Tulan Khan killed his wife, Princess Dayi, in his tent.[1] She had come to the steppe as Qianjin, a princess of the Northern Zhou, in the marriage with Taspar Khan. She had then been the wife of Ishbara.[2] The Sui court wanted her dead.[1] It made her death the price of a Chinese bride for Yami, who then held the north as Tuli Khan. Yami slandered her to the khan.[1] The Zizhi tongjian enters the killing under 593.[3]

A Zhou princess at the Göktürk court

Ishbara’s wife was a daughter of the Yuwen house, the Princess Qianjin.[1] She grieved that the ancestral sacrifices of her house had been cut off. She urged the khan day and night to take revenge on the Sui.[1] When Ishbara submitted to the Sui, the emperor gave her the imperial surname Yang, entered her in the clan register and renamed her Princess Dayi.[1] After Ishbara’s death she was the wife of Tulan.[4]

After the Sui had destroyed the Chen, the emperor sent her a screen that had belonged to Chen Shubao, the Chen emperor Houzhu.[1][5] She had never made her peace with the Sui. She wrote a poem on the screen about the fall of the Chen and about herself.[1] The Zizhi tongjian says that she grieved for the overthrow of her own house.[3] The poem survives in the Sui Shu.[1]

Rise and fall are like morning and evening, the ways of the world like floating duckweed. … I was a daughter of an imperial house, adrift into the court of the barbarians.[1]

Sui Shu (Book of Sui)

It ends with the song of Mingjun, which alone grieves for a bride married far away.[1] Mingjun is Wang Zhaojun.[6] The Han Shu records that the Han emperor Yuan gave Wang Zhaojun, a woman of the inner palace, to the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye.[7] The emperor heard of the poem and disliked it. His gifts to the princess grew fewer.[1]

The charges against her

A refugee named Yang Qin fled to the Göktürks. He claimed that Liu Chang, the duke of Peng, was plotting a rising with the Yuwen house and wanted the princess to raise troops against the frontier.[8] The two histories tell what followed in two ways. In the Sui Shu, Tulan seized Yang Qin and reported him to the Sui.[1] In the Zizhi tongjian, Tulan believed him and stopped his tribute, and the Sui envoy Zhangsun Sheng came for Yang Qin.[3] Tulan answered that there was no such man among his guests. Zhangsun Sheng bribed his officials, seized Yang Qin by night and showed him to the khan.[3]

The princess had also allied herself with Niri, the western khan, and the emperor feared that she would turn against him.[1] Then her affair with a hu of her following came out, and an edict deposed her.[1] The Zizhi tongjian names the man An Suijia.[3] In its account Zhangsun Sheng exposed the affair. The people of the realm were greatly ashamed, and Tulan handed An Suijia and the others to the envoy.[3] The Sui feared that Tulan would not obey the edict, so they sent Niu Hong, the duke of Qizhang, with four beautiful singing girls to win him over.[1]

The price of a bride

Yami, then Tuli Khan, held the north under Tulan.[1] The Sui Shu calls him Ishbara’s son. The Zizhi tongjian and the Tongdian make him the son of Ishbara’s brother Bagha.[9] He sent envoys to the Sui to ask for a marriage.[1] The emperor had the official Pei Ju tell them: “Kill Princess Dayi, and then the marriage will be granted.”[1] In the Zizhi tongjian the proposal to have Tulan kill her is Pei Ju’s own.[3]

Yami agreed. He slandered the princess to Tulan again, and Tulan in his anger killed her in his tent.[1] One account has Yami send a secret embassy for a princess in 597.[10] In this account Pei Ju offered him the princess Anyi in return for the removal of Qianjin, and Yami had her murdered.[10]

Dating

Two dates have been proposed. The first puts the killing in 593. The Zizhi tongjian enters it under that year without a month, and one translation of the Sui Shu follows it.[3][11] The second ties it to Yami’s embassy of 597.[10] The Sui Shu itself gives no year.[1] It tells the killing after the conquest of the Chen and before the seventeenth year of Kaihuang, 597, when Yami’s envoys came to fetch his bride.[1]

Aftermath

In the Zizhi tongjian, Tulan himself asked for a Sui bride after the killing, and the court was inclined to agree.[3] Zhangsun Sheng argued against it.[3] Tulan, whom he called Yongyulü, was faithless and sought the Sui only because of his quarrel with Dianjue, that is Tardush.[3] Yami, he said, had been loyal for two generations, and his forces were small and easy to control.[3] Married to a princess and moved south, he would serve as a shield on the frontier against Tulan.[3] The emperor agreed.[3]

In 597 Yami’s envoys came to fetch the bride, and he married the princess Anyi.[1] He moved south to the old garrison of Dujin. Tulan, the great khan, broke with the Sui.[1] The quarrel led to the attack on Yami in 599, part of the last phase of the civil war.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  2. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 178
  4. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 67
  5. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 82
  6. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 83
  7. ^ Han Shu, juan 94
  8. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 178
  9. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 178; Tongdian, juan 197
  10. ^ a b c Yavuz 2025, p. 333
  11. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 83,84

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)

Related

What links here9

Persons
Niri Khan · Pei Ju · Princess Anyi · Princess Qianjin · Wang Zhaojun · Yami Khan
States
Northern Zhou · Sui
Conflicts
Hegemony Wars in Northern China

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Death of Princess Dayi.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/death-of-princess-dayi/

Last revised: 8 November 2026