Envoys carried the speech, the letters and the gifts that bound courts to one another. The terms they negotiated are the subject of Diplomacy of the Steppe Empires. How they travelled, how they were received and what happened to them changed little between the Han and the Xiongnu and the Tang and the Kirghiz. Almost all the evidence comes from the courts that received or sent them. The Chinese annals and the Greek historians were the hosts or the senders, and each tells the journey from its own side.

The envoys themselves

The first recorded Chinese embassy to the Ashina was led by a Sogdian. In 545 An Nuopantuo, a man of Jiuquan, went north for Yuwen Tai.[1] The first Göktürk embassy to Constantinople was led by a Sogdian as well. Maniakh was the leader of the Sogdians, who had passed from the Hephthalites to the Göktürks. The Sogdians had asked Istemi to send an embassy to Persia so that they could sell raw silk there. Istemi sent them, and Maniakh later advised him to turn to the Romans.[2] A state that had taken over the silk road used the merchants who knew it as its envoys.

Göktürk princes and titled men went as well. Istemi’s next envoy to Constantinople, in 569, was Tagma, whose title was Tarkhan.[3] With him went the young son of Maniakh, who had died. The boy had been given his father’s title and ranked next after Tagma.[3] In 617 the khan Shibi sent the tegin Kang Shaoli with a thousand horses to meet Li Yuan.[4] The surname Kang is Sogdian. Tulan Khan sent his full brother, the tegin Rudan, to the Sui court with a jade staff from Khotan, and the emperor made him a duke.[5] Ishbara Khan sent his seventh son Kuhanzhen to Chang’an with his memorial of submission.[5] One study holds that a tegin, a son or brother of the khan, could serve as envoy, and that a tarkhan, a rank of war, served in peace.[6]

China sent ministers and men who knew the steppe. The Han chose Wang Wu, a man of Beidi who knew the customs of the Hu.[7] The Sui sent Yu Qingze, a chief minister, to Ishbara.[5] The Sui also sent Cui Junsu, a court usher, to Heshana.[5] The Tang sent Zhao Fan, minister of the Imperial Stud, to the Kirghiz.[8] Zhang Qian set out for the Yuezhi with more than a hundred men and a slave of the Tangyi house named Ganfu, who was a Hu.[9] Zhangsun Sheng, an archer, went to the khan as deputy envoy several times. The khan liked his archery, kept him for a year and made his brothers and nobles befriend him.[10]

Rome sent officers. Zemarchos, who went to Istemi in 569, was general of the cities of the east.[11] Valentinos, who went in 576, was one of the imperial bodyguard.[12] In 449 the court sent Maximinus, a man of high birth who knew nothing of the plot, and the interpreter Bigilas, who was to deliver the gold for it.[13] The Abbasid embassy to the Volga Bulgars of 921 and 922 had Ibn Faḍlān as its secretary.[14]

The khans’ own advisers wrote down what an envoy should be. In the Kutadgu Bilig of 1069 and 1070, a Karakhanid mirror for princes, the envoy must be wise, loyal, content in eye and heart, and free of greed.[15] He must be able to draw up documents, to read and write, and to speak all tongues and read all scripts.[15] The book was written five centuries after the first Göktürk embassies and speaks for its own time.

Credentials, letters and gifts

A Han envoy carried a tally as the sign of his office. The Xiongnu had a rule that a Han envoy could not enter the chanyu’s tent unless he gave up his tally and had his face tattooed with ink. Wang Wu knew the custom. He gave up the tally and tattooed his face, entered the tent, and the chanyu liked him. Yang Xin would not give up the tally, and the chanyu received him outside the tent.[7] Su Wu held on to his tally while he herded rams by the North Sea, until its tassels had fallen off.[16]

The letter was the second credential. Maniakh’s letter to Justin II was written in what Menander calls Scythian, and the emperor had it read to him through an interpreter.[2] Menander does not say which language that was. Some identify it as Old Turkic, others as Sogdian. Of the Göktürks’ own tokens only one is described. For levying troops and herds the khan had a wooden tally cut and added an arrow with a golden head, sealed in wax, as a token of good faith.[1] The tally and the arrow served the khan’s own officers. No source says that envoys carried them.[1]

