The steppe empires left no manual of war. What is known of how they fought comes from three kinds of witness. The Chinese histories saw the steppe armies from the frontier. The Byzantine and Armenian writers met them in the west and in the Caucasus. The Göktürk inscriptions tell of campaigns in the voice of the men who led them. The Chinese histories call a Göktürk campaign a raid. The inscriptions call it süle-, the march of an army.[1] The practices that the sources name are gathered below, each with the witnesses that report it. Where only one witness stands, the text says so. The order of the hosts is described in Army of the Steppe Empires.

Horse and bow

The Shiji gives the Xiongnu the bow as their long weapon and the knife and the short lance as their short ones.[2] In times of ease the people followed the herds and lived by hunting. When danger came, every man practised attack and war.[2] The Zhou Shu lists the Göktürk arms: bows and arrows, whistling arrows, armour, lances, knives and swords.[3] The Sui Shu calls the Göktürks skilled at riding and shooting.[4] The weapons are described in Göktürk Weapons and the bow in Composite Bow. The skill is told in Mounted Archery, and the horse in Horse Harness. The hunt as training is told in Hunting among the Göktürks and Battue.

The Strategikon, a Byzantine handbook of the late sixth or early seventh century, describes the Turks and the Avars from outside the steppe. They wear mail and carry swords, bows and lances. Most attack doubly armed, with lances slung over the shoulders and bows in the hands. The horses of their illustrious men are covered in front with iron or felt. They give special attention to archery on horseback.[5] A vast herd of horses follows them, to give food and to give the impression of a huge army.[5] The handbook says that they stay mounted against infantry in close formation, because they do not last long fighting on foot.[6] The inscriptions show that Göktürks could also fight on foot. The founding band of seven hundred was two parts mounted and one part on foot.[7] Kül Tegin at sixteen charged a Chinese army on foot.[8] In the mountains Tonyukuk had his men lead their horses and climb on foot, holding to the trees.[9]

The moon, the season and the horse

The Shiji says that the Xiongnu began an enterprise by watching the stars and the moon. When the moon was full they attacked, and when it waned they withdrew.[10] The Sui Shu says that the Göktürks raided when the moon was about to be full.[4] Neither text gives a reason.[11]

The sources tie the season to the condition of the horses. In autumn, when the horses were fat, the Xiongnu held their great assembly at Dailin.[2] Zhonghang Yue told the Han envoys that if the goods the Han sent were poor, the Xiongnu would wait for the autumn harvest and trample the crops with their cavalry.[2] Of the Xiongnu raids on the Han frontier that the Shiji dates to a season, four fall in autumn, one in summer and one in winter.[2] A Han general took the autumn as a time not to fight. In 99 BC Lu Bode asked to hold back the army of Li Ling until spring, because the Xiongnu horses were fat in autumn.[12]

For the Göktürks the sources give the other end of the year. In 630 Ilig Khan, beaten and in flight, gave signs of submission while he waited for the grass to green and the horses to grow fat, so that he could escape north of the desert.[13] The Strategikon advises its officers to attack Scythians in February or March, when their horses are in a wretched state after the winter.[14] The Kül Tegin inscription gives the same fact from the Göktürk side. After the Iron Gate, it says, the army’s horses were lean and it had no provisions, and the Black Türgeš became enemies again.[15] Not every campaign waited for the right season. The Göktürks crossed the Kögmen mountains against the Kırgız through snow deep enough to bury a spear.[16] The Zhou Shu puts the siege of Jiuquan in the winter of 578; see Siege of Jiuquan.[3]

Scouts and news

The Strategikon says that the Turks and Avars place their sentries at some distance, in contact with one another, so that a surprise attack on them is not easy.[17] In 133 BC the chanyu rode into the Han frontier with a hundred thousand horse.[2] He saw livestock spread over the country with no herdsmen and grew suspicious. He attacked a watch-post and took its officer, who told him where the Han troops lay in wait. The chanyu said he had suspected as much, and turned back.[2] The episode is told in Mayi Ambush. In 166 BC the chanyu entered with 140,000 horse.[10] He sent a raiding party to burn the Huizhong palace, and his scouting cavalry reached Ganquan.[10]

