Du-lü-shi Alp

Du-lü-shi Alp was a general of the Kirghiz. After the fall of the Uyghur khaganate, their khan sent him to escort the Tang princess Taihe back to her own court.^[1] The source that names him is the petition that the first Kirghiz envoy, Ta-bu-he-zu, brought to Tiande in 842.^[1]

The petition

According to the petition, the Kirghiz had obtained the princess in destroying the Uyghurs. They had not dared to detain her, because their nation was of the same surname as the Tang. They had deputed General Du-lü-shi Alp to escort her back to the southern court. Since then they had learned nothing. They did not know whether the party had reached the Tang or had been cut off on the way, and their envoys had not come back.^[1] The Kirghiz then sent out troops to search.^[1]

The escort in the histories

The Xin Tang Shu and the Jiu Tang Shu tell the escort without his name. The Xin Tang Shu says that the Kirghiz sent envoys, dagan, who brought the princess home.^[2] The Jiu Tang Shu says that they sent ten dagan to take her to the frontier.^[3] In the Jiu Tang Shu the Uyghur prince Wujie meets the envoys on the road. In the Xin Tang Shu he pursues them in anger. Both say that he killed them and took the princess south across the desert.^[4]

The Zizhi tongjian has ten Kirghiz officials with the title tarqan. The petition has one general.^[5] The letters of Li Deyu to the Kirghiz khan say that all the envoys the khan sent with the princess were killed. They say that the Uyghurs took her five days after she had left the khan.^[6] A general at the head of ten officers would satisfy all three accounts. None of the sources says so.

Name

The element alp, Chinese he, is a very common part of Turkic names and titles. It presents no difficulty. The Tang pronunciation of the first three syllables suggests something like Tölish.^[1]

If the letters are right that all the envoys were killed, the general was among the dead. No source says so by name.^[7]