When the Northern Zhou destroyed the Northern Qi in 577, the Qi prince Gao Shaoyi fled to the Göktürks.[1] Taspar Khan set him up as emperor of Qi. He called his people together and said that he would avenge the Qi.[2] For three years Shaoyi held a Qi court among the Göktürks. In 580 Taspar handed him over to the Zhou, and in return the Zhou gave him a princess.[3]

Flight to the Göktürks

Gao Shaoyi was the prince of Fanyang and the Qi governor of Dingzhou.[2] After the fall of the Qi capital, officers at North Shuozhou invited him to lead them. North Shuozhou was a Qi stronghold that the Zhou had just occupied.[4] Shaoyi came to Mayi, and more than 280 towns north of Sizhou declared for him.[4] He marched south to take Bingzhou and failed.[4] The Zhou general Yuwen Shenju then advanced on Mayi and defeated him.[4] Shaoyi fled north to the Göktürks with three thousand followers.[4] He told them that anyone who wished to go back could do so. More than half left.[4] The Zhou annals and the Zizhi tongjian both date his flight to the second month of 577.[5]

Taspar received him with honour. He had always called the Qi emperor Xianzu a heroic Son of Heaven.[4] Like Xianzu, Shaoyi had doubled ankles. For this reason Taspar loved and honoured him, and he put all the Qi people in the north under his command.[4]

Shaoyi was not the first Qi suppliant at the khan’s court. When the Zhou took Jinyang, the Qi had sent the envoy Hexi Yong’an to ask the Göktürks for help. By the time he arrived, the Qi had fallen.[4] Taspar seated him below the envoy of the Tuyuhun.[4] Yong’an asked for a knife so that he might die and show that the Qi had loyal servants.[4] Taspar praised him, gave him seventy horses and sent him home.[4] One account gives the seventy horses to Gao Baoning, a Qi kinsman of Shaoyi, instead.[6]

Emperor of Qi

Gao Baoning, the Qi governor of Yingzhou, had not submitted to the Zhou.[4] From Huanglong he sent Shaoyi a memorial that urged him to take the throne.[4] Shaoyi called himself emperor, named his era Wuping and made Baoning his chancellor.[4] Taspar raised troops to support him.[4] The Zizhi tongjian enters these events in the twelfth month of 577.[4] One account places Baoning’s letter to Ötüken and Shaoyi’s proclamation in the summer of 578.[6] The Zhou Shu sums up the whole matter in one sentence: Taspar set up Shaoyi as emperor of Qi.[2]

The raids of 578

In the fourth month of 578 Taspar raided Youzhou, and the Zhou general Liu Xiong died fighting him, in the raid on Youzhou.[2] Emperor Wu of the Zhou died in the sixth month. Shaoyi took his death as a sign of Heaven’s help.[5] Lu Changqi of Youzhou rose at Fanyang and invited Shaoyi to join him, and Shaoyi came south with Göktürk troops.[4] He tried to take Ji while the Zhou commander of Youzhou was away. He killed half of a relief force of four thousand men.[4] Then Yuwen Shenju took Fanyang and captured Lu Changqi.[4] Shaoyi put on plain clothes, mourned and went back to the Göktürks.[4] In the eleventh month the Göktürks raided the Zhou frontier again, in the siege of Jiuquan.[4]

Surrender

In the second month of 579 Taspar asked the Zhou for peace.[4] The Zhou gave him Princess Qianjin, a daughter of the prince of Zhao, and told him to seize Shaoyi and send him to the court. Taspar refused.[4] In 580 he sent envoys with tribute to fetch the princess, and he still kept Shaoyi.[2] The Zhou then sent Heruo Yi, who bribed Taspar and pressed him for Shaoyi.[7] Taspar went hunting with Shaoyi on his southern border. As if by chance, he let Heruo Yi seize Shaoyi there.[7] One account places the hunt in the forest of Ötüken.[8] On the jiashen day of the seventh month of 580 the Göktürks delivered Shaoyi, and he reached Chang’an.[9] He was banished to Shu and died there of an illness after a long time.[7] The same account adds that from exile he wrote to his wife and cursed the barbarians for their treachery.[8] His surrender was the price of the marriage of Princess Qianjin.[10]

Assessment

The histories give no motive for Taspar’s support of the Qi.[11] Some scholars see in it a move to keep China divided, since the Zhou now held almost the whole frontier of the khaganate.[12] They argue that Taspar gave the Qi up because he no longer believed in their success. He would not risk a great war with the strengthened Zhou.[13] The court in exile ended in an exchange: the Zhou received the last Qi pretender, and Taspar received a princess.

References

  1. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 6; Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b c d e Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  3. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 8
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 173
  5. ^ a b Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 6; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 173
  6. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 308
  7. ^ a b c Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 174
  8. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 309
  9. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 8; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 174
  10. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 173; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 174
  11. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 173
  12. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 305
  13. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 310

Sources

Literature

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

Related

What links here6

States
Northern Zhou
Conflicts
Hegemony Wars in Northern China
Battles & Events
The Göktürk–Zhou alliance · The Marriage of Princess Qianjin (580) · The Raid on Youzhou (578) · The Siege of Jiuquan (578)

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Qi Court in Exile (577–580).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/qi-court-in-exile-577/

Last revised: 8 November 2026