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Competing dates
A steppe chronology is built from Chinese reign years, from inscriptions that count in animals, and from Greek and Persian authors who counted differently again. Where those reckonings give different years for the same event, this work picks one and records the other. Both stand here, with whoever holds the second and the ground he holds it on.
Events dated two ways
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54 BC The southern Xiongnu under Huhanye submit to the Han and enter the tributary system China
- 58 BC — The editor, who gives Huhanye's reign as 58 to 31 BC: Accession rather than submission
- 53 BC — Han Shu 94下: 呼韓邪從其計，引眾南近塞 … 是歲，甘露元年: the decision to submit and the hostage son, first year of Ganlu
- 51 BC — Han Shu 94下: Audience before the emperor at Ganquan in the first month of the third year of Ganlu, after the arrival at the Wuyuan frontier in 52 BC
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429 Taiwu crosses the Gobi and scatters the Rouran at the Li river; more than three hundred thousand surrender and Datan dies China
- 429 — Wei Shu 103: 神䴥二年: Taiwu crosses the desert, scatters Datan's people at the Li river and takes the surrender of more than three hundred thousand; 始光元年 (424) is Datan's raid on Yunzhong in which the emperor was surrounded and escaped, 425 the five-road campaign
Rouran Khaganate · Taiwu's campaign against the Rouran (429) · Datan Khan
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439 capitulation on 11 September: The Northern Liang capitulate; five hundred Ashina families migrate by Gaochang to the Altai as subjects of the Rouran Tarim and Sogdiana
- 450 — Bei Shi 99, as read in the Bumin article: Settlement date in the middle decades of the fifth century
Ashina · Rouran Khaganate · Gaochang · Altai
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487 Afuzhiluo leads more than a hundred thousand tents of Gaoche out of the Rouran khaganate and founds a kingdom north-west of Gaochang Eastern steppe
- 492 — Wei Shu, Rouran chapter: tells the secession under the Wei campaign of 492
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520 Anagui takes the Rouran throne out of the civil war of the Yujiulü Eastern steppe
- 516 — Emre-E. Yavuz, in the narrative: The same work's index gives 520, the usual reckoning
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520 Anagui marches west and breaks the Tiele in Dzungaria after their decade of independence Western steppe
- 516 — Wei Shu 103: 熙平元年: the western campaign that crushed the Gaoche and captured and killed their king Mietu is Chounu's; of Anagui the chapter records only an undated later victory over the Gaoche king Yifu
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540 A tropical eruption, larger than Tambora in its aerosol; summers cold again from 541 to almost 550 Eastern steppe
- 539 — Michael Sigl and others, from the Antarctic ice: The second episode falls in 539 or 540
Climate and the steppe empires · The Turkic War of Independence
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552 first weeks of the year: A Rouran force sent west is beaten by the Göktürk in Dzungaria Western steppe
- 552 — Modern accounts: The months assigned to the two engagements differ; the sequence does not
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552 second half of the year: The Northern Qi attack Göktürk territory on behalf of the Rouran exiles China
- 552 — Emre-E. Yavuz: Late summer or autumn, because no one campaigned on that frontier in winter
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553 spring: Istemi leads an army west from the Altai Western steppe
- 553 — The older literature gives a hundred thousand men; Emre-E. Yavuz thirty to fifty thousand: Size of the army, not the date
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560 Istemi takes Bukhara; the Hephthalite realm is destroyed in concert with Khosrow I Tarim and Sogdiana
- 557 — Peter B. Golden: Aydogdy Kurbanov sets the end between 563 and 567; the fall is dated about 560 here
Battle of Bukhara · Istemi · Hephthalites · Bukhara · Khosrow I · Sogdiana
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568 August: Zemarchos leaves Constantinople for the Göktürk Byzantium
- 569 — Menander, fr. 19 (Müller) = 10,2 (Blockley): circa finem quarti anni imperii Justini … initio mensis Augusti: the fourth year of Justin II ran from November 568, so the departure falls in August 569
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588 Bagha crosses the Oxus, takes Balkh and Herat, and is beaten and killed by Bahram Chobin at the Hyrcanian rock in April Persia
- 589 — Peter B. Golden: The defeat at Herat in 589, of an army led by Tardush's son Šāba, after Tabari and Theophylact
Bagha Khan · Sasanian Persia · First Göktürk Khaganate · Göktürk–Persian war, 588–589 · Bahram Chobin · Herat · Western Göktürk Khaganate
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611 Shegui Khan rules the western Göktürk Western steppe
- 618 — Peter B. Golden and Édouard Chavannes: Golden gives 618 or 619; Chavannes has Tong Yabgu on the throne no later than 618
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628 Töles submits to the Tang on 21 April; the Xueyantuo secede from Ilig as a khaganate of their own Eastern steppe
