The Sui Campaign of 599

In 599 the Sui sent armies against the Göktürks under the chancellors Gao Jiong and Yang Su.^[1] Tulan Khan and Tardush had joined forces to attack Yami. Yami was then Tuli Khan, the khan the Sui favoured.^[1] The Sui Shu records that in the summer Gao Jiong and Yang Su fell on Tardush and crushed him.^[1] Some scholars hold that Tardush’s march east failed without his once fighting the Sui emperor.^[2] In the same year the emperor made Yami khan, with the title Qimin Khan.^[3] The campaign belongs to the Göktürk–Sui wars and to the last years of the civil war.

Background

In 597 Yami married the Sui princess Anyi and moved south. The Sui Shu calls him a son of Ishbara.^[1] The Sui court favoured him in order to divide the northern peoples.^[1] Tulan was angry: “I am the great khan, and I am treated worse than Rangan.”^[1] Rangan was Yami’s personal name.^[1] Tulan stopped sending tribute and raided the frontier.^[1] In 598 the Sui sent the prince of Shu against him by the Lingzhou road.^[1]

In the second month of 599 Yami reported through the Sui envoy Zhangsun Sheng that Tulan was building siege engines to attack the city of Datong.^[4] The emperor made Liang, the prince of Han, marshal.^[4] Gao Jiong was to go out by the Shuozhou road, Yang Su by the Lingzhou road and Yan Rong by the Youzhou road.^[4] The Sui Shu names the commanders under them: Wang Cha and Zhao Zhongqing with Gao Jiong, Li Che and Han Sengshou with Yang Su.^[1] The prince of Han never went to the front.^[4]

Tulan and Tardush struck first.^[4] They fell on Yami below the Long Wall in the attack on Yami. They killed his brothers and nephews and drove him to the Sui.^[4] In the fourth month Yami reached Chang’an.^[4]

Gao Jiong’s march

Gao Jiong sent Zhao Zhongqing ahead with three thousand men.^[4] At Mount Zuli they met the Göktürks and fought for seven days. The Göktürks were crushed.^[4] Zhao pursued them to Lake Qifu and beat them again. He took more than a thousand captives and tens of thousands of animals.^[4] The Göktürks came back in great force.^[4] Zhao formed a square and fought on all four sides for five days.^[4] Then Gao Jiong’s main army arrived, and together they put the Göktürks to flight.^[4] The Sui pursued them across Baidao and over the Qin mountains for more than seven hundred li. Then they turned back.^[4]

At court Gao Jiong’s success was turned against him. He had gone out by Baidao and planned to push into the desert. He sent to ask for more troops.^[4] Men close to the emperor said that he meant to rebel.^[4] Before the emperor had answered, Gao Jiong had beaten the Göktürks and come back.^[4]

Yang Su and Tardush

Yang Su’s army met Tardush.^[4] Until then the Sui commanders had fought the Göktürk cavalry from square camps of war carts, foot and horse, behind abatis, with the horsemen inside.^[4] Yang Su called this a way to protect oneself and not a way to win.^[4] He set the old method aside. He ordered all his troops into cavalry formations.^[4]

Tardush heard of it and was delighted. “Heaven has given me this,” he said. Then he dismounted, looked up to Heaven and bowed.^[4] He then led more than a hundred thousand horsemen straight at the Sui.^[4] Zhou Luohou, a former commander of the Chen, said that the enemy’s line was not yet in order. He asked to attack.^[5] Zhou charged first with picked horsemen. Yang Su followed with the main army.^[4] The Göktürks were crushed.^[4] Tardush was badly wounded and escaped. His dead and wounded could not be counted. His people went away wailing.^[4]

Other accounts

The Sui Shu gives the battle one sentence: in the summer, in the sixth month, Gao Jiong and Yang Su attacked Tardush and crushed him.^[1] The Tongdian says instead that Yang Su, Shi Wansui and others attacked Tulan and beat him again and again.^[6]

Some scholars tell Tardush’s war against the Sui differently.^[2] Tardush hoped to win support through a victory over China.^[2] The long march from the west and poisoned water cost him heavy losses. He did not once fight the Sui emperor.^[2] The same scholars say that he had to break off the campaign because his soldiers were exhausted.^[7]

Aftermath

After the victory the emperor gave Yami the title Yili Zhendou Qimin Khan, which the Sui Shu explains as “wise and strong”.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian enters the title in the tenth month of 599.^[4] Yami thanked the emperor in a memorial. The Sui built the city of Dali in Shuozhou for him.^[1] In the twelfth month Tulan was killed by his own men. Tardush made himself Bujia Khan.^[4] The war of 599 left the eastern steppe to a khan whom the Sui had raised and whom they protected.