In 626, weeks after the new emperor of the Tang had killed his brothers and taken power, Ilig Khan led more than a hundred thousand horse against Wugong. The capital was put under alert.[1] The Jiu Tang Shu puts the raid in the seventh month. The Zizhi tongjian puts it in the eighth, after the emperor had taken the throne.[1] Ilig advanced on Gaoling. Yuchi Jingde met his army at Jingyang, beat it and took the irkin Ashide Wumo Chur.[1] Ilig came on all the same. He stood on the north bank of the Wei, by the Bian bridge, within sight of Chang’an.[2] The empire had a new ruler, an unsettled court and no field army in position.
The meeting on the bank
Ilig sent his confidant Zhishi Sili ahead to look at the court. Zhishi Sili was to say that two khans had gathered an army of a million and were already there. The emperor had him seized and held.[3] Then the emperor rode to the Wei himself, with six horsemen. He spoke to Ilig across the water and reproached him with breaking the covenant. The Göktürk chiefs were alarmed. They dismounted and bowed.[3] Behind the emperor the Tang army came up in formation. Ilig saw it and knew his envoy had been taken. He was afraid.[3]
The Jiu Tang Shu gives the emperor’s own reasoning twice, in answer to a minister who thought the ride reckless. The emperor judged that the Göktürks had come because they had heard of the trouble in the palace and of a ruler newly on the throne. They expected no resistance. To shut the gates would invite a sack. To go out alone showed that he thought little of them, while the army behind showed that he would fight.[3] Afterwards he added the other half. He had not fought because his reign was young. A beaten enemy might mend his ways and turn dangerous. He would put away his armour and buy them off with jade and silk, because a people made insolent by gifts is a people already on the road to ruin.[3]
The accounts report differently what was said at the water. What happened is not in doubt. Peace was asked for and granted that day. A white horse was killed and the oath sworn on the Bian bridge. Ilig drew off.[3] In the ninth month he offered three thousand horses and ten thousand sheep. The emperor would not take them. Instead he ordered that every Chinese household the Göktürks had carried off be sent home.[3]
The scene became one of the set pieces of Tang historiography. It is told to the credit of the emperor who faced the khan with a handful of men. A Chinese army had not been able to prevent a steppe army from reaching the suburbs of the capital. The account is written by the side that paid.
Consequences
Ilig took away goods and a display of his own reach. The Tang, for their part, drew a lesson from the same afternoon. The arrangement could not stand, and the khaganate would have to be broken rather than bought.
Three years later the Tang armies went north in winter. The khaganate fell apart in a single campaign.[3] Between the two lay the events that made the difference: the snow of 627, the revolt of the Töles and the secession of the Xueyantuo. The Tang court spent the interval preparing and waiting.[3]
Value of the event
The Wei bridge is the last time a Göktürk khan of the first khaganate stood where he could dictate to a Chinese dynasty. Four years later the man who had stood there was paraded in the capital he had threatened.[3]
References
Sources
- Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
- Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 191 (after Wei Shu, Zhou Shu, Sui Shu and Bei Shi)
Literature
- Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
- Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
What links here14
- Persons
- Ashide Wumo Chur · Zhishi Sili
- Battles & Events
- Battle of Jingyang (626) · Capture of Ilig Khan (630) · Ilig Khan's Dance at the Weiyang Palace (633) · Kirghiz embassy of 648 · Ransom of the Chinese from the Göktürks (631) · Taizong's Speech on the Signs of Ruin (628) · The Göktürk Campaign of 625 · The great snow of 627
- Places
- Jingyang
- Institutions and Titles
- Diplomacy of the Steppe Empires · The Göktürk Oath
- Religions
- Horse Sacrifice
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Wei bridge, 626.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/wei-bridge-626/
Last revised: 7 November 2026
