At the end of 633 the retired Tang emperor Gaozu held a feast in the old Han palace of Weiyang at Chang’an. His son, the emperor Taizong, attended him.[1] Gaozu ordered Ilig Khan to rise and dance.[2] Ilig had ruled the eastern Göktürks until the Tang took him prisoner in 630.[3] Then Gaozu had Feng Zhidai, a chief from the far south, recite a poem.[2] He laughed. Hu and Yue, the north and the south, had become one family, he said, a thing never seen since antiquity.[2] Twenty-five days later Ilig was dead.[1]

The captive khan

In 630 the Tang armies destroyed the eastern part of the Göktürk khaganate. Ilig was taken alive and brought to Chang’an.[3] Taizong spared him.[3] He gave him back his family. He had him lodged and fed at the Court of the Imperial Stud.[3] Ilig grieved. He and his family often sat together, sang sad songs and wept.[3] When the emperor saw him waste away, he made him governor of Guozhou, a land full of deer, so that he could hunt and keep to his nature.[3] Ilig declined.[3] Instead the court made him a great general of the right guard and gave him land and a house.[3] The women of his household received their food from the court by rank.[4] Ilig’s son Dieluozhi received his share with them. His mother came last and was given nothing. He would not touch his meat.[4] Taizong heard of it. He rewarded him and had meat given to his mother.[4]

Seven years before the feast Ilig had stood on the Wei river before Chang’an with more than a hundred thousand horsemen.[3] Taizong had ridden out to speak with him across the water. The two had sworn peace on the bridge over a slaughtered white horse.[3]

The retired emperor was Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang.[5] In 617, when he raised his army against the Sui, he had sent an envoy to the Göktürk Shibi Khan to ask for troops.[5] In 626 he gave up the throne to Taizong and took the title of supreme emperor.[5] When the news came in 630 that Ilig had been taken, Gaozu recalled that the founder of the Han had been trapped at Baideng. He had never been able to take revenge.[6] Now his own son had destroyed the Göktürks.[6] At a feast in the Lingyan pavilion Gaozu played the pipa, a lute. Taizong rose and danced.[6]

The feast

In the twelfth month of 633 Taizong visited the Furong garden and hunted on the Shaoling plain.[1] On the day wuwu he returned to the palace. He attended his father at a wine feast in the old Han palace of Weiyang.[1] The Jiu Tang Shu says that all the officials of the third rank and above were present.[5]

Gaozu ordered Ilig to rise and dance.[2] He also ordered Feng Zhidai to recite a poem.[2] The Jiu Tang Shu calls Feng Zhidai a chief of the Southern Yue, the Zizhi tongjian a chief of the southern barbarians.[7] He was a son of Feng Ang, a chief of the south who had brought the people of the Southern Yue over to the Tang. He had himself been made prefect of Chunzhou.[8] The poem he recited is not recorded.[2]

Then Gaozu laughed: “Hu and Yue as one family, that has never been since antiquity.”[2] Hu was a Chinese name for the peoples of the north. Yue was the name for those of the south.[7] The two words stood together for peoples far apart. Taizong himself said in 636 that the First Emperor of Qin had made Hu and Yue tremble. The minister Wei Zheng wrote in 637 that a ruler who served his people fully could make Hu and Yue of one heart.[1]

Taizong raised his cup to wish his father long life.[1] That the peoples of the four quarters now came in as subjects, he said, was all his father’s teaching and beyond his own wisdom and strength.[1] The founder of the Han had once held a feast with his father in this same palace and boasted of himself. That example he would not follow.[1] In the Jiu Tang Shu the speech is longer.[5] There Taizong names the four rivals the Tang had overcome by his father’s plans. He says that the people who wore their hair loose and fastened their robes on the left had all become servants and handmaids.[5] The retired emperor was delighted. All in the hall cried “ten thousand years”.[2] The feast lasted until deep in the night.[5]

Ilig’s death

Ilig died on the day guiwei of the first month of 634.[1] By the day signs this was twenty-five days after the feast.[1] The emperor ordered his people to bury him by their own custom. They burned the body east of the Ba river.[9] He was given the title of prince who returned to righteousness.[3] His old retainer Tuyuhun Hunye cut his own throat to follow him.[3]

The witnesses

The Zizhi tongjian dates the feast to the day wuwu of the twelfth month of the seventh Zhenguan year, on the return from the hunt.[1] By the day sign this was 19 January 634 of the Julian calendar.[1] The annals of Taizong in the Jiu Tang Shu record the hunt on the Shaoling plain in the same month, but not the feast.[10]

The annals of Gaozu in the Jiu Tang Shu tell the feast under the eighth year, after a review of troops west of the city that Gaozu attended.[5] The annals of Taizong date that review to the twelfth month of the eighth year.[10] Ilig had died in the first month of the same year.[9] The annals of Taizong record that death too, of the great general of the right guard Ashina Tubi. The office is Ilig’s, and Tubi is a second spelling of his personal name Duobi.[11][12] The annals of Gaozu have therefore joined the feast to the wrong occasion. The date of the Zizhi tongjian is the one that fits.[7][13] Sima Guang, the compiler of the Zizhi tongjian, noted that the veritable records of Gaozu gave the review and the feast no date. The story of the dance, he noted, came from the Tang li, a chronicle of the dynasty.[14]

The chapters on the Göktürks in the Jiu Tang Shu and the Xin Tang Shu tell of Ilig’s captivity and his death. They do not mention the dance.[15] The feast is the last event of Ilig’s life that the sources record.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 194
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 194; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 1
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  4. ^ a b c Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 1
  6. ^ a b c Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 193
  7. ^ a b c Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 1; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 194
  8. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 109
  9. ^ a b Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 194; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  10. ^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3
  11. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  12. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 331
  13. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 332–333
  14. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 333
  15. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215

Sources

Literature

  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)

Related

What links here1

Customs & Pastimes
Seating at the Feast

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Ilig Khan's Dance at the Weiyang Palace (633).” Turkic Atlas, revised 28 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/ilig-khans-dance-633/

Last revised: 28 October 2026