In Tonyukuk’s account news comes by men who bring word from the enemy. A man who had fled from the Oguz told of a league forming against the Göktürks.[18] A man from the Türgeš khan reported that the Türgeš and the Ten Arrows had set out.[19] Three men then came one after another with the same report.[20] Earlier editions read the word for these men as “spy” or “scout”. Tekin reads it as “fugitive”.[21] The khan told Tonyukuk to stay where he was and to keep a careful watch.[22]

Information also came from defectors. During the pursuit of Li Ling in 99 BC the Xiongnu, who were losing, wished to withdraw. Then a Han officer who had been humiliated by his superior went over and told the chanyu that Li Ling had no relief, that his arrows were nearly spent and that his best troops stood in front, under yellow and white pennants. The chanyu attacked with all his riders and had Li Ling and Han Yannian called on to surrender.[12] He had summoned more than eighty thousand horse from the left and right lands. His riders shot from the hills on every side and rolled stones down on the Han column in the gorge.[12]

Retreat, lure and ambush

The Shiji says of the Xiongnu that they advance when there is gain and retreat when there is none, and feel no shame in flight.[2] The best-known use of the retreat is Baideng. In the cold of the winter of 200 BC Modu made a show of defeat and drew the Han after him.[2] He hid his best troops and let only the weak and thin be seen. The Han emperor came north with three hundred and twenty thousand men, most of them foot, and Modu shut him up on the hill of Baideng.[2] The Shiji adds that the Xiongnu horses stood in four blocks by colour: white in the west, bluish-grey in the east, black in the north and bay in the south.[2] See Siege of Baideng.

Zhao Xin, a Xiongnu-born Han marquis who had gone back to the chanyu, gave the opposite counsel. The chanyu should go further north across the desert, to lure the Han army and wear it out, and strike when it reached the end of its strength. He should not stay near the frontier.[10] The chanyu followed him. In 119 BC the Han sent a hundred thousand horse across the desert.[2] The chanyu sent his baggage far away and waited north of the desert with picked troops.[2] The battle with Wei Qing’s army lasted a day. At dusk a great wind rose, and the Han wings closed on the chanyu. He judged that he could not fight the Han army and broke out to the north-west with several hundred strong horsemen.[2] The plan did not hold on the day. The Han took nineteen thousand heads.[2] See Mobei Campaign.

The Strategikon names simulated retreats and sudden returns among the things the Scythians prefer.[17] It describes the Scythian ambush. A smaller part of the army is drawn up. When the lines clash, those soldiers turn to flight, and the enemy chases them and loses order. The enemy rides past the place where the ambush lies, and the hidden units strike its rear. The fleeing troops turn about, and the enemy is caught in the middle. The handbook says that the Scythian peoples do this all the time.[23] The Kül Tegin and Tonyukuk inscriptions name no feigned retreat.[24]

The Chinese record a way of fighting that used distance and supply. In the winter of 720 the Tang planned an attack on the Göktürk camp for the next autumn.[25] Tonyukuk advised Bilge Khan that, if the Tang army came, he should move the camp three days north. The Tang provisions would run out, and the army would leave.[25] The Tang army did not come. In the autumn of 721 the Basmil came alone.[25] Tonyukuk would not strike a host that stood a thousand li from home, because such men fight to the death. He had it followed instead. Two hundred li from Beiting he sent troops by a side road to seize the city, and then struck the Basmil as they turned back. They scattered and found Beiting taken.[25] In the same account Tonyukuk went on to plunder the herds of Liangzhou.[25]

