Heichezi

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

The Heichezi, the Black Carts, enter the Chinese record in 843 as the people with whom the beaten Uyghur khan Ögä took refuge.^[1] They sheltered the rest of his following. According to the Xin Tangshu, they then killed him for a Tang reward.^[1] The passages of the Xin Tangshu read here say nothing of their land, their way of life or their language.^[1]

The refuge, 843

The Tang general Shi Xiong overran Ögä’s camp, found the princess Taihe and brought her home. Ögä was wounded and fled. The Xin Tangshu says that the khan gathered what was left and went to depend on the Black Carts. The Tang court ordered two men to pursue him without letting go: Hongshun, the Uyghur Aiyewu who had gone over to the Tang, and the prefect of Yinzhou, He Qingchao.^[1] The Jiu Tangshu tells the flight with another name. Ögä ran north-east about 400 li and camped by the Hejie Shiwei.^[2] Later he gave his sister in marriage to the Shiwei and put himself in their care.^[2]

The two Tang histories therefore name the refuge differently. The Xin Tangshu calls it the Black Carts, the Jiu Tangshu the Shiwei.^[3] The reference literature retells a Tang letter of 845. The letter speaks of the Black Carts of the Shiwei people.^[4] The seven Shiwei tribes among whom the Uyghurs were divided in 847 or 848 do not include the Black Carts. The sources do not make clear whether the Shiwei of that year were the Black Carts or another group.^[5] See Shiwei for the Chinese accounts of the Shiwei.

The Kirghiz and the Black Carts

Are, the Kirghiz khan, heard that the remnant of the Uyghurs had gone to the Black Carts. He wished to attack them in the autumn, when the horses were fat. He asked the Tang emperor for troops.^[1] In the spring of 845 the Kirghiz envoy said that his lord meant to go to the Black Carts that winter and gather the remnants of the Uyghur khan’s following.^[4] Li Deyu, the Tang chief minister, told the Kirghiz khan that the Black Carts were not a strong tribe. They had foolishly protected the Uyghurs and so insulted him, he said. The task would be as simple as picking up something one has dropped.^[4] Li Deyu refused the request for Tang cavalry. The Black Carts lived too far from the Tang frontier for the Tang to help. The Tang offered instead to post troops on the main roads toward Anxi.^[4]

The death of Ögä

The Xin Tangshu says that Hongshun offered the Black Carts rich rewards and invited them to kill Ögä. The followers who had fled with the khan could no longer fight. Many went over to Youzhou. Those who stayed were cold and hungry and numbered only a few thousand. The Black Carts took advantage of their ruin and killed Ögä. His men then raised his younger brother E-nie, a tegin, as khan.^[1] The Jiu Tangshu gives a different account. An Uyghur minister, it says, forced the Uyghurs to kill Ögä at the Altai and put his younger brother on the throne.^[2]

The two accounts name different killers and different places. The reference literature holds the Altai to be too far west to be plausible. It places the murder much farther east, where the Black Carts would be expected.^[6] It points out that the Uyghurs afterward shifted their dependence from the Black Carts to the Xi ruler Shishelang. This suggests that the Black Carts had turned against them, whether or not they took part in the murder.^[6] Which of the two accounts is right is not settled.^[3]