In 648 the chief of the Kirghiz, Shiboqu Azhan, came in person to the court of the Tang emperor Taizong.[1] He was the first Kirghiz ruler to do so. The Chinese histories say that the Kirghiz had never been in touch with China before.[1] Taizong feasted him. He made his country the Jiankun command, with the chief as its governor and the Yanran protectorate above him.[1]

Before the embassy

The Xin Tang Shu says that the Kirghiz had been a strong people, with a land as large as that of the Göktürks. The Göktürks gave their chiefs daughters in marriage.[2] The Kirghiz first lay under the Xueyantuo. The Xueyantuo set one xielifa over them to oversee the country.[2] The Chinese word is the form of the title understood to be ilteber.[3] Three chiefs ruled the Kirghiz together: Qixibei, Jushabobei and Amibei.[2] The Jiu Tang Shu names the Jiegu, as it writes the Kirghiz, among the peoples that Chebi Khan held in subjection in the north. It also names them among the subject peoples of Yibi Duolu Khan of the west.[4]

In 646, after the Xueyantuo had been destroyed, the Uyghur chiefs and the other Tiele tribes came to Taizong at Lingwu and submitted.[5] The Kirghiz heard that the Tiele and the others had come in, and they sent gifts.[2] The Zizhi tongjian says that the Jiegu had never been in touch with China since antiquity. When they heard that the Tiele tribes had all submitted, their chief came to court.[6]

The audience

The chief bore the title 俟利發 and the name Shiboqu Azhan, which the Chinese write 失缽屈阿棧.[2] The title is understood as the Turkic ilteber.[3][7] Taizong feasted him in the Tiancheng Hall. He said to his attendants that he had once thought it a great merit to have cut down three Göktürks at the Wei bridge. The sight of the chief at his table, he said, was a greater wonder.[8] The Kirghiz were tall, with red hair and green eyes, and held black hair to be unlucky.[6]

In the Xin Tang Shu the chief, flushed with wine, asked to hold a tablet.[2] In the Zizhi tongjian he asks for an office, so that he might go home holding the tablet, which would be a blessing for a hundred generations.[6] Taizong made the Kirghiz land the Jiankun command. He made Shiboqu Azhan general of a guard regiment and its governor, subordinate to the Yanran protectorate.[1] The Xin Tang Shu names the Left Guard. The Zizhi tongjian names the Right.[1]

The year

The Xin Tang Shu puts the embassy in the twenty-second year of Zhenguan. The Zizhi tongjian dates it to the second month of 648.[1] The Tongdian has it a year earlier, in the twenty-first year, when the chief of the Jiegu came in person.[9] A Turkish study of the Kirghiz title Are names the envoy Elteber Shih-po-ch’ü A-chan and places his mission in 647.[7] The Cefu yuangui lists the Jiegu among the peoples that sent envoys with tribute on the first day of the twenty-second year.[10] The envoys at the New Year court may belong to the same approach. The chief may have followed them in the second month.

A later geography is reported to trace the relations of the Kirghiz with China to 632 and to tribute by 643.[11] The Tang histories have nothing of it.[2]

Aftermath

The Xin Tang Shu says that the Kirghiz came again to court under Gaozong. They sent gifts in the Jinglong period and four embassies under the emperor Xuanzong, who reigned from 712 to 755.[12] In the Jinglong period the emperor Zhongzong told the Kirghiz envoy that his country was of the same clan as the Tang and not like other foreign peoples.[2] The Kirghiz later traced their house to the Han general Li Ling, and the Tang court theirs to his grandfather, as the kinship claim of the ninth century shows.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 198
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  3. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 36–37
  4. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  5. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  6. ^ a b c Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 198
  7. ^ a b Mokeev 2019, p. 29
  8. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 198; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  9. ^ Tongdian, juan 200
  10. ^ Cefu yuangui, juan 970
  11. ^ Golden 1992, p. 179
  12. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Golden 1992, p. 180
  13. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 290–291

Sources

Literature

  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Anvarbek Mokeev, Yenisey ve Altay Kırgızlarında siyasi unvan olarak aco ve idi terimlerinin menşesi ve anlamı (2019)

Related

What links here1

Institutions and Titles
Envoys and Embassies

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Kirghiz embassy of 648.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/kirghiz-embassy-of-648/

Last revised: 8 November 2026