A palace plot made Woyanqudi chanyu. Three years later, a son of the man he had succeeded took the throne from him. The Han Shu says that in 60 BC a dismissed consort and her brother set the Right Worthy King on the throne. They did so before the other kings could be called together.[1] Woyanqudi purged the court he had inherited. He lost the Rizhu King to the Han. In 58 BC, his army broke before it had fought, and he killed himself.[1] The Han Shu gives the reign one line. He reigned for three years and was defeated.[1]

Accession

Xulüquanqu had begun his reign by dismissing the Zhuanqu Yanzhi, a consort his predecessor had favoured. She took up a secret liaison with the Right Worthy King, Tuqitang.[1] The Right Worthy King came to the assembly at Longcheng and left again. She told him that the chanyu was gravely ill and that he should not go far. A few days later the chanyu died.[1]

The Haosu King, Xing Weiyang, sent men to call the kings together. Before the kings arrived, the Zhuanqu Yanzhi and her brother Du Longqi, the Left Great Qiequ, agreed on a plan. They set up the Right Worthy King as Woyanqudi Chanyu.[1][2] The accession may have been a decision of the assembly, which was meeting when the old chanyu fell ill. If so, it is the only case in the sources of a chanyu chosen at an assembly.[3] The Han Shu dates Xulüquanqu’s death to the second year of Shenjue. The accession therefore falls in 60 BC.[1]

The new chanyu had taken over the post of Right Worthy King from his own father. The Han Shu names his ancestry in one clause: he was a descendant, erxun, of Wuwei Chanyu. It gives no line of fathers.[1] Wuwei is counted as his great-grandfather. This distance from the direct line, it is held, made his claim contentious.[4]

The purge

He took up the heqin again. He sent his brother, the Yichouruo King Shengzhi, to the Han court with gifts.[1] At home he turned on the court he had inherited. He killed Xing Weiyang and the other nobles who had held power under Xulüquanqu. He gave office to Du Longqi. He dismissed Xulüquanqu’s sons, brothers and close kin and put his own sons and brothers in their places.[1][5] Some place the executions alongside the other offices of the period. The posts of the non-royal kings were held through ties to one member of the royal house or another, and fell with him.[6]

Jihoushan, a son of Xulüquanqu, was passed over and fled to his father-in-law Wuchanmu.[1] Wuchanmu came from a small country between the Wusun and Kangju that had been raided again and again. He had brought several thousand of his people over to the Xiongnu. Hulugu had married him to a sister of the Rizhu King and set him over his people in the right land.[1]

The Rizhu King goes over to the Han

The Rizhu King Xianxiandan was a nephew of Hulugu. His father, the Left Worthy King, had been in line for the throne and had stood aside for Hulugu. The Han Shu says that for this reason many in the country held that the Rizhu King ought to be chanyu.[1] He and Woyanqudi had long been on bad terms. He led several tens of thousands of horse over to the Han. The Han enfeoffed him as the Guide Marquis.[1][7]

The chapter on the Western Regions dates this to the second year of Shenjue, 60 BC. It says that the officer who met him, Zheng Ji, was made Marquis of Anyuan and given the northern road to protect as well as the southern. It says that this was the beginning of the office of Protector General.[8][9] The Protector General had his seat at the town of Wulei, in the north of the Tarim basin.[8][10] Woyanqudi named his cousin Boxutang as the new Rizhu King.[1]

Two years of killing

The next year, he killed two brothers of Xianxiandan. Wuchanmu pleaded for them and was refused. He bore a grudge.[1] When the Left Aojian King died, the chanyu made his own young son Aojian King and kept the boy at court. The Aojian nobles set up the dead king’s son instead and moved east with him. Woyanqudi sent his Right Chancellor after them with ten thousand horse. The Right Chancellor lost several thousand men and did not win.[1][11] The episode may be a case of regional leaders keeping their own choice of ruler against the chanyu’s.[12]

By the end of his second year, the Han Shu says, he was savage and given to killing. The country was not with him. The heir and the Left Worthy King slandered the nobles of the left land until all of them resented it.[1] In the third year, the Wuhuan attacked the Guxi King on the eastern border and took many of his people. The chanyu was angry. The Guxi King, afraid, joined Wuchanmu and the nobles of the left land. Together they set up Jihoushan as Huhanye Chanyu.[1]

The river Guqie

Forty or fifty thousand men of the left land marched west and reached the north bank of the river Guqie. Woyanqudi’s army broke and ran before there was a battle.[1] He sent word to his brother the Right Worthy King that all the Xiongnu were attacking him, and asked for troops. The brother answered that Woyanqudi had not loved his people and had killed brothers and nobles. Woyanqudi should die where he stood and not come to defile him. Woyanqudi was enraged and killed himself.[1][13] Du Longqi fled to the Right Worthy King. The people went over to Huhanye. The Han Shu dates it to the fourth year of Shenjue, 58 BC.[1]

His side did not end with him. In the winter after his death, Du Longqi and the Right Worthy King set up the Rizhu King Boxutang, Woyanqudi’s cousin, as the Tuqi Chanyu. Tuqi marched east against Huhanye with several tens of thousands of men. Huhanye was defeated and fled. The war of the five chanyus began.[1]

The name

The Han Shu gives his personal name as Tuqitang. The Shiji says that the Xiongnu word for ‘worthy’ is tuqi. The rank he held before the throne was that of Right Worthy King. The first element of his name is therefore the word for the rank he held.[14] The Han Shu does not say whether the name was given for the office.

Assessment

The start of the internal strife that broke the Xiongnu house has been dated to about 60 BC, the year of his accession.[15] The chapter shows how it came about. A woman and her brother arranged the accession. Woyanqudi cleared the court of the previous reign’s men. An eastern faction drew in a son of the old chanyu and his father-in-law. When that faction marched, Woyanqudi’s own brother would not come to his help.[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 x Han Shu, juan 94
  2. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 129–130
  3. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 129
  4. ^ Miller 2014, p. 21
  5. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 130
  6. ^ Miller 2014, p. 20,21
  7. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 132–133
  8. ^ a b Han Shu, juan 96
  9. ^ Herrmann 1910, p. 122
  10. ^ Herrmann 1910, p. 86
  11. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 133–134
  12. ^ Miller 2014, p. 18
  13. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 134–135
  14. ^ Shiji, juan 110
  15. ^ Golden 1992, p. 62

Sources

Literature

  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Bryan K. Miller, Xiongnu “Kings” and the Political Order of the Steppe Empire (2014)
  • Albert Herrmann, Die alten Seidenstrassen zwischen China und Syrien. Beiträge zur alten Geographie Asiens, Bd. 1 (1910)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Büyük Hun İmparatorluğu Tarihi II (2015)

Related

What links here3

Persons
Xulüquanqu Chanyu
Institutions and Titles
Women among the Turkic Peoples · Worthy Kings of the Left and Right

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Woyanqudi Chanyu.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/woyanqudi-chanyu/

Last revised: 8 November 2026