Revolt of the Tiele (627)

In the first year of Zhenguan, 627, the Xueyantuo, the Uyghurs and the Bayirku north of the Yinshan rose together against Ilig Khan and drove off his Yukuk Shad.^[1] The Tongdian counts more than ten tribes in the rising.^[2] Ilig sent his nephew Töles against them. Töles was beaten and rode back with a few light horsemen.^[1] Ilig held him for more than ten days. From then on Töles resented him and meant to break away.^[1] The rising cost the eastern khaganate the tribes north of the desert. It also set the khan’s nephew against him. It belongs to the collapse of the eastern khaganate.

The tribes

The Tiele tribes had been scattered when the Göktürks grew strong.^[3] The Zizhi tongjian counts fifteen of them north of the desert. Among them were the Xueyantuo, the Uyghurs, the Tongluo, the Pugu and the Bayirku. Their customs were much like those of the Göktürks.^[3] The Xueyantuo were the strongest.^[3] The Uyghurs and five other tribes at Mount Yudujun had been subject in the east to Shibi Khan.^[3]

The power of the western khan Tong Yabgu declined. Yinan, a grandson of the Xueyantuo chief Yishibo, then brought his people over to Ilig. They numbered more than seventy thousand households.^[3] Afterwards Ilig’s government fell into disorder, and the Xueyantuo, the Uyghurs and the Bayirku rose together.^[3] The Tiele chapter of the Jiu Tang Shu has Yinan himself lead the rising. He attacked Ilig and beat him decisively.^[4]

Mount Malie

The Zizhi tongjian tells the fighting most fully.^[3] Ilig sent the Yukuk Shad against the rebels with a hundred thousand horse.^[3] Pusa, the chief of the Uyghurs, met him with five thousand horse at Mount Malie and broke his army.^[3] The Yukuk Shad fled.^[3] Pusa pursued him as far as the Tianshan and took many of his people captive. From then on the Uyghurs were strong.^[3] The Xueyantuo also beat four of Ilig’s shads, and Ilig could not master them.^[3]

Ilig then sent Töles.^[5] The biography of Töles in the Jiu Tang Shu gives the background.^[1] Töles ruled the eastern tribes, among them the two peoples the Chinese call Xi, and taxed them without measure.^[1] Early in the Zhenguan years the Xi went over to the Tang. Ilig was angry that Töles had lost them and sent him north against the Xueyantuo.^[1] Töles lost that army as well. Ilig then imprisoned him and had him beaten.^[1]

The Yukuk Shad

The histories do not agree on who the Yukuk Shad was.^[6] The Zizhi tongjian calls him the son of Ilig’s elder brother, and in 630 the younger brother of Töles.^[7] The Xin Tang Shu calls him Ilig’s younger brother.^[8] The Uyghur chapter of the Jiu Tang Shu calls him Ilig’s son, as one study reports it. That study takes the three for one man.^[9] The Chinese histories have him driven off and put to flight. After Ilig’s fall in 630 he fled to Gaochang and then went over to the Tang.^[10]

Other dates and another people

The Cefu yuangui dates the rising to the ninth year of Wude, 626.^[11] It tells the story in its account of Ashina She’er, a son of Chula Khan. The Yantuo and the Uyghurs rose and broke the Yukuk Shad. She’er attacked them, and the Yantuo beat him too.^[11] One modern account dates a rising to the days when Ilig stood before Chang’an in 626, but it makes the rebels the Tatabï, the people the Chinese call Kumo Xi.^[12] In that account Töles failed to subdue them and was tortured for ten days.^[12] The Yukuk Shad had governed the Nine Oghuz, from whom the Uyghurs later came. Their leaders killed him, and Ilig answered with irrational punishments of his own men.^[12]

Consequences

The rising came in the year of the great snow, which killed the herds of the khaganate.^[1] Töles broke with his uncle in 628, and his defection followed.^[1] At the end of that year the northern tribes left Ilig for the Xueyantuo. They wished to make Yinan their khan, and he did not dare accept.^[13] The Tang emperor Taizong sent him a patent as Zhenzhu Bilge Khan, with a drum and a banner.^[13] Yinan pitched his camp at Mount Yudujun, and the Uyghurs, the Bayirku and other tribes became his subjects.^[13] In 629 the Xueyantuo khan sent tribute to Chang’an, and in 630 the Tang armies destroyed Ilig’s state.^[1] The tribes that had risen against Ilig in 627 were by then Tang allies.