Livestock Losses in the Annals

The wealth of the steppe stood in its herds. The Chinese annals report a loss of herds when it bore on a Chinese decision. The causes they name are snow, drought, locusts, disease and the length of a march. The accounts below run from the Xiongnu to the Uyghurs.

The Xiongnu

In the first winter of the child chanyu, who took the throne in 105 BC, heavy rain and snow fell.^[1] Most of the livestock died of hunger and cold.^[1] The Han Shu adds that the chanyu was young and fond of killing, and that the country was uneasy.^[2]

Later the Han general Li Guangli, who had gone over to the Xiongnu, was killed as a sacrifice.^[2] The Han renegade Wei Lü had told a shaman to say that a dead chanyu demanded it.^[2] Afterwards rain and snow lasted for months. The livestock died, the people fell ill, and the grain did not ripen. The chanyu was afraid and built a shrine for Li Guangli.^[2]

In 72 BC five Han armies and the Wusun marched against the Xiongnu.^[2] The Xiongnu drove their herds far away, and the five generals took little.^[2] The officer Chang Hui, who marched with the Wusun, took more than 700,000 head of horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules and camels.^[2] The Han Shu then draws its own lesson. Many Xiongnu had died or fled, and the livestock had died on the long moves, so the chanyu could not win often.^[2] That winter the chanyu led ten thousand horsemen against the Wusun.^[2] Snow fell a zhang deep in one day.^[2] People and livestock froze, and fewer than one in ten of them came back.^[2] The Dingling attacked from the north, the Wuhuan from the east and the Wusun from the west.^[2] Hunger followed. Of the people three in ten died, and of the livestock five in ten.^[2] The subject peoples fell away.^[2]

In the reign of Xulü Quanqu, who took the throne in 68 BC, famine struck again.^[2] Six or seven in ten of the people and the livestock died.^[2]

In the years around AD 46 drought and locusts came year after year.^[3] The earth lay bare for thousands of li and the grass and trees dried up. People and livestock sickened from hunger and died, and more than half were lost.^[3] The chanyu feared that the Han would use the moment against him and asked for a marriage alliance.^[3] The southern part of his people went over to the Han soon afterwards.^[3] In AD 76 locusts and a great famine struck these Southern Xiongnu.^[3] The emperor supplied more than thirty thousand of their poor with rations.^[3]

The Göktürks

In 583 an edict of Emperor Wen of the Sui described the Göktürk land.^[4] No rain or snow had fallen in all four seasons of the previous year. The rivers had dried up, locusts had come, and the grass was burnt. Famine and disease followed, and people and livestock had died by half.^[4] The edict was written to justify a war. The statement is the Sui court’s. The campaign is treated in its own article.

In 627 snow lay several feet deep on level ground.^[5] Sheep and horses died, and people starved.^[5] That winter is told in The great snow of 627.^[6] The Jiu Tang Shu says that heavy snow then fell year after year and most of the six domestic animals died. The realm went hungry, and Ilig Khan could not meet his expenses. He laid heavy levies on the tribes, and they turned from him.^[6]

The emperor Taizong gave his own explanation of these losses in 628.^[7] The Göktürks, he said, moved without rule, and so their animals died in large numbers. In his words they did not use their land well.^[7] The remark comes from the opposing side.

The Bilge Khan inscription records a yut in a winter at the fortress of Amga, when Bilge was thirty-two.^[8] A modern account dates the winter to 715.^[9] The translation of the inscription reads yut as “famine”, which is the first sense in Tekin’s glossary.^[10] Others take yut here as a die-off of livestock, caused by the climate or by a large army wintering in a small camp.^[11]

The Xueyantuo

When the Xueyantuo khan Yinan was promised a Tang bride, his people collected a bride-price in horses and sheep.^[12] The Xueyantuo had no treasury and levied the animals from their subjects. The march across the Gobi had too little water and grass, and many horses and sheep died.^[12] By the Tongdian’s count the betrothal animals lost almost half of their number. The emperor then sent the envoys back.^[13] The marriage is treated in Bride-Price in Livestock.

The Uyghurs

The Xin Tang Shu records for 839 that the year was one of hunger.^[12] Disease followed, then heavy snow, and many sheep and horses died.^[12] The Tang Huiyao says that for several years running famine and disease had struck, that dead sheep and horses lay over the ground, and that snow added to the disaster.^[14] In 840 the Kirghiz took the capital, as told in The fall of Ordu-Balık.^[12]

Gaps in the record

The shares of dead livestock are round numbers, half or five in ten or six or seven in ten. The annals do not say how they were obtained. Modern authors set the losses of the sixth century and of the 840s beside climate records. That discussion is in Climate and the steppe empires.

References

^ a b Shiji, juan 110; Han Shu, juan 94
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Han Shu, juan 94
^ a b c d e f Hou Han Shu, juan 89
^ a b Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ Bilge Khan inscription
^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 39
^ Tekin o. J., p. 116
^ Baykara 1990, p. 20–21
^ a b c d e Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
^ Tongdian, juan 199
^ Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98

Sources

Shiji, juan 110
Han Shu, juan 94 (after Shiji)
Hou Han Shu, juan 89
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215, 217 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Tongdian, juan 199 (after Sui Shu and Zhou Shu)
Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
Bilge Khan inscription

Literature

Talât Tekin, Orhon Yazıtları. Kül Tigin, Bilge Kağan, Tunyukuk (o. J.)
Ahmet Taşağıl, Gök-Türkler, Bd. III (2004)
Tuncer Baykara, Göktürk Yazıtlarının Türk İskân (Yerleşme) Tarihindeki Yeri (1990)