In the first month of 587 Ishbara Khan sent a son to the Sui court with tribute. He asked leave to hunt between Heng and Dai.[1] The emperor agreed and sent wine and food. Ishbara and his people bowed twice to receive them.[1] In one day Ishbara killed eighteen deer with his own hand and presented their tails and tongues.[1] On the way back to the Zihe garrison his royal tent was burned. A little more than a month later he was dead.[1]
The leave to hunt
Ishbara had submitted to the Sui in a letter dated to the year of the dragon, 584.[1] The emperor had allowed him to move his people south of the desert and live on the Baidao plain. After the treaty that made the desert the frontier, he sent tribute year after year.[1] The leave of 587 was one more favour of the same kind. The Sui Shu says the emperor allowed it again.[1]
Years before, when the Zhou princess Qianjin came to his camp, Ishbara had kept the envoy Zhangsun Sheng with him for a whole year. He had often hunted with him and had given him two arrows to shoot down two eagles.[2] The Sui histories tell of Ishbara’s hunting in more than one place.[3] The ground between Heng and Dai lay in the north of Shanxi.[4] Modern accounts note that this part of Shanxi had been horse country since the Qin. It later held the Tang market where the horses of the nomads changed hands for silk.[5]
The eighteen deer
The Sui Shu gives the day’s bag and nothing more: eighteen deer, killed by the khan himself, and their tails and tongues brought up and presented.[1] It does not say how the deer were taken, whether by a ring of beaters or by riders. It does not say who received the offering.[1] The emperor had granted the hunt and sent the wine. The offering was most likely meant for him. Alternatively, some scholars take tails and tongues for a token share of the spoil, given once for the use of the land, in the manner of the Göktürks’ other gifts for leave to graze or settle.[6]
The fire and Ishbara’s death
When Ishbara came back to the Zihe garrison, his royal tent had been burned.[1] He took it ill. A little more than a month later he died.[1] The emperor suspended court for three days and sent the officials of the sacrifices to offer condolence.[1] Ishbara had left the throne by his will to his brother Bagha. The succession followed.[1]
The witnesses
The Sui Shu tells the hunt, the fire and the death in one paragraph.[1] The Bei Shi has the same paragraph with small changes of wording.[7] It draws on the Sui Shu and is not a second witness. The one account is therefore the account of the Sui court, which gave the leave and received the news.
The deer, the tails and the tongues are the last thing the Sui Shu records of Ishbara before the fire.[1] What remains of the hunt is a count: eighteen deer in a day, by a khan who had come south to hunt by leave of his overlord.
References
Sources
- Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 51, 84
- Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99 (after Wei Shu, Zhou Shu and Sui Shu)
Literature
- Ildikó Ecsedy, Trade-and-War Relations between the Turks and China in the Second Half of the Sixth Century (1968)
What links here1
- Customs & Pastimes
- Hunting among the Göktürks
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Ishbara's Hunt (587).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/ishbaras-hunt-587/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
