In the sixth month of 551 the Western Wei gave the princess Changle to Bumin.[1] The marriage is the second half of the bargain that the embassy of 545 had opened.[1] The Wei wanted the Ashina against the Rouran. Bumin wanted the standing that a Chinese princess conferred. Anagui had refused him that standing in 546 with the words about a blacksmith slave.[1]
Of the woman herself the chapter gives the name and the year, and nothing more. The Chinese histories name princesses when they are given and forget them afterwards. This princess is no exception.
The bargain
The Zhou Shu sets the marriage inside a sequence of events. The sequence is what matters here. Bumin had intercepted the Tiele as they marched against the Rouran. He broke them and took the submission of more than fifty thousand tents.[1] On the strength of that success he asked Anagui for a marriage. Anagui answered with the sentence that decided the next two years: you are my blacksmith slave, how dare you say such a thing?[1]
Bumin killed the envoy who brought the answer. He broke with the Rouran and asked the Wei instead.[1] Yuwen Tai agreed. In the sixth month of 551 the Wei princess Changle was given to Bumin in marriage.[1] That same year the Wei emperor Wen died, and Bumin sent an embassy of condolence with two hundred horses. In the first month of the following year he marched. He broke the Rouran north of Huaihuang, and Anagui killed himself.[1]
Seven months lie between the marriage and the campaign. The insult had been about standing, and the answer to it was a Chinese princess. What Anagui refused, the Wei supplied. The refusal and the supply are the two halves of one transaction.
Gaps in the sources
The Bei Shi gives the same account in almost the same words. It is therefore not a second witness.[2] Between them the two texts give the woman her title, her house and the month she was handed over. They give nothing else: not her age, not her father, not her name, not what became of her when Bumin died the following year.[1]
This is the ordinary fate of a princess in these chapters. She is recorded at the moment she becomes an instrument of policy and drops out of the sources when the policy has worked. The Chinese histories follow one Göktürk consort. She is Empress Ashina, who went the other way, from the steppe to a Chinese throne. She is followed because she mattered at a Chinese court.
References
Sources
- Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
- Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99 (after Wei Shu, Zhou Shu and Sui Shu)
What links here6
- States
- Western Wei
- Battles & Events
- Proclamation of Bumin Khan (552) · The Göktürk–Wei alliance · The Rouran Marriage Refusal (546)
- Institutions and Titles
- Katun · Women among the Turkic Peoples
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Princess Changle.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/changle-princess/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
