Heshana was the khan of the western Göktürks. He bore the title Chuluo Khan until the Sui gave him the name by which he is known. He lost his realm to Shegui, a prince of his own house whom the Sui set up against him.[1] The emperor Yangdi sent Shegui a white-feathered arrow and told him to act “swift as an arrow”.[1] Shegui fell on Heshana. Heshana fled east with a few thousand riders.[1] In the winter of 611 he bowed to the emperor at the Linshuo palace. He never ruled again.[1] He is the Heshana Khan of the later histories.[1]

The refused summons

In 608 Heshana had knelt to the emperor’s letter in the embassy of Cui Junsu.[2] He did not come to court. When the emperor was about to travel west, he sent the censor Wei Jie to summon Heshana to meet him at the Dadouba valley.[1] Heshana’s people would not let him go. He excused himself to the envoy.[1] The emperor was furious and could do nothing.[1] The Sui Shu dates the summons to the sixth year of Daye, 610. The Zizhi tongjian places it during the emperor’s western journey of 609.[3] The Sui Shu’s chapter on the Western Regions names a censor Wei Jie among the envoys whom the emperor sent to the lands of the western barbarians.[4] He may be the same man as the envoy of the summons.[5]

The arrow

At this point Shegui’s envoy came to ask for a marriage.[1] The official Pei Ju saw the opening.[1] Heshana stayed away, he said, because he trusted in his strength. The way to weaken him was to split his state.[1] Shegui was the son of Duliu and the grandson of Tardush, of a line that had ruled the west as khans for generations.[1] He had lost his position and was subject to Heshana. He was seeking support.[1] If the emperor received the envoy richly and made Shegui great khan, the Göktürks would be divided. Both halves would follow the Sui.[1]

The emperor agreed. In the Renfeng hall he told the envoy that Heshana had been disobedient and Shegui loyal, and that he would make Shegui great khan. Shegui was to raise troops and destroy Heshana. Then the marriage would follow.[1] He took a peach-bamboo arrow with white feathers and gave it for Shegui: “This matter must be done quickly, swift as an arrow.”[1] The envoy’s road home ran through Heshana’s land. Heshana admired the arrow and wanted to keep it. The envoy got away only by a trick.[1]

Shegui’s attack

Shegui heard the news with joy. He raised his army and fell on Heshana.[1] Heshana was badly beaten. He left his wife and children behind and fled east with a few thousand riders of his following.[1] On the road he was robbed again. He took refuge east of Gaochang on the Shiluoman mountain.[1] Qu Boya, the king of Gaochang, reported him to the court.[1]

The emperor sent Pei Ju with the trusted attendants of the Lady Xiang, Heshana’s Chinese mother, to the town of Jinchang at the Jade Gate.[1] Her messengers went to Heshana. They set out the court’s goodwill and persuaded him to come.[1] He came, but he always looked discontented.[1] The biography of Pei Ju says that the emperor rewarded Pei Ju with a sable coat and treasures of the west.[6] According to one account, Heshana refused allegiance at first and gave way only when he was told that his mother in China would be killed.[7]

In the west Heshana’s people set up Shegui as khan.[8] The Xin Tang Shu says that they had been against Heshana’s journey to the Sui. When he was kept there, they made Shegui khan, with his court at the Sanmi mountain north of Kucha.[8]

At the Linshuo palace

In the winter of 611 Heshana came to the emperor at the Linshuo palace. The emperor feasted him.[1] The Zizhi tongjian gives the day jiwei of the twelfth month.[2] Heshana bowed his head to the ground. “I govern all the peoples of the west and could not come early to pay homage,” he said. “I come late, and my guilt is very deep.”[1]

The emperor answered that the Göktürks and China had harassed each other in the past. Now the four seas were at peace, like one family.[1] “In the sky there is only one sun, and all things under it are at rest. If there were two or three suns, how could the ten thousand things be at peace?”[1] At the audience of the new year Heshana offered the emperor a toast.[1] “From heaven downward and from earth upward, wherever sun and moon shine, there is only the sage khan,” he said. “Today is a great day. May the sage khan live a thousand, ten thousand years, always as today.”[1]

A khan at the Sui court

The emperor kept Heshana’s people apart.[1] More than ten thousand of the weaker ones were settled under his brother Dadu Que to graze their herds in the commandery of Huining.[1] The Zizhi tongjian divides them into three in the first month of 612.[2] The brother took the weak to Huining, and the tegin Danai took the rest to Loufan. Heshana himself was to follow the emperor’s journeys with five hundred horsemen.[2]

He went with the emperor to war against Goguryeo. He received the title Heshana Khan, with rich gifts.[1] In the first month of the tenth year of Daye, 614, he was married to the princess Xinyi, with a thousand brocade robes and ten thousand pieces of coloured silk.[1] The Zizhi tongjian gives the title in the first month of 612.[2] Title and princess may both belong to 611.[7] The emperor meant to send him back to his old lands, the Sui Shu says. The war in Liaodong left no time for it.[1]

Heshana stayed at the court and followed the emperor everywhere.[1] After the fall of the Sui he went to the Tang. In 619 Göktürk envoys killed him at Chang’an.[9]

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 y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  2. ^ a b c d e Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181
  3. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181
  4. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83
  5. ^ Herrmann 1925, p. 579
  6. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 67
  7. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 342
  8. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  9. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Albert Herrmann, Die Hephthaliten und ihre Beziehungen zu China (1925)

Related

What links here13

Persons
Duliu · Heshana Khan · Lady Xiang · Pei Ju · Princess Xinyi · Que Dadu Shad · Shegui Khan · Wei Jie
States
Sui
Battles & Events
Assembly at Mount Yanzhi (609) · Embassy of Cui Junsu (608) · Killing of Heshana Khan (619)
Places
Jade Gate

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Fall of Heshana Khan (611).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/fall-of-heshana-khan-611/

Last revised: 8 November 2026