Baideng, 200 BC: feigned flight and encirclement1WinterFrost; two or three Han soldiers in ten lose fingers.2Feigned defeatModu hides his picked troops and shows only the weak and lean.3Pursuit320,000 Han, mostly foot; the emperor reaches Pingcheng first.4The ringThe picked horse close in: 400,000 (Shiji), over 300,000 (Han Shu).5Seven daysInside and outside cannot help each other.6A corner opensThe Han leave with bows drawn outward.BAIDENGnorth · blacksouth · chestnuteast · blue-greywest · whiteColours of the horses as the Shiji gives them; schematic, not to scale.© Emre-E Yavuz 2026
The siege of the Han emperor at Baideng in 200 BC, step by step. A modern diagram after Shiji 110, with the numbers of the Han Shu beside it; it shows no terrain, routes or strengths beyond what the sources give. Diagram: Turkic Atlas.

Surprise by night

The Kül Tegin inscription describes two campaigns that began with an attack on sleepers. Against the Kırgız the army broke a way through snow deep enough to bury a spear, crossed the Kögmen range and fell on the Kırgız in their sleep. It then fought their khan in the Songa forest and killed him.[26] Tonyukuk tells the same march from the side of the planner. The army rode ten nights along the mountainside through snow. It rode day and night at the gallop and fell on the Kırgız in their sleep, and the Kırgız khan was killed.[27] The campaign is told in Göktürk Campaign against the Kirghiz.

Against the Türgeš the army crossed the Altai range without a road and forded the Irtysh where there was no ford. It marched by night and reached Bolchu before dawn, in Tonyukuk’s account.[28] The Kül Tegin inscription says that the army fell on the Türgeš in their sleep. Then the Türgeš khan’s army came at Bolchu “like fire, like a storm”, and the Göktürks fought.[29] See Battle of Bolchu.

Steppe armies were surprised in the same way. In 124 BC the Right Worthy King of the Xiongnu thought the Han could not reach him, and was drinking.[2] The Han army, which had come out six or seven hundred li beyond the frontier, surrounded him by night, and he escaped with his best horsemen behind him.[2] In the first month of 630 the Tang general Li Jing struck Ilig Khan at Dingxiang by night, and the khan moved his camp to the edge of the desert.[25] See Night Attack on Dingxiang. In the second month, while a Tang embassy was with the khan, Li Jing chose ten thousand picked horse with twenty days’ provisions and marched by night. A vanguard of two hundred riders went forward in fog and came within seven li of the khan’s camp before the Göktürks noticed. The khan rode off on a horse of a thousand li, and his host broke.[13]

Raid, plunder and booty

The Shiji gives the Xiongnu a rule of booty. The man who cut off a head or took a prisoner received a cup of wine and kept the plunder he had taken. A captive became his slave.[2] The man who carried a dead comrade back from the battle received the whole property of the dead man.[2] Every man fought for his own gain, says the Shiji. The Xiongnu were skilled at luring an enemy, and they gathered round the prey like flocks of birds. When beaten they scattered like tiles and clouds.[2]

The Chinese histories report the Göktürk practice in the same terms. At Jinyang in 564 the Göktürk host, which had come in a hundred thousand horse to join a Zhou army of ten thousand, failed to take the city.[3] Mukan then let his troops plunder far and wide and went home.[3] The Zhou general Yang Zhong said that the Göktürks’ ranks and rewards were light and their chiefs many and without law.[3] See Jinyang Campaign. In 578 Taspar Khan besieged Jiuquan, plundered widely and withdrew.[3] In the war with the Sui, Ishbara sent his troops into the empire by two roads, and in seven commanderies the livestock was all taken.[4] In 601 Göktürk chiefs struck south and carried off from the khan Qimin six thousand men and women and more than two hundred thousand head of livestock.[4] The Sui general Yang Su chased them for more than sixty li, fighting, and took back the people and the herds.[4] The practice of the raid is told in Livestock Raids and Livestock Losses.

