seasons.^[1] He was made duke of Shuofang and king of the Rouran, with robes, cap and carriage.^[1]

In the twelfth month, the court debated whether to let him go home. Some were for it and some against. Anagui privately gave the chief minister Yuan Cha a hundred jin of gold, and the decision went his way.^[1] In the first month of 521, the emperor gave him an audience together with five of his kinsmen. The chapter lists what he was given.^[1] There were two suits of fine mail for man and horse and six of iron, lances, bows and shields, twenty drums and horns, embroidered robes and a hundred and eight tents.^[1] There were dried rice, barley and hazelnut flour by the hundred shi, cauldrons, slaves, five hundred mares, a hundred and twenty camels, a hundred cows and five thousand sheep. Two hundred thousand shi of millet were to be handed over at the garrison.^[1] It is the fullest inventory of what a Chinese court thought a khan needed in order to become a khan again.

Shifa and Poluomen

Meanwhile, in the north, Anagui’s cousin Poluomen had led several tens of thousands against Shifa and broken him. Shifa fled to the Didouyu, who killed him. The people raised Poluomen as khan.^[1] The Wei tried to send Anagui home to him. The garrison commander Yang Jun warned that the man who had a khan already would not go out to welcome the brother of the khan they had murdered.^[1] The envoy Dieyun Juren found Poluomen arrogant and unbending.^[1] Poluomen sent two thousand men to fetch Anagui. Anagui was afraid and would not go. He asked to return to the capital.^[1]

Gaoche decide it

The Gaoche under Yifu then broke Poluomen. Poluomen came to Liangzhou with ten tribes and surrendered. Several tens of thousands of Rouran came out to receive Anagui.^[1] In the seventh month, Anagui reported that two Rouran defectors had reached the garrison. They said that the country was in chaos, that clan lived apart from clan and raided one another, and that the people of the north were waiting eagerly for rescue.^[1] He asked for ten thousand crack troops to escort him north of the desert. The court sent an envoy with more gifts.^[1] In the ninth month, Anagui’s elder brother Sinifa came to Huaishuo and asked for troops and for Anagui.^[1] In the tenth month, the great ministers proposed the settlement.^[1] The Han had had a southern and a northern chanyu, and the Jin an eastern and a western. On that model, Anagui should be placed at the Tuoruoxi springs north of Huaishuo, outside the frontier.^[1] Poluomen should be placed in the old commandery of Xihai north of Dunhuang, inside it.^[1] Each was to gather his own scattered people, with escorts and builders from the garrisons of Woye, Huaishuo and Wuchuan. The emperor approved.^[1] Anagui was starting anew and had no stores, so two thousand hu of hemp seed and dried rations from Shuozhou were to be carried to him on government camels.^[1] Poluomen went to Dunhuang. He plotted to defect to the Hephthalites and was captured.^[1]

Aftermath

In the winter of 522, Anagui asked for millet for seed at the springs and received ten thousand shi.^[1] In 523, a year of hunger, he came into the frontier on a raid. He seized the envoy sent to reason with him. He drove off two thousand people and tens of thousands of animals and went north.^[1] Li Chong pursued him three thousand li to the Hanhai and did not catch him.^[1] Two years later the Wei were asking him for help against the Six Garrisons.^[1] Modern accounts present the whole sequence as the story of the last khan of the Rouran. Facing serious domestic threats, he declared himself a vassal of the Wei and sought their help, and a marriage confirmed the tie.^[2] A different chronology places Anagui’s accession and his victory over the Tölös in 516. It passes over the year of four rulers. Turkic Atlas sets the two chronologies side by side under the khaganate.^[3]