- 629 — Jiu Tang Shu 194上: 三年，薛延陀自稱可汗於漠北: the khan's self-proclamation in the third year of Zhenguan; the risings north of the Yinshan are in the first year, 627
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651 Ashina Helu, self-proclaimed Shaboluo Khan, dominates the Ten Arrows Western steppe
- 653 — Peter B. Golden: Golden gives Helu's khanate as 653 to 659; the Tang annals have the Tingzhou raid and the first campaign in 651
- 659 — Peter B. Golden: The end of the khanate; the Tang annals have the capture in 658 and the death in 659
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651 Ashina Helu goes west, takes the Duolu lands, proclaims himself Shaboluo Khan at the Thousand Springs over the Ten Arrows, and raids Tingzhou Western steppe
- 653 — Peter B. Golden: The beginning of Helu's khanate over the Ten Arrows
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657 The Tang capture Ashina Helu, the last independent khan of the western Göktürk; the west is divided into ten prefectures Western steppe
- 658 — The Tang annals, as Chavannes cites them: The campaign in the second year of Xianqing, 657, the capture in the third, 658, and Helu's death in the fourth, 659
- 659 — Peter B. Golden: A-shih-na Ho-lu captured by Tang forces in 659. The end is set at 657; the after-effects run to the 740s
Western Göktürk Khaganate · First Göktürk Khaganate · Ashina Helu · On Oq · Tang
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682 Kutluk of the Ashina gathers the fugitives of Funian's rising in the Zongcai mountains, makes himself khan as Ilterish and restores the Göktürk state Eastern steppe
- 683 — Jiu Tang Shu 194: The Jiu Tang Shu dates the rising to the second year of Yongchun; the Xin Tang Shu and the literature give the first, 682
Ilterish Khan · Second Göktürk Khaganate · Tonyukuk · Ashina
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710 Tonyukuk crosses the Kögmen in winter by a single-horse track and kills the Kirghiz khan in his sleep, breaking the northern arm of the coalition of the Tang, the Ten Arrows and the Kirghiz Eastern steppe
- 711 — Peter B. Golden: Kül Tegin's age of twenty-six gives 710 if he was born in 684; Golden's dating of the western campaigns is about 711
Tonyukuk · Kül Tegin · Yenisei Kirghiz · Second Göktürk Khaganate
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711 Battle of Bolchu: Tonyukuk, against Kapgan's order, crosses the Altai and the Irtysh by night and destroys the Türgesh army; their khan taken, the Ten Arrows submit Western steppe
- 710 — Kül Tegin inscription, by the prince's age: The Tang history gives the Jingyun period, 710 to 711; the literature writes 711
Battle of Bolchu · Tonyukuk · Kapgan Khan · Inel Khan · Bilge Khan · Kül Tegin · Türgesh · On Oq
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716 The Tonyukuk inscription is raised at Bain Tsokto on the upper Tola, by its author in his own lifetime Eastern steppe
- 720 — Vilhelm Thomsen, in Ross's rendering: Radloff dated the stone to 716 from its silence about Bilge Khan's reign; Thomsen to about 720
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734 Bilge Khan is poisoned by his minister Meilu Chuo, has the minister and his faction destroyed before he dies, and dies in the Year of the Dog; his son Yiran is set up Eastern steppe
- 732 — Jiu Tang Shu 194: The Tang history puts the poisoning under the twentieth year of Kaiyuan, the same heading as Kül Tegin's death; the inscription's Dog year is 734
Bilge Khan · Yiran Khan · Second Göktürk Khaganate · Bilge Khan inscription
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735 The Bilge Khan inscription is erected Eastern steppe
- 732 — Emre-E. Yavuz, in the appendix: The edition's date; the inscription itself dates the funeral to the fifth month of the Pig year, 735 by Thomsen's equation, and most scholarship gives 735
Articles whose dates are unsettled
- Ashina Lineages The dates of the subject itself (439–969)
- Ashina Helu Persons The dates of the subject itself
- Bagha Khan Persons The dates of the subject itself
- Bagha Khan Persons The year of death (588)
- Battle of Bolchu Battles & Events The dates of the subject itself (710–711)
- Battle of Bolchu Battles & Events The date of the event
- Battle of Dzungaria, 552 Battles & Events The date of the event
- Battle of Huaihuang, 552 Battles & Events The date of the event
- Bilge Khan inscription Sources The dates of the subject itself
- Civil war, 584–603 Conflicts The date of the event
- Fall of the Second Khaganate, 741–744 Conflicts The date of the event
- Gaoche secession (487) Conflicts The date of the event
- Göktürk war of restoration, 679–687 Conflicts The date of the event
- Hegemony Wars in Northern China Conflicts The date of the event
- Istemi Persons The year of death (576)
- Shegui Khan Persons The dates of the subject itself
- Shegui Khan Persons The year of death (619)
- Taiwu's campaign against the Rouran (429) Conflicts The date of the event
- Tardush Persons The year of death (603)
- Tong Yabgu Persons The dates of the subject itself
- Tonyukuk inscription Sources The dates of the subject itself (716–720)
- Western Göktürk Khaganate Polities The dates of the subject itself (552–657)