In the Xiantong period of the emperor Yizong the Kirghiz came to the Tang court three times.[1] In 867 the court invested a Kirghiz ruler.[2] The Xin Tang Shu ends its account of the Kirghiz at this point. It remarks that the court historians lost the record of the later embassies and investitures.[1]

The three embassies

The Xin Tang Shu counts the visits and gives no year for any of them. In the Xiantong period, it says, they came three times to court.[1] The text adds that in the end the Kirghiz could not take the Uyghurs. That is the last of its news.[1] The period lies within the reign of Yizong, who ruled from 859 to 873. One modern estimate dates the three embassies to 860 to 873.[3]

One envoy is named. In 866 a Kirghiz envoy came to the court, a general as the Tang huiyao names him. The Chinese write his name Yizhi-lianji (乙支連幾).[4] The Chinese form of his name has been taken as a distortion of the Turkic rank ičräki. This is also the rank of the man of the Begre stele in Tuva, and the proposal sets the two men side by side.[5] The Chinese sounds cause some difficulty here.[4] The Zizhi tongjian is reported to name a Kirghiz general with the same characters among the envoys of 867. His visit therefore stands in 866 in one account and in 867 in the other.[6] A different explanation takes the sounds as the Turkic ičreki, “belonging to the court”, perhaps a court chamberlain. The final -n of the third syllable is a difficulty here too.[7]

The envoys of 856, 863 and 867

One count finds three Kirghiz envoys known to have come between 847 and 874. No single source names all three.[7] The Zizhi tongjian names two: Alp Inanch (合伊難支), who came in 863, and the general Yizhi-lianji, Ičreki in Turkic form, in 867.[7] The third is named only in an edict of the emperor Xuanzong of the spring of 856. The edict mentions “the Kirghiz Li Jian” (李蒹) as a man who came to the Tang court with some Uyghurs.[8] The first of the three lies before the Xiantong years, which begin in December 860. It therefore does not fit the count of the Xin Tang Shu.[6]

The envoys seem to have wished for trade with China, a yearly exchange of envoys and an alliance.[8] Alp Inanch once more proposed to take Anxi and other lands from the Uyghurs. The Tang refused.[8] The edict of 856 calls the former Uyghur land empty, with its walls and towns still standing, and says that many Uyghur groups wished to take it back. It does not speak of a Kirghiz occupation.[8]

The investiture of 867

The Zizhi tongjian reports that in 867, under Yizong, a Kirghiz ruler received an imperial appointment from the Tang court.[2] It is a further investiture besides that of 847.[9] The report that reaches us names neither the ruler nor the title.[2] The Xin Tang Shu speaks of later investitures in the plural and gives none of them.[1]

The end of the record

The records of later Kirghiz envoys to the Tang court, and of Tang envoys to the Kirghiz, were lost.[1] The distance between the two countries and the growing troubles inside the weakening Tang state can account for the loss of interest in the Kirghiz.[2] Even before the loss the contacts had been irregular. They seem to have consisted mainly of Kirghiz envoys coming to Chang’an from time to time.[10] The Kirghiz of later times are known from other sources, among them the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, which names a khāqān of the Kirghiz.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  2. ^ a b c d Drompp 2005, p. 155
  3. ^ Barthold 1927, p. 17; 155; Drompp 2005, p. 17; 155
  4. ^ a b Tishin 2019, p. 201
  5. ^ Tishin 2019, p. 201–202
  6. ^ a b Drompp 1999, p. 395–396
  7. ^ a b c Drompp 1999, p. 395
  8. ^ a b c d Drompp 1999, p. 396
  9. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 154–155
  10. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 154
  11. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam

Sources

Literature

  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)
  • Michael R. Drompp, Breaking the Orkhon Tradition: Kirghiz Adherence to the Yenisei Region after A.D. 840 (1999)
  • V. V. Tishin, K datirovke enisejskoj runičeskoj nadpisi Begre (E 11) [К датировке енисейской рунической надписи Бегре (Е 11)] (2019)
  • V. V. Barthold, Kirgizy: istoričeskij očerk [Киргизы: исторический очерк] (1927)

Related

What links here3

Persons
Alp Inanch · Li Jian
Institutions and Titles
Envoys and Embassies

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Kirghiz embassies of the Xiantong era (860–873).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/kirghiz-embassies-of-the-xiantong-era/

Last revised: 8 November 2026