The Göktürk Campaign of 622

In 622 Ilig Khan fought the Tang twice.^[1] In the spring his horsemen and the rebel Liu Heita surrounded the Tang commander Li Da’en at Xincheng. They killed him with several thousand of his men.^[1] In the summer and autumn Ilig led a great army south and besieged Bingzhou. His riders entered Fenzhou and Luzhou and carried off more than five thousand men and women.^[1] He withdrew when the Tang armies came up.^[1] The campaign belongs to the wars of the Tang founding. In those wars the Göktürks raided the new dynasty almost every year.

Spring at Yanmen

In the third month the two courts released each other’s envoys. This followed the raid on Yanmen of the year before.^[2] In the same entry the Zizhi tongjian says that Ilig joined the rebels Gao Kaidao and Yuan Junzhang against Liu Shirang, the Tang commander at Yanmen.^[2] They besieged him for more than a month and then withdrew.^[2]

Xincheng

Earlier in the spring Li Da’en, the prince of Dingxiang, had reported that the Göktürks were starving and that Mayi could be taken.^[3] An edict sent him against Yuan Junzhang, who held Mayi, together with Dugu Sheng, a deputy director of the palace. The two were to meet there in the second month.^[1] Dugu Sheng missed the day.^[1] Li Da’en could not advance alone, so he halted at Xincheng to wait for him.^[1] Some scholars, following the commentary on the Zizhi tongjian, place Xincheng in Shuozhou, south of Mayi.^[4]

The Jiu Tang Shu says that Ilig sent several tens of thousands of horse. The Xin Tang Shu says that he led them himself.^[5] The horse joined Liu Heita and surrounded Li Da’en.^[1] According to the Jiu Tang Shu, the Tang army was beaten and Li Da’en fell in the fighting, with several thousand dead.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian tells it differently and dates the death to the day renshen of the fourth month.^[2] The emperor had sent Li Gaoqian to relieve him. Before Li Gaoqian arrived, Li Da’en’s grain ran out.^[2] Li Da’en slipped away by night. The Göktürks intercepted him, his army broke and he died.^[2] Dugu Sheng was spared the death penalty and banished to the frontier.^[2]

The Göktürks went on into Xinzhou, where Li Gaoqian beat them.^[6] In the sixth month Liu Heita brought more than ten thousand Göktürk horse to raid Hebei.^[1] Later in the same month, according to the Zizhi tongjian, he led the Göktürks against Dingzhou.^[2] A modern account describes the year as a second invasion, this time of the province of Mayi. The Göktürks again withdrew after a diplomatic offer from the Tang.^[7]

The great raid

On the day yimao of the eighth month Ilig raided the frontier. The next day his horse entered Yanmen.^[2] The Jiu Tang Shu gives him fifty thousand horse and has him march south as far as Fenzhou.^[1] The Xin Tang Shu and the Zizhi tongjian give him a hundred and fifty thousand.^[6] He besieged Bingzhou and sent several thousand horse west into Lingzhou and Yuanzhou.^[1]

The Tang sent the crown prince, Li Jiancheng, out by the Binzhou road. Li Shimin, the prince of Qin, went by the Puzhou road.^[5] Li Zihe was to make for Yunzhong and fall on the khan’s rear. Duan Decao was to march from Xiazhou and cut off his return.^[6] The Zizhi tongjian records the debate at court that followed.^[2] Gaozu asked whether peace or war was better.^[2] Zheng Yuanshu answered that war would deepen the enmity and that peace was therefore better.^[2] Feng Deyi answered that a peace made without fighting would show weakness and bring the Göktürks back the next year. In his view the Tang should strike first and make peace afterwards.^[2] The emperor followed Feng Deyi.^[2]

The Göktürk riders entered Fenzhou and Luzhou and carried off more than five thousand men and women.^[1] Li Shenfu, the prince of Xiangyi, beat them east of the Fen river.^[6] The Xin Tang Shu gives him five hundred heads and two thousand horses.^[8] Xiao Yi, the governor of Fenzhou, beat them too. The Zizhi tongjian gives him more than five thousand heads, while the Xin Tang Shu gives five thousand prisoners.^[9] The Göktürks took the Dazhen pass and plundered Hongzhou. The Tang commanders Yuwen Xin and Yang Shidao took several thousand of their horses and camels.^[8]

The withdrawal

The histories give two reasons for the end of the raid.^[10] The first is military. The Jiu Tang Shu and the Xin Tang Shu say that Ilig withdrew beyond the frontier when he heard that Li Shimin’s army had reached Puzhou.^[5]

The second is the embassy of Zheng Yuanshu, which the Zizhi tongjian sets in the eighth month, after the fall of the Dazhen pass.^[2] In its account the Göktürk horse, several hundred thousand of them, filled the valleys for several hundred li from Jiexiu to Jinzhou.^[2] Zheng Yuanshu reproached Ilig for breaking the agreement, and the khan was somewhat ashamed.^[2] Zheng then argued that the Göktürks could not live on Tang land even if they took it.^[2] The plunder, he said, went to the khan’s people and not to the khan. Peace, by contrast, would bring gold and coin into the khan’s own treasury.^[2] Ilig was pleased and led his army back.^[2] The chronicle adds that Zheng Yuanshu had gone to the Göktürks five times and had several times come close to death.^[2]

In the ninth month Tang commanders beat Göktürk bands at Sanguan mountain, at the Chonggang garrison, south of Mount Heng and at Ganzhou.^[2] Ilig himself came back in 624 with his nephew Töles and the whole strength of the state. The Tang met him at Binzhou.^[1]