In 606 the Sui emperor Yangdi gathered the entertainers of every quarter of the realm at the Eastern Capital, Luoyang. Yami, whom the passage calls Ranggan, had come to court, and the emperor wished to impress him.[1] The Sui Shu says that Yami was greatly alarmed.[1] The show was put on for him again in 607, when he met the emperor at Yulin in the visit of that year. Every year after that it was held at the New Year.[1] In 610 it filled a whole street of Luoyang with eighteen thousand musicians.[2]

The entertainers of earlier courts

The shows were older than the Sui.[1] In the Wuping era of Qi the court had the fish-dragon spectacle, jesters, dwarfs, mountain carts and great elephants.[1] It had the pulling of a well, the planting of melons, the killing of a horse and the flaying of a donkey, more than a hundred items in all.[1] They were called baixi, the hundred shows.[1] Zheng Yi, a favourite of the Zhou emperor Xuan, had the Qi entertainers brought to the capital.[1] At the start of the Kaihuang era the Sui sent them all away.[1]

Yangdi called them back.[1] The Zizhi tongjian gives the cause: Yami was about to come to court, and the emperor wished to impress him with wealth and pleasure.[3] Pei Yun, vice-minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, saw what the emperor wanted.[3] He proposed to register the sons of the musician families of Zhou, Qi, Liang and Chen as music households.[3] Anyone from the sixth rank down to commoners who was good at music was to serve at the Court of Imperial Sacrifices.[3] His own biography extends the order to commoners skilled in song and in the hundred shows. It raises the number of entertainers to more than thirty thousand.[4] Yangdi was delighted and promoted him.[4]

The show at the Eastern Capital, 606

The performers were first shown in the Fanghua garden beside the Jicui pond.[1] The emperor watched from behind curtains, with the women of the palace.[1] A sheli came first and played in the arena.[1] It sprang. Water gushed over the thoroughfare. Turtles, crocodiles, water-men, insects and fish spread over the ground.[1] The Zizhi tongjian calls the sheli a beast.[3]

Then a great whale breathed out a mist that hid the sun. In a moment it turned into a yellow dragon seven or eight zhang long, which reared and rose out of the water.[1] The act was called the Transformation of the Yellow Dragon.[1] Two girl entertainers danced facing each other on a rope tied between two pillars ten zhang apart. They passed shoulder against shoulder and went on singing and dancing.[1] In another act, called Xia Yu lifting the cauldron, the performers juggled cartwheels, stone mortars and great jars, each on the palm of a hand.[1] Two men carried poles on their heads, and dancers stood on the tops. In a flash the dancers leapt through the air and changed places.[1] There followed a divine turtle bearing a mountain and conjurers spitting fire.[1] The Sui Shu calls them a thousand changes, the like of which had not been seen since antiquity.[1] Yami was greatly alarmed.[1] The Jiu Tang Shu has the same year and the same effect: the Göktürk khan came to court at Luoyang. The emperor gathered all the arts of the Han, Jin, Zhou and Qi for him. The foreigners were greatly alarmed.[5]

After the show all the performers were drilled under the Court of Imperial Sacrifices.[1] The minister of ceremonies, Gao Jiong, had advised against the summoning of the entertainers and was not heeded.[3] Afterwards he said that the Zhou emperor Tianyuan had perished through his love of music. He said that the warning was not far off, and he asked how it could be repeated.[3] In the seventh month of 607 Gao Jiong was put to death, with Yuwen Bi and He Ruobi, who had criticised the court’s extravagance in private.[3]

Yulin, 607

In 607 the emperor travelled to Yulin. Yami paid court at the travelling palace, and the emperor again put on the shows for him.[1] The Zizhi tongjian places the performance at the feast in the great tent east of the city, in the seventh month.[3] The emperor feasted Yami and his people with the entertainers. The foreigners, frightened and delighted, vied to present cattle, sheep, camels and horses in their tens of millions.[3]

In the eighth month the emperor went on to Yami’s camp.[3] Yuwen Kai had built for him a travelling hall that hundreds of guards could stand in. It could be taken apart and put together on wheels and axles. He had also built a moving city two thousand paces round, made of boards covered in painted cloth with towers and turrets complete.[3] The people of the steppe were amazed and took the city for something divine.[3] From ten li away they knelt and bowed when they saw the imperial camp. None dared to ride.[3]

The show at the New Year

The Sui Shu fixes the custom after the first show.[1] Each year in the first month, the peoples of the world came to court and stayed until the fifteenth. Play-grounds were laid out outside the Duan Gate and inside the Jianguo Gate, for eight li on end.[1] Officials put up stands along the road and watched from dusk to dawn until the last day of the month.[1] The performers wore brocade and embroidered silks.[1] The singers and dancers were mostly dressed as women, with ringing pendants and ornaments of flowery feathers, nearly thirty thousand of them.[1] The districts of Jingzhao and Henan were charged with making the costumes. The silks of both capitals ran out.[1]

The great show of 610

In 610 the foreign peoples brought tribute. The Sui Shu says that the rulers from Qimin, the title of Yami, down all came in person to offer their congratulations.[1] A hundred shows were staged on Tianjin Street. They had every rarity from within the seas, utensils and costumes decked in pearls, kingfisher feathers, gold and silver, and brocade, woollens and embroidery.[1] The cost ran into hundreds of millions.[1] Xiong, prince of Anda, directed the show west of the pass. Jian, prince of Qi, directed it at the Eastern Capital.[1] The sound of the metal, stone, gourd and hide instruments could be heard tens of li away.[1] Eighteen thousand played strings and pipes. Rows of torches lit heaven and earth. The Sui Shu calls it a greatness without equal since antiquity.[1] The Zizhi tongjian dates it to the first month, on Duan Gate Street, with an arena five thousand paces round. It has the show run for a whole month.[6] In both accounts it became a yearly custom.[2]

The years

The Sui Shu and the Jiu Tang Shu put the khan’s coming to court in 606.[7] The Zizhi tongjian reports the gathering of the entertainers under 606 as preparation for a visit still to come. It has Yami at court at the New Year of 607, where he asked leave to take the cap and the belt of the Chinese.[3] The Sui Shu’s account of his reign puts his visit to the Eastern Capital in a later year, after Yulin.[8] The visit therefore falls in 606 or at the start of 607. The sources do not settle which.[9]

The show of 610 raises a second question. The Sui Shu names Qimin first among the rulers present. Yami died in 609 by the usual reckoning, and in 608 by the order of events in the Sui Shu.[10] The Zizhi tongjian tells his death under 609, with the accession of his son Shibi. For 610 it names only the chiefs of the foreign peoples gathered at Luoyang.[6] The great show of 610 was therefore not seen by Yami.

What stayed was the spectacle itself. It was founded to overawe one khan. It outlived him as the yearly display of the Sui court to the peoples who came to it.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 15
  2. ^ a b Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 15; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 180
  4. ^ a b Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 67
  5. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 29
  6. ^ a b Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181
  7. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 15; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 29
  8. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  9. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 15; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 180
  10. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181

Sources

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Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Sui Variety Shows for Yami Khan (606–610).” Turkic Atlas, revised 28 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/sui-variety-shows-606/

Last revised: 28 October 2026