The campaign was the Göktürks’ first war inside China, and it was fought under a contract. Emperor Wu had offered Mukan everything his men could carry out of Qi territory, and a marriage as well. Mukan had agreed and had asked for the campaign himself.[1]

The march

In the third year of Baoding, 563, an edict sent Yang Zhong, duke of Sui, east with ten thousand men to attack the Qi together with the Göktürks.[2] Yang Zhong’s army crossed the Xing ridge. There Mukan met him with a hundred thousand horse.[2] The joined force entered Qi territory by Guang’an and marched on Jinyang.[1]

The allies chose the target deliberately. Jinyang lay well inside Qi country. The Qi held it as a second capital and as the garrison that faced the steppe.[1] At the same time a second Zhou army under Daxi Wu opened a southern front against Pingyang. Its purpose was to force the Qi to divide.[1]

The city

The Qi divided and held. Wucheng sent Hulü Guang south against Daxi Wu and rode north to Jinyang himself.[1] What he saw from the walls nearly ended the defence before it began. The strength of the army outside so impressed him that he meant to leave. He stayed only because the princes of his house pressed him to.[1]

The allies could not be driven off, and the city could not be taken. They lay before it through the winter of 563 and 564.[1] In the first month of 564 they attacked the Qi ruler at Jinyang and failed. The Zhou Shu, the history of the dynasty that took part in the attack, says so without softening it: 不尅, it did not succeed.[2]

Plunder and withdrawal

Mukan then let his troops plunder at large and went home.[2] That is the whole of the text’s account of what the Göktürks got out of the campaign. By the terms of the bargain, it was what they had come for. In the spring Wucheng forced the allied army back. In the south Hulü Guang beat Daxi Wu.[1]

Yang Zhong’s report to the emperor on his allies is the one piece of sustained Chinese opinion about Göktürk armies from the century. He wrote that they had bad armour, light rewards, many chiefs and no laws, and were not hard to handle. The trouble, he said, was that the envoys talked up their strength so that the court would treat those envoys well. The court believed them, and the officers went pale at the rumour.[2] He asked for the envoys to be beheaded. The emperor did not listen.[2]

Consequences

Later in the same year Mukan sent tribute and asked for a second campaign to the east. Yang Zhong went out by Woye and Yuwen Hu towards Luoyang. Yuwen Hu’s fighting went badly, and Mukan drew back.[2] When the Zhou opened a third offensive the following year, the Göktürks stayed away, and the Qi beat it.[1]

The failure changed the marriage rather than the war. The delegation of a hundred and twenty that came for Mukan’s daughter in the spring of 565 was refused and held for three years.[1] The war itself ran another thirteen years and was decided without the steppe.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Yavuz 2025
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)

Related

What links here11

Persons
Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou
States
Northern Qi · Northern Zhou
Conflicts
The Zhou–Qi war, 557–577
Battles & Events
The Bargain with Mukan (562–563) · The Göktürk–Zhou alliance · The Woye and Luoyang Campaign (564)
Places
Jinyang · Xing Ridge
Institutions and Titles
Göktürk Weapons · Warfare of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Jinyang campaign, 563–564.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/jinyang-campaign-563/

Last revised: 7 November 2026