Battle of Mount Dajin (600)

At Mount Dajin, beyond the northern frontier of the Sui, the general Shi Wansui met Tardush. Tardush had proclaimed himself Bujia Khan after Tulan’s death.^[1] The Göktürks fled without fighting. The pursuit took more than two thousand heads and prisoners.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian tells the battle under 600.^[2] In its account Tardush turned back when he learned who led the Sui army.^[2]

The Göktürk raid of 600

On the day renxu of the fourth month of 600, Tardush raided the frontier.^[2] The emperor sent Guang, the prince of Jin, and Yang Su out by the Lingwu road. He sent Liang, the prince of Han, and Shi Wansui out by the Mayi road.^[2] Zhangsun Sheng commanded the Göktürks who had surrendered to the Sui, under the prince of Jin.^[2] The Göktürks drank from the springs. Zhangsun Sheng had poison put in the water upstream.^[2] Many of their men and animals died.^[2] “Heaven is raining evil water,” they said in terror. “Will it destroy us?”^[2] They fled by night. Zhangsun Sheng took more than a thousand heads in the pursuit.^[2] Some scholars count the march as a disaster for Tardush. Long distances from the west and poisoned water cost him massive losses before he had fought the Sui emperor once.^[3]

The encounter

Shi Wansui, the duke of Taiping, crossed the frontier and met the enemy at Mount Dajin.^[2] His biography in the Sui Shu, in one translation, names Zhang Dinghe, Li Yuewang and Yang Yichen among his officers.^[4] Tardush sent to ask who the Sui general was.^[2] The scouts answered that it was Shi Wansui.^[2] The Göktürks asked: “Is it not the garrison soldier of Dunhuang?” When the scouts said that it was, Tardush took fright and withdrew.^[2]

The question had a history. Shi Wansui had lost his rank under the Northern Zhou and had been sent to Dunhuang as a frontier soldier.^[5] There he raided the Göktürk camps again and again. The northern peoples came to know him well.^[5]

Shi Wansui rode after the khan for more than a hundred li. He fell on Tardush and broke him.^[2] He cut off several thousand heads and followed the fugitives several hundred li into the desert.^[2] The Sui Shu tells it differently. In its account the Göktürks flee without a battle, and the pursuit takes more than two thousand heads and prisoners.^[1] It adds that the prince of Jin marched out by Lingzhou and that Tardush fled before him.^[1] The biography of Pei Ju makes Pei Ju the chief of staff of Shi Wansui’s army. In that account the army went out by the Dingxiang road and broke Tardush beyond the frontier.^[6] The Sui Shu’s chapter on the Göktürks has Shi Wansui go out by Shuozhou.^[1]

Dating

The Zizhi tongjian sets the raid and the battle in 600.^[2] The Sui Shu’s chapter on the Göktürks tells the battle after Tulan’s death. The Zizhi tongjian puts that death in the twelfth month of 599.^[7] The annals of the Sui Shu, in one translation, enter Shi Wansui’s victory over Tardush under 599, before Tulan’s death.^[8]

Aftermath

Tardush sent his nephew Silifa against Yami Khan from east of the desert.^[1] The emperor sent troops to help Yami hold the passes. Silifa withdrew into the desert.^[1] Yami thanked the emperor in a memorial. He wrote that the tribes were coming in to the sage khan, as he called the emperor. Some came south within the Long Wall and some to Baidao, and their people, sheep and horses filled the valleys.^[1] “Rangan is like a withered tree that puts out branches again, like dry bones that grow flesh again.”^[1] The emperor had Zhao Zhongqing build two towns for Yami, Jinhe and Dingxiang.^[2]

The victory brought Shi Wansui nothing.^[2] Yang Su was jealous of it. He told the emperor that the Göktürks had submitted long before and had come to the frontier only to graze their herds.^[2] The merit was set aside.^[2] In the tenth month of 600, the emperor was purging the following of the deposed crown prince. Yang Su told him that Shi Wansui had gone to visit the crown prince.^[2] The emperor had Shi Wansui killed.^[2] The biography of Pei Ju says that Shi Wansui was executed and his merit never recorded.^[6]

Tardush held on as Bujia Khan for three more years. A rising of the tribes then ended his rule in the fall of 603.^[2]