Battle of Jingyang (626)

In the eighth month of 626 the Tang general Yuchi Jingde met the army of Ilig Khan at Jingyang, in the capital district of the Tang, and broke it.^[1] He cut off more than a thousand heads and took prisoner Wumo Chur, an irkin of the Ashide.^[2] The victory did not stop Ilig. Two days later he stood on the north bank of the Wei by the Bian bridge, within reach of Chang’an. The meeting at the Wei bridge followed.^[3] The battle belongs to the war that ended the eastern khaganate.

The invasion

In the months before, the Göktürks had raided the Tang frontier again.^[4] They attacked Yuanzhou and Lingzhou and besieged Liangzhou.^[5] The Zizhi tongjian has Li Jing fight Ilig at Xiashi in Lingzhou in the fourth month. The fighting lasted from dawn into the afternoon before the Göktürks drew off.^[3] In the seventh month Chai Shao beat them at Qinzhou and killed a tegin.^[3] On the day bingchen of the eighth month the Göktürks sent envoys to ask for peace.^[3]

In 626 Li Shimin killed his elder and his younger brother at the Xuanwu gate of the palace. Two months later he took the throne as the emperor Taizong.^[6] The Zizhi tongjian dates the accession to the day jiazi of the eighth month.^[3] Ilig read the killings as a sign of weakness. Eighteen days after the accession his army stood before the capital.^[7]

The Zizhi tongjian gives the invasion a counsellor.^[3] Liang Shidu, a Chinese rebel allied with the Göktürks, had lost many of his men to the Tang.^[3] He went to the Göktürk court and urged them to invade.^[3] Ilig and his nephew Töles then raided Jingzhou with more than a hundred thousand horse and advanced to Wugong. The capital was put under alert.^[3] The Jiu Tang Shu has Ilig lead the hundred thousand himself.^[8]

The Jiu Tang Shu, the Tongdian and the Xin Tang Shu put the attack on Wugong in the seventh month.^[9] The Zizhi tongjian puts it in the eighth.^[3] The seventh month may be an error. The annals of the Jiu Tang Shu date the attack on Wugong to the day yihai of the eighth month. The days jimao and guiwei that follow fell in the eighth month of 626 and not in the seventh.^[10]

The battle

On the day jimao the Göktürks advanced against Gaoling.^[1] Yuchi Jingde, a general of the Left Guard and the commander of the Jingzhou road, met them at Jingyang.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian dates the fight to the day xinsi, two days after the advance on Gaoling.^[3] He broke the Göktürk army. He took Ashide Wumo Chur and cut off more than a thousand heads.^[11]

The histories give the fight no more than that sentence.^[12] Yuchi Jingde’s own biography in the Jiu Tang Shu adds a detail and a different year.^[13] It sets the fight under the first year of Zhenguan, 627. It says that when the enemy reached Jingyang he challenged them and killed a famous general, and they were beaten.^[13]

After the battle

Ilig came on regardless.^[3] On the day guiwei he reached the north end of the Bian bridge over the Wei and sent his confidant Zhishi Sili to the court to spy out its strength.^[3] Taizong reproached the envoy for bringing an army into the counties of the capital district. He had him held.^[8] Then the emperor rode out to the river.^[8] Peace was made. On the day yiyou a white horse was killed and the oath sworn on the Bian bridge.^[1]

Jingyang was the one Tang victory in the field during the invasion of the eighth month. It left the road to the capital open. The historians of the Sui Shu remembered the campaign in their closing judgement on the northern peoples.^[14] Before the sovereign’s hidden plans destroyed the Göktürks, they wrote, their horsemen had plundered freely at Jingyang and watered their horses at the bend of the Wei.^[14]