Gifts opened the doors. Priscus won an audience with Attila for Maximinus by promising gifts to Scottas, and Maximinus gave Attila’s envoys Edeco and Orestes silk garments and Indian gems.[17] Maniakh brought Justin II a gift of raw silk.[2] When Zemarchos spread out gold, silver, pearls and robes of state before one of the Göktürk kings, the king chose the finest pieces.[18] The Göktürks sent horses. In 551 Bumin sent an envoy with two hundred horses to mourn the Wei emperor, and in 553 Keluo sent an envoy with fifty thousand horses.[1] Under Tulan Khan the chiefs sent envoys with ten thousand horses, twenty thousand sheep, five hundred camels and five hundred oxen, and asked for markets along the frontier. The emperor agreed.[5] Tulan also seized the refugee Yang Qin, who had falsely told him that a Sui duke was plotting, and reported it to the court. He sent cloth and fish glue with the report.[5] Fish glue was a gift with a meaning. In 621 Ilig Khan sent several tens of jin of it after a defeat, so that the two states would be one, like the glue.[19]

Reception and rank

Rank showed in who sat where. The chanyu received Yang Xin outside his tent.[7] At a feast near Talas in 569 Istemi gave the Roman envoys the more honourable couch, and a Persian envoy sat beside them.[3] In 581 the Sui placed the envoy of Tardush above the envoy of Ishbara at its court.[10] When Yu Qingze came to him in 584, Ishbara received him seated, and Heshana would not rise for the edict of 608.[5] In the end Ishbara knelt, took the emperor’s sealed letter and placed it on his head.[5]

A border could be a point of ceremony. When Zemarchos reached the land of the Sogdians in 569, men said to avert ill omens took the embassy’s baggage and set it on the ground.[20] They lit branches of frankincense, chanted, rang bells and beat drums, and waved the crackling branches over the load. Then they led Zemarchos himself through the fire.[20] On three successive days Zemarchos was entertained in tents hung with silk and set with golden couches and vessels.[20] On his road home the Alan ruler would not admit the Göktürk envoys until they had laid down their arms.[21] At Attila’s court the Romans sat on the left, below the Hun noble Berichus.[22] Attila named the Roman envoys he would accept, Nomus, Anatolius or Senator, and no others.[23]

The Chinese capital had an office for guests. Heshana’s mother and her husband Poshi Tegin, who stayed at the Sui capital, were lodged in the Court of State Ceremonial.[5] Under the Tang the Uyghur envoys lodged there too, and in the 780s the emperor admitted seven hundred men of an Uyghur embassy to court and received them at the Yanxi gate.[8] Under Wuzong a Kirghiz envoy, Zhuwu Alp Sol, needed three years to reach the capital. Wuzong was so pleased with him that he ranked him above the envoy of Bohai. The chief ministers met the envoy at the Court of State Ceremonial, where interpreters questioned him about the mountains, rivers and customs of his country.[8] Li Deyu proposed to record the embassy in a picture, in the manner of the ancient Wang hui, the record of the foreign courts, and the emperor agreed.[8] A Tang envoy could fare worse in the steppe. The envoy Yuan Xiu waited fifty days at the Uyghur camp and never saw the khan.[8]

Interpreters

An envoy needed words in the host’s language, and the host needed a man who could translate them. At Constantinople the Göktürk letter was read to Justin through an interpreter.[2] Attila’s court spoke Hunnic and Gothic, and Latin with the Romans, and hardly anyone spoke Greek except captives from Thrace and the Illyrian coast.[24] The Roman embassy of 449 had an interpreter, Bigilas, and Priscus reached Scottas through another, Rusticius, a captive from Upper Moesia.[25]

The Tang relied on Sogdians. Sogdians grew up with Sogdian, Turkic and Chinese, and many merchants served as interpreters for envoys.[26] Li Deyu asked the emperor for new interpreters. The court’s interpreters of Turkic, he wrote, were Uyghurs by stock. They would hold a grudge against the Kirghiz, would not translate faithfully and would tell the Uyghurs in the capital whatever was unfavourable to them. He asked for men who knew the tongue and were not kin of the Uyghurs.[27] A modern study finds no evidence that the named interpreters were disloyal.[26]

