Battle of Mount Mulai (553)

At Mount Mulai, north of the frontier garrison of Woye, Issik Khan broke the Rouran once more.^[1] His enemy was Dengshuzi. The survivors of the Rouran defeat of 552 had raised Dengshuzi as their ruler.^[1] The battle did not end the remnant. Issik died soon after. His brother Mukan destroyed the remnant.^[1]

Background

In the first month of 552, Bumin destroyed the Rouran army north of Huaihuang. Anagui, the Rouran khan, killed himself.^[1] Anagui’s son Anluochen fled to the Northern Qi.^[1] The rest of the Rouran set up Anagui’s uncle Dengshuzi as their ruler.^[1] Bumin took the title Illig Khan.^[1] When he died, his son Keluo succeeded him and took the title Issik Khan.^[1]

The battle

The Zhou Shu gives the battle one sentence. It says that Issik “once more broke Dengshuzi north of Woye at Mount Mulai”.^[1] The words “once more” tie the battle to Bumin’s victory north of Huaihuang. The sentence names no numbers, no losses and no season.^[1] The Bei Shi repeats the sentence and writes the mountain’s name as Mount Lai.^[2]

Neither history gives a year. The Zhou Shu tells the battle after Issik’s accession and before his embassy of the third month of 553.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian enters it under 553.^[3] Some scholars treat the fighting of 553 as a mopping-up of the Rouran rather than a new war.^[4]

Dengzhu and Dengshuzi

The Zizhi tongjian sets a second Rouran ruler beside Dengshuzi in the same entry. In 553 the Qi sent Dengzhu back to his country. Dengzhu was the father of the Rouran khan Tiefa. The Qi also sent Tiefa’s elder brother Kuti.^[3] The Khitan soon killed Tiefa, and the people raised Dengzhu.^[3] Dengzhu in turn was killed by his chief Afuti, and the people raised Kuti.^[3] The entry then says that “a separate branch of the Rouran” raised Anagui’s uncle Deng Shuzi as khan. It says that Issik broke him at Mount Mulai.^[3] The chronicle therefore treats Dengzhu and Dengshuzi as two men at the head of two groups. Whether they were in fact one man, written twice, is not settled.

Aftermath

In the third month of the second year of the Wei emperor Fei, 553, Issik sent envoys who presented fifty thousand horses.^[1] The Zhou Shu dates the gift by the reign of the Western Wei. The Zizhi tongjian names the Wei as the court that received it.^[5]

Issik died soon afterwards. Before his death he passed over his own son, the later Ishbara Khan. He made his younger brother Sijin his successor, and Sijin reigned as Mukan Khan.^[2] Mukan led an army against Dengshuzi and destroyed him.^[1] Dengshuzi fled with the remnant of his people to the Western Wei.^[1] In 555 the Western Wei handed him over to Mukan’s envoys. He was killed with some three thousand of his people outside the Qingmen gate.^[6]

The Rouran remnant survived Issik’s victory at Mount Mulai. His brother ended it, first in the steppe and then outside the gate of a Chinese capital.