In 607 the Sui emperor Yangdi travelled to the northern frontier. He visited Yami, whom the Sui called Qimin Khan, first at Yulin and then in his own camp.[1] At Yulin Yami asked leave to dress his people as the Chinese did. The emperor refused.[1] In Yami’s camp the emperor wrote a poem on the khan who bowed before him.[1] An envoy of Goguryeo whom Yami presented there set off the Sui plans for war on Goguryeo.[2]

The journey north

The Zizhi tongjian has the emperor set out north in the fourth month of 607.[3] In the fifth month Yami sent his son Tuo Tegin to court, and then his nephew Pilijia Tegin.[3] He asked leave to come within the frontier to meet the emperor’s carriage. The emperor refused.[3] The Sui Shu brings the emperor to Yulin in the fourth month. The Zizhi tongjian has him halt there on the day wuzi of the sixth month.[4]

From Yulin the emperor meant to show his army beyond the frontier and march through the Göktürk lands.[3] He sent the general Zhangsun Sheng ahead so that Yami would not take alarm.[3] At Zhangsun Sheng’s urging Yami cut the weeds before his own tent with his knife. His whole people built an imperial road from Yulin to his camp and on to the east.[3]

At Yulin

Yami and his wife, the Sui princess Yicheng, came to the emperor’s travelling palace.[1] He presented three thousand horses. The emperor, much pleased, gave him twelve thousand pieces of silk.[1] Then Yami sent up a memorial.[1] The late emperor, he wrote, had pitied him and given him the princess Anyi.[1] When his brothers wanted to kill him, he had nowhere to go: “Looking up I saw only the sky, looking down I saw only the earth.”[1] The late emperor had kept him alive and made him great khan.[1] “I am no longer the frontier khan of the Göktürks of former days. I am Your Majesty’s subject.”[1] He asked to take the dress and the usages of the great state and to be one with the Chinese.[1]

The ministers advised granting the request. The emperor refused.[1] In a decree he wrote that the former kings had not sought to change the customs of other peoples. Cut hair and tattooed bodies, felt and leather garments, each suited its own people.[1] To Yami he wrote that the lands north of the desert were not yet at peace and that there would still be wars to fight.[1] A loyal and filial heart did not need a change of clothes.[1] The Zizhi tongjian dates the letter to the seventh month.[3] Some scholars find a paradox here. The Chinese rulers themselves kept Yami from adopting Chinese court culture. They feared that it would weaken the Göktürks as soldiers.[5] Yami’s request concerned the dress and hair of the Göktürks.[1]

The emperor feasted Yami and three thousand five hundred of his chiefs in a great tent that held a thousand people. He gave them two hundred thousand pieces of silk.[1] The Zizhi tongjian has the tent seat several thousand.[3] It counts the silk given to Yami at twenty million pieces. It counts the cattle, sheep, camels and horses the guests presented at tens of millions.[3] A decree granted Yami a state carriage and horses, drums and banners, the right not to be announced by name, and a place above the princes.[1]

Not everyone at court approved. Gao Jiong, then minister of ceremonies, thought that the emperor treated Yami too well.[3] “This barbarian knows China’s strengths and weaknesses and the lie of its land,” he told He Chou, the minister of the treasury. “I fear he will make trouble later.”[3] Gao Jiong and two other critics of the court were put to death for slander in the same month.[3]

In Yami’s camp

In the eighth month the emperor left Yulin, passed Yunzhong and travelled up the Jin river to Yami’s camp.[3] According to the Zizhi tongjian, he took five hundred thousand armoured men and a hundred thousand horses with him.[3] Yami offered him the cup on his knees, very respectfully.[1] The princes and nobles before the tent bared their arms to carve the meat. None dared to look up.[3] The empress visited Princess Yicheng in her tent.[3] The emperor gave Yami and the princess a golden jar each, with clothes, bedding and brocade.[1]

The emperor was delighted and wrote a poem.[1]

The felt tents rise to meet the wind, the domed yurts open toward the sun. Huhan comes and bows his head to the ground, the Tuqi follow on his heels. Men with plaited hair hold up the mutton, men in leather sleeves offer the wine cups. How could the Han Son of Heaven compare, who climbed the chanyu’s terrace in vain?[1]

Sui Shu (Book of Sui)

Huhan stands for Huhanye, the Xiongnu chanyu who came to the Han court.[6] The Shiji says that the Xiongnu called a worthy man tuqi, the word in the title of the worthy kings.[7]

The Goguryeo envoy

Goguryeo had sent an envoy to Yami in secret.[1] Yami served the Sui sincerely and did not dare to hide the foreign contact. On the day of the visit he brought the envoy before the emperor.[1] The emperor had Niu Hong proclaim his words.[1] He had come to Yami’s camp, he said, because Yami served him sincerely.[1] Next year he would go to Zhuo commandery.[1] The envoy was to tell his king to come to court soon and without fear, and he would be treated like Yami. If the king did not come, the emperor would lead Yami on a tour of his land.[1] The envoy was greatly afraid.[1]

The biography of Pei Ju gives the advice behind the threat.[2] Goguryeo had once been Chinese land, Pei Ju told the emperor. Its envoy had seen with his own eyes a whole state submit with Yami, and he could be frightened into making his king come to court.[2] The king did not obey, and the plan to march on Liaodong began.[2] The Zizhi tongjian tells the same story under 610.[8] Some scholars set the discovery of the Korean envoys at Ötüken, in the tent of Tulan Khan. They make this the trigger of the Sui invasion of Goguryeo.[9]

Return

Yami escorted the emperor back within the frontier as far as Dingxiang, where an edict sent him home.[1] The Zizhi tongjian has him dismissed on the day jichou of the eighth month.[3] The next year he came to court at the eastern capital and was received with still greater honour.[1] The Tongdian tells the visit more briefly from the same account.[10] Some scholars count Yami’s reign as a time of unprecedented rapprochement with China.[5]

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 Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  2. ^ a b c d Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 67
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 180
  4. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 180
  5. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 334
  6. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 94
  7. ^ Shiji, juan 110
  8. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 181
  9. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 337
  10. ^ Tongdian, juan 197

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)

Related

What links here7

Persons
Pei Ju · Yami Khan
States
Sui
Battles & Events
Sui Variety Shows for Yami Khan (606–610)
Places
Yunzhong
Institutions and Titles
Drums and Banners for the Khans
Customs & Pastimes
Turkic Songs at the Tang Court

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Yangdi's Visit to Yami Khan (607).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/yangdi-visit-to-yami-607/

Last revised: 8 November 2026