Battle of Dzungaria, 552

In January 552 a Rouran force met the Göktürks in Dzungaria and was beaten without much trouble.^[1] The Chinese histories do not record this engagement. The Zhou Shu knows only the battle north of Huaihuang, in the first month of the Chinese year.^[2] That year began on 11 February. January 552 therefore still belonged to the last month of the year before.

The blow came from the west. The Rouran force was presumably sent to stop Bumin before he could reach the heartland. In the same country, Bumin had once stopped the Tiele. Dzungaria had been Tiele country throughout, and the Göktürks fought there among their own subjects. The Rouran move was most likely Anagui’s attempt to take the war to the Altai rather than wait for it. By now the Göktürk army included the Tiele federation, allegedly forty tribes of it. It also included other Turkic groups Bumin had gathered in the six years since the break.

After the victory the Göktürks regrouped. In March they turned east, toward the Rouran capital at Mumocheng.^[1] A second Rouran army met them north of Huaihuang and was destroyed.^[2] The two battles, fought within a single season, were the whole of the war’s fighting as far as the sources record it.