The inscriptions name booty by its parts. After the fight with the Black Türgeš, the Kül Tegin inscription says, Kül Tegin killed the men of the governor Košu and brought home their households and goods without leaving anything.[30] After the march to the Iron Gate, Tonyukuk says, gold, silver, girls and women and goods in abundance were brought. The verb can be understood as “carried home”, which makes the goods booty, or as “brought before us”, which makes them gifts of the submitted peoples.[31] The Strategikon sets the Scythians apart from the Romans and Persians on this point. When they put an enemy to flight, it says, they are not content with pursuing a reasonable distance and plundering goods. They go on until the enemy is destroyed.[17]

Walls and sieges

The steppe armies seldom took walled places. At Jinyang in 564 the Göktürks and their Zhou allies did not take the city.[3] At Jiuquan in 578 they plundered and withdrew.[3] In 615 Shibi Khan surrounded the Sui emperor at Yanmen and withdrew when the relief armies came up.[4] See Siege of Yanmen. The Strategikon says that if the enemy takes refuge in a fortress, the Scythians look for any shortage of necessities for horses or men and wear the garrison down by it. They begin with light demands and make them stricter once these are accepted.[17]

Two places are recorded as falling to the steppe armies of the west. In 576 Menander says that Turxanthos sent Bochan with a very large Göktürk force against the Roman city of Bosporos, where Anagai already lay encamped.[32] The city fell while the Roman envoys were still among the Göktürks.[32] See Siege of Bosporos. At Tiflis in the Caucasus campaign the northern army, which the Albanian chronicle calls Khazar, surrounded the town with four-wheeled ballistae and other engines built by Roman engineers, for the emperor Heraclius had joined the siege. The engines hurled boulders at the walls, and hides filled with stones and sand were used to make the river Kur overflow against them.[33] The defenders repaired every breach. In the second siege the besiegers stormed the walls after two months, climbing on one another until they topped them.[34] The identity of the northern army with the Göktürks is disputed. See Siege of Tiflis.

Tonyukuk argued against walls. Bilge Khan wished to build a city and temples. Tonyukuk said that the Göktürks were not a hundredth of the Tang in number and held out because they followed water and grass and lived by hunting. If they built walls and a single defeat came, the Tang would absorb them.[25]

The wolf standard and the signals

The Zhou Shu says that a golden wolf’s head stood on the standards of the Göktürks.[3] The Sui Shu and the Xin Tang Shu place a wolf-head standard at the gate of the khan’s tent or court.[35] The standard is described in Tuğ, the wolf in Wolf and the guard that bore the wolf’s name in Böri (Guard). The Uyghurs kept the wolf standard. When the Uyghur khan joined the Tang general Guo Ziyi against the Tongluo, he drew up his troops and made Guo Ziyi bow before the wolf standard before he received him.[36]

Banners could also carry a message of support. Bagha Khan, whom the Chinese call Chuluohou, had received drums and banners from the Sui. He marched west against Apa with the Sui banners and drums.[4] The enemy believed that he had Sui troops behind him, many came over, and he took Apa alive.[4] See Capture of Apa and Drums and Banners.

The sources name few signals. The Shiji tells how Modu trained his riders to shoot wherever his whistling arrow struck.[2] The Zhou Shu lists the whistling arrow among Göktürk weapons.[3] No source says that the Göktürks used it as a signal. For the call-up of troops the Zhou Shu describes a token. It was notched wood, with an arrow with a head of gold, sealed with wax.[3] See Tally Sticks and the Golden Arrow.

The khan and his council

Modu took counsel from his ministers, and he did not accept all of it. When the Donghu demanded a stretch of waste land, he asked his ministers. Some said it hardly mattered whether it was given. Modu said that land was the root of a state, beheaded those who had spoken for giving it, mounted and ordered that anyone in the realm who lagged be beheaded. He rode east and destroyed the Donghu, who had made no preparation.[2]

