Seasonal Pastures

The Chinese histories describe the steppe peoples as moving after water and grass. The formula runs from the Xiongnu to the Uyghurs. It says little about where a people spent the winter and where the summer. A few sources do name a place for each season.

The formula

The Shiji says that the Xiongnu followed their livestock from place to place.^[1] The Han Shu has them follow grass and livestock.^[2] The Zhou Shu describes the Göktürks in one sentence. They wore their hair loose and the coat fastened to the left. They lived in domed felt tents, moved after water and grass, and lived by herding and hunting.^[3] The Sui Shu says of the Tiele that they had no fixed place and moved after water and grass. Those near the western border farmed a little and had many cattle and sheep but few horses.^[4] The Jiu Tang Shu says of the Uyghurs before 744 that they had no fixed dwellings and moved after water and grass.^[5]

Tonyukuk on walls

The Göktürks refused to give up the moves, and the reason is on record. Soon after Bilge Khan came to the throne in 716, he wanted to build walls and set up temples.^[6] His counsellor Tonyukuk advised against it. The Göktürks, he said, were fewer than one hundredth of the Tang. They resisted because they followed water and grass, had no fixed dwelling, lived by hunting and all knew how to fight. When strong, they advanced and raided. When weak, they hid in the mountains and forests. The Tang armies, however large, could do nothing against them.^[6] Behind walls the Göktürks would lose their old way of life, and one defeat would lead to their annexation.^[6] Bilge agreed.^[6]

Winter and summer

The Rouran chief Chelu Hui paid the Wei court a yearly tribute of horses, livestock and sable skins. In winter his people moved to the south of the desert, and in summer they returned to the north.^[7] The Hudud al-Alam says of the Toghuzghuz that they moved from place to place along the grazing grounds in summer and in winter. Their king spent the summer in Panjikath, one of five villages behind a mountain.^[8] The khan of the Kimek had his summer residence in a town named Namakiya.^[9] In winter the Kimek went towards the Ghuz when there was peace between the two peoples.^[9]

Marvazi gives the reason for the winter move. Snow in the country of the Kimek fell as deep as a spear shaft. When it fell so heavily, the Kimek drove their animals to the country of the Ghuz.^[10] They had underground dwellings that they prepared for winter and used in severe cold.^[10] Ibn Fadlan saw how the Oghuz sheep fed in winter. They scraped the snow away with their hooves to find grass.^[11] The Göktürk army had a winter camp as well, the fortress of Amga. The Kül Tegin inscription says that the army wintered there and went out against the Oguz in the spring.^[12] The Bilge Khan inscription records a famine there in a winter when Bilge was thirty-two.^[13]

Pasture granted by a ruler

Pasture could be given. Around 600 the Sui court settled Yami Khan, the Göktürk khan it supported and whom the Chinese call Qimin, in the Ordos between the prefectures of Xia and Sheng.^[4] It dug a trench several hundred li long from river to river and made the whole enclosed country pasture for him.^[4] Yami wrote that his people, sheep and horses filled the mountains and valleys, some inside the Great Wall and some at Baidao.^[4] In 601 another Göktürk force crossed the river and drove off 6,000 of Yami’s people and more than 200,000 head of mixed livestock.^[4] The Sui general Yang Su pursued them and gave the people and the animals back to Yami.^[4]

After the fall of Ilig Khan the Tang did the same on a larger scale. It placed the surrendered Göktürk tribes south of the river and let them graze. Their households, sheep and horses, said Taizong, grew in number every day.^[6] In 641 Ashina Simo led his people north across the river, and the Xin Tang Shu counts more than 100,000 people, 40,000 soldiers and 90,000 horses.^[14] His seat was the old town of Dingxiang.^[14] The country between the Yellow River in the south and Baidao in the north was wide pasture, the best of the wastes, according to the Xin Tang Shu.^[14] Taizong told Simo that he had been glad to see the sheep and horses of the Göktürks increase, as one is glad to see a planted tree grow.^[14]

The Jiu Tang Shu records a dispute over pasture in the fourth month of 648.^[15] Frontier tribes beyond the desert quarrelled about herds of horses grazing across a boundary, and the emperor decided the case himself. Both sides accepted it.^[15]

Gaps in the sources

The sources do not give the routes of the moves or the dates on which a people left a pasture. They name the seasons and the places of a few courts. They do not say whether the khaganates of the Orkhon moved their herds along fixed stages.

References

^ Shiji, juan 110
^ Han Shu, juan 94
^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
^ a b c d e f Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
^ a b c d e Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ Wei Shu, juan 103
^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1937, p. 94
^ a b Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1937, p. 100
^ a b Marvazī (Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān); Minorsky 1942, p. 32
^ Ibn Fadlan; Canard 1958, p. 83
^ Kül Tegin inscription
^ Bilge Khan inscription
^ a b c d Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3

Sources

Shiji, juan 110
Han Shu, juan 94 (after Shiji)
Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
Wei Shu, juan 103
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3, 194, 195
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam
Marvazī (Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān)
Ibn Fadlan
Kül Tegin inscription
Bilge Khan inscription

Literature

V. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, "The Regions of the World": A Persian Geography 372 A.H. – 982 A.D., translated and explained, with the preface by V. V. Barthold (1937)
V. Minorsky, Sharaf al-Zamān Ṭāhir Marvazī on China, the Turks and India (1942)
M. Canard, La relation du voyage d'Ibn Fadlān chez les Bulgares de la Volga (1958)