Gaoche

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 487 Afuzhiluo of the Fufuluo, one of the twelve clans of the Gaoche, broke away from the Rouran.^[1]^[2] He and his cousin Qiongqi had led more than a hundred thousand tents of the Gaoche under Rouran rule. The Rouran khan Tulun raided the Wei frontier against their advice. The two men therefore went west to the country north-west of Turfan and made themselves rulers there.^[1] The people called Afuzhiluo houlou fule, which the Wei Shu renders “great son of heaven”. They called Qiongqi houbei, “the heir”.^[1]^[3]^[4] Two proposals take the title houlou fule to be Turkic. One reconstructs it as ulug baglik, “great lordship”.^[3] The other reconstructs it as ulug bägräk, “very great lord”, and counts it as the clearest sign that the Gaoche spoke Turkic.^[4] Afuzhiluo did not take the title khan, which the Tuoba, the Rouran and the Tuyuhun already used, and the Göktürks took it only in 552.^[5]^[6] Tulun pursued them. He was beaten again and again.^[1] Modern accounts count the Gaoche among the Tiele. They classify the speech of the Tiele as Turkic.^[7]^[4] The Chinese name means “high carts”, after wagons with very large wheels.^[8] The name may be related to the sense of the Turkic name behind Dingling and Tiele, “circle” or “hoop”, and may not only describe the wagons.^[2]

In 490 Afuzhiluo sent two arrows to the Wei court. He offered to fight the Rouran for the emperor.^[1] The Hephthalites killed Qiongqi. Later the Gaoche killed Afuzhiluo for his cruelty and set up a kinsman in his place. After that, the Hephthalites placed Qiongqi’s son Mi’etu on the throne.^[1]^[9] Mi’etu killed the Rouran khan Futu north of Lake Barkol. In the 510s, however, the Rouran khan Chounu took him prisoner and dragged him to death behind a horse.^[1]

His brother Yifu returned from the Hephthalites. He received the title of king of Gaoche from the Wei and defeated the Rouran once more.^[1] After him the throne passed by murder from brother to nephew. In the Xinghe years, 539 to 542, the Rouran defeated the last king, Bishi.^[1] The Gaoche had held out against the Rouran for half a century. In 552 the Göktürks, another people under Rouran rule, overthrew the Rouran.

Origin and language

The Wei Shu gives the Gaoche a Xiongnu origin. It says that a chanyu of the Xiongnu set his two daughters on a high platform to give them to Heaven. An old wolf came, and the younger daughter went down and became the wolf’s wife and the mother of the Gaoche.^[1] In the Gaoche story the wolf is male, unlike the she-wolf of the Göktürk legends.^[10] The wolf legends of the Wusun, the Gaoche and the Göktürks may be one line that begins inside the Xiongnu realm.^[11]

The Wei Shu also says that the language of the Gaoche was roughly the same as that of the Xiongnu, with small differences, and that some said their ancestors were sons of Xiongnu sisters.^[1] Some scholars do not take this statement seriously and hold that the Gaoche spoke Turkic, on the ground of their titles and names.^[12] By the fifth and sixth centuries the Gaoche lived scattered over western Mongolia, the Altai and Dzungaria, no longer in southern Siberia.^[2] The Fufula, part of a people that rose against the Rouran in 487 and founded a state near Beshbalik, have also been identified as ancestors of the Uyghurs.^[13]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wei Shu, juan 103
^ a b c Pulleyblank 1990, p. 22
^ a b Kurakichi 1926, p. 18
^ a b c Pulleyblank 1990, p. 25–26
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 25
^ Kurakichi 1926, p. 17–19
^ Golden 1992, p. 77
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 22,25
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 23
^ Ögel 1993, p. 17–18
^ Ögel 1993, p. 13–20
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 23,25–26
^ Togan 1981, p. 42

Sources

Wei Shu, juan 103

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The 'High Carts': A Turkish-Speaking People Before the Türks (1990)
Shiratori Kurakichi, A Study on the Titles Kaghan and Katun (1926)
Zeki Velidi Togan, Umumi Türk Tarihine Giriş I (1981)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) I (1993)