In Tonyukuk’s account every campaign begins with counsel. He laid the news before his khan, and the khan answered: “Lead them as your heart tells you.”[37] Later the khan, who wished to go home for the funeral of his katun, sent the army out and told Tonyukuk to lead it. If the enemy came, he was to gather the men and stand, and if not, to stay where he was and gather word and tidings.[38] The khan could also act behind his counsellor’s back. He sent secret word to Apa Tarkan not to consent if Tonyukuk proposed to ride out.[39] Tonyukuk rode out. At Bolchu the begs heard that a hundred thousand men were assembled and all said that they should turn back. Tonyukuk said that Heaven, Umay and the holy Earth-and-Water had delivered the enemy into their hands. “Why should we flee?” he said. “Why should we be afraid because they are many? Why should we be overcome because we are few? Let us attack!” They attacked.[40]

The Jiu Tang Shu says that Bilge Khan summoned Tonyukuk, then over seventy years old, as his chief of plans.[25] Theophylact Simocatta reports that a khan who faced a rebel called on three other great khans, whose arrays assembled at the Ikar.[41]

After the battle

The accounts of what followed a victory agree in outline. The beaten ruler was killed or taken, and his peoples came over. At Bolchu the Göktürks took the Türgeš khan and killed his yabgu and shad. They took about fifty prisoners and sent word to the Türgeš peoples the same night. The begs and the Ten Arrows then came and submitted, and Tonyukuk gathered them, set them in order and sent the army of the Ten Arrows on with his own.[42] After the same victory the Kül Tegin inscription says that the Black Türgeš all submitted and were settled at Tabar.[43] After the Kırgız victory it says that the Kırgız khan was killed and his realm taken.[44] Bilge Khan set the Kırgız khan up as a balbal for his uncle.[45] See Burial and Balbal. The Sui Shu says that the Göktürks held death in battle an honour and death from illness a shame; see The Honour of Death in Battle.[4]

A Xiongnu host could break up after a defeat. After Mobei, the Shiji says, the chanyu’s men mingled with the Han troops in the flight and followed him as they could. He lost touch with his host for a long time. The Right Guli King thought the chanyu dead and made himself chanyu. The true chanyu found his host again, and the Right Guli King gave up the title.[2] The Strategikon describes the Scythians as slow to accept a defeat. It says that they alone make a habit of immediately retrieving it, and that they do not give up when worsted in the first battle, but try every means until their strength gives out.[46]

Limits of the evidence

No source gives a drill, a system of signals, an order of march or the supply of an army on the march. The inscriptions tell of speed, night marches and attacks on sleepers, and say nothing of formations. For the line of battle the Strategikon is the only witness, and it describes Scythians in general.[47]

References

  1. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Kül Tegin inscription
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Shiji, juan 110
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  5. ^ a b Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 116; Dennis 1984, p. 116
  6. ^ Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 117–118; Dennis 1984, p. 117–118
  7. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  8. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  9. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  10. ^ a b c d Shiji, juan 110; Han Shu, juan 94
  11. ^ Shiji, juan 110; Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  12. ^ a b c Han Shu, juan 54
  13. ^ a b Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 193
  14. ^ Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 65; Dennis 1984, p. 65
  15. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  16. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  17. ^ a b c d Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 117; Dennis 1984, p. 117
  18. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  19. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  20. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  21. ^ Tekin 1994
  22. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  23. ^ Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 52–53; Dennis 1984, p. 52–53
  24. ^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  26. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  27. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  28. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  29. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  30. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  31. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  32. ^ a b Menander Protector
  33. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 85
  34. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 94
  35. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  36. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  37. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  38. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  39. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  40. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  41. ^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, VII.8.9–10, p. 190
  42. ^ Tonyukuk inscription
  43. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  44. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  45. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  46. ^ Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c., p. 72, 118; Dennis 1984, p. 72, 118
  47. ^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription; Pseudo-Maurikios late 6th/early 7th c.

Sources

Literature

  • Pseudo-Maurikios, Strategikon (late 6th/early 7th c.)
  • George T. Dennis (trans.), Maurice's Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy (1984)
  • Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)
  • Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
  • Talât Tekin, Tunyukuk Yazıtı (1994)

Related

What links here1

Institutions and Titles
Army of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Warfare of the Steppe Empires.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/warfare-of-the-steppe-empires/

Last revised: 8 November 2026