For the Göktürk side one study counts the interpreter, tilmaç, among the offices of the khan’s court. It says that the sources do not describe how the office was organised, and that it must have existed all the same.[28]

Dangers and detention

An envoy could be killed, poisoned, held or ambushed. In 546 Bumin killed the Rouran envoy who had brought Anagui’s insult.[1] In 568 Khosrow I is said to have had the Göktürk envoys poisoned at the Persian court.[2] All but three or four died, and the Persians let it be said that the dry climate of Persia had killed them.[2] Whether this was murder or the climate cannot be settled from Menander’s account, which is not a neutral one. On the way home Zemarchos was warned that four thousand Persians lay in ambush by the river Kophen, and the escort sent scouts ahead.[29] In 576 Türk-shad threatened to kill Valentinos at once, and Valentinos answered that the killing of envoys had never been done, that its infamy would travel through all mankind, and that envoys were agents of peace.[12] When Bosporos fell, Türk-shad held the Roman envoys, insulted and mocked them and sent them away.[30]

Detention was a bargaining move and usually matched. In the wars of Emperor Wu the Xiongnu held the Han envoys Guo Ji, Lu Chongguo and others, more than ten parties in all, and the Han held the Xiongnu envoys who came.[16] The Shiji adds that the Xiongnu kept a Han envoy for each Xiongnu envoy kept, and let them go only when the numbers matched.[7] The chanyu had the official who received Guo Ji killed after Guo Ji told him to fight the Han or submit. He kept Guo Ji and sent him to the North Sea.[7] Lu Chongguo escorted the body of a Xiongnu noble who had died in Han care, despite medicine, and the chanyu took the death for murder and held him for three years, until the chanyu died.[7] Su Wu, who went to take back the Xiongnu envoys, was held for nineteen years and returned with nine men.[16] Zhang Qian was held for more than ten years and was given a wife who bore him a son, and he kept his tally.[31] The chanyu Zhizhi killed the Han envoy Gu Ji, who was escorting his son home.[32]

The same pattern appears in the sixth and seventh centuries. The Zhou party sent to fetch Mukan’s daughter in 565 spent years at the khan’s camp without being allowed to return.[33] In 621 Ilig Khan held the Tang envoys Su Gui, Zheng Yuanshu and Zhangsun Shunde, and the Tang held his envoys in return, for several batches.[19] The Zizhi tongjian explains that the Göktürks suspected Zheng Yuanshu of having poisoned Chula Khan and kept him.[34] When Ilig was defeated, he sent Zhangsun Shunde home and asked for peace. The Tang then released the Göktürk envoys, among them the tegin Rehan and Ashide, and gave them gold and silk.[19] After 840 the Uyghur khan Wujie seized the escort of the Tang princess Taihe, whom the Kirghiz khan had sent home, and killed the Kirghiz envoys.[8] Kapgan Khan, whom the Tang call Mochuo, seized the Tang envoy Tian Guidao when the court refused part of his demands. Later he imprisoned the Tang prince Wu Yanxiu, who had come to marry his daughter, and the envoy Yan Zhiwei who escorted him, and he proclaimed Yan Zhiwei khan.[35]

One study concludes that the Göktürks recognised the immunity of envoys in principle, and set it aside when the envoy committed a crime or the sending state showed hostility.[36]

Observation and intrigue

Envoys also looked and listened. On his first mission, escorting Princess Qianjin, Zhangsun Sheng hunted with the khan, studied the lie of the land and the strength of the tribes and reported all of it to the future emperor.[10] On his advice the Sui sent an envoy to Tardush. Later he taught Yami to send envoys of his own to the Tiele, and more than ten tribes broke away from Tardush and came over.[10]

The Göktürk side made its own use of envoys. After the joint campaign against the Qi had failed at Jinyang, the Zhou general Yang Zhong told the emperor that the Göktürks’ arms were poor and their rewards slight, and that they had many leaders and no law. They seemed hard to control, he said, only because their envoys falsely praised their strength, so that the court would treat the envoys generously and the envoys could go in person to collect rich rewards. All the envoys before and after, he thought, deserved to be beheaded.[1] The emperor did not take his advice.[1] The Zhou Shu also says that the Göktürks at the Zhou capital were treated with honour, and that those who wore brocade and ate meat usually numbered in the thousands.[1]

