Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou

Emperor Wu is the Chinese ruler with whom the Göktürk alliance became a joint war. He came to the throne in 560 as the third emperor Yuwen Hu had set up. He spent twelve years under his cousin’s control. He killed him in 572 and ruled in his own right for six years.

The bargain with Mukan

What he wanted was the Qi. He could not have them without cavalry. The offer he put to Mukan joined two things that had not been joined before. Göktürk and Zhou troops would take the field together. Whatever the Göktürks carried out of Qi territory was theirs to keep. In return Mukan would give him a daughter.^[1]

The campaign that followed failed. The bride was refused for three years. Empress Ashina reached Chang’an only in the third month of 568, where the emperor received her in person.^[2] The Zhou Shu records what the alliance cost in the years after. It cost a hundred thousand pieces of silk, floss and brocade a year. The Göktürks at the capital were fed on meat and clothed in brocade, commonly a thousand at a time.^[3]

The Qi and the end

In 577 he took nearly all of Qi territory without Göktürk help and united northern China.^[4] Taspar at once set up the Qi prince Gao Shaoyi as emperor of a state without territory. He raided Youzhou in the fourth month of 578.^[3] The emperor took command of the six armies himself to march north. He died, and the army turned back.^[3]

His death is the point at which the Zhou alliance began to end. Three years later his son’s father-in-law took the throne and founded the Sui.