The embassy of Maximinus shows the abuse of the form at its sharpest. It carried the gold for a plot to murder Attila. Attila’s envoy Edeco had agreed to it and had then told Attila of it. Attila said that he would have crucified Bigilas if he had not respected the rights of envoys.[37]

Numbers and frequency

The sources give a few counts. In its account of the marriage of Princess Anyi to Yami in 597, the Sui Shu says that the Göktürks sent 370 parties of envoys to court before and after.[5] The Sui Shu says of the khan Ishbara that dozens of envoys had come to him before and after, and that he treated most of them without courtesy.[10] By 576, 106 Göktürks were living at Constantinople, who had come with earlier embassies and went home with Valentinos.[12] Menander names the Roman envoys with whom they had come: Anankhast, Eutychius, Herodian, Paul the Cilician and Valentinos himself, who had gone to the Göktürks twice.[12] The Cefu Yuangui lists the delegations that came to the Chinese courts. From about 545 to the last foreign visits at the Sui court in 616, the Göktürk delegations numbered nearly a fifth of all other foreign delegations together.[38] One study lists 105 embassy visits between 545 and 623.[39] In the Tang, the court tried to cap the numbers. In 787 the minister Li Mi proposed that Uyghur envoys should number no more than two hundred and that they should sell no more than a thousand horses.[8][40] The Kirghiz came three times in the years 860 to 873.[8]

Journeys were long. Zemarchos left Constantinople in August 569.[11] On one reckoning the embassy came home in late 571.[41] John of Ephesus says that the envoys were absent for two years.[42] The Kirghiz envoy who came under Wuzong needed three years to reach the Tang capital.[8]

Embassies by date

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.1
  3. ^ a b c Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 123
  4. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Tongdian, juan 197
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  6. ^ Şahin 2018, p. 139
  7. ^ a b c d e f Shiji, juan 110
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  9. ^ Han Shu, juan 61; Shiji, juan 123
  10. ^ a b c d e Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 51
  11. ^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.2
  12. ^ a b c d e Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1
  13. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7–8, p. 76–78
  14. ^ a b Ibn Fadlan
  15. ^ a b Kutadgu Bilig; Dankoff 1983, couplets 2596–2671
  16. ^ a b c Han Shu, juan 54
  17. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 78, 80–81
  18. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 426
  19. ^ a b c d Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  20. ^ a b c Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3
  21. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.5
  22. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 91–92
  23. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 91
  24. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 86
  25. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 76–78, 80–81, 93
  26. ^ a b Lung 2010
  27. ^ Li Deyu's Letters to the Kirghiz, juan 15
  28. ^ Şahin 2018, p. 132
  29. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.4
  30. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.2
  31. ^ Han Shu, juan 61
  32. ^ Han Shu, juan 94
  33. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 9
  34. ^ Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 189
  35. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  36. ^ Şahin 2018, p. 139–140
  37. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7–8, p. 76–78, 81
  38. ^ Ecsedy 1968, p. 143
  39. ^ Şahin 2018, p. 135
  40. ^ Mackerras 1972, p. 97
  41. ^ Blockley 1985, p. 267
  42. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 428
  43. ^ Han Shu, juan 54; Han Shu, juan 61
  44. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7–8, 13–14
  45. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.2–4
  46. ^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, p. 188
  47. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 267

Sources

Literature

  • R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)
  • Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
  • Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
  • R. Payne Smith (trans.), The Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus (1860)
  • Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)
  • M. Canard, La relation du voyage d'Ibn Fadlān chez les Bulgares de la Volga (1958)
  • Robert Dankoff (trans.), Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes (1983)
  • Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, Dīwān Lughat al-Turk (1072–1074)
  • Rachel Lung, Sogdian Translators in Tang China: An Issue of Loyalty (2010)
  • Şahin, Göktürk diplomasisi (552–630) (2018)
  • Ildikó Ecsedy, Trade-and-War Relations between the Turks and China in the Second Half of the Sixth Century (1968)

Related

What links here1

Institutions and Titles
Diplomacy of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Envoys and Embassies.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/envoys-and-embassies/

Last revised: 8 November 2026