Ögä is the reading of the name of the Uyghur prince whom the Chinese texts call Wujie.[1] After the Kirghiz burned the Uyghur court in 840, thirteen clans of the royal camp made him khan. He led them south to the Tang frontier.[2] He had taken the princess Taihe from her Kirghiz escort and held her as a hostage.[3] A Tang army broke his camp in 843. He was killed afterwards.[4]

Name and family

The Tang Huiyao says that Wujie Tegin was the younger brother of the khan Sa and the uncle of the khan Hu Tegin.[5] Sa had reigned from 824. Hu was his nephew, who took the throne in 832.[4] No Turkic form of his name is attested.[1]

Khan of the survivors

The Xin Tang Shu says that after the burning of the camp thirteen clans of the royal camp raised Wujie Tegin as khan. It says that he went south to hold Mount Cuozi.[4] The Jiu Tang Shu has the same thirteen tribes raise him. In its account he comes south to submit to the Chinese.[3] The Tang Huiyao has him lead a force south. In its account he names himself khan at Mount Cuozi, where he settled on the frontier.[5]

His people were a remnant. Fifteen tribes had gone to the Karluks, and others had gone to Tibet and Anxi. The rest followed him.[4] In 842 the Jiu Tang Shu still has his tribes call themselves 100,000. It says later that of that number fewer than 3,000 were left.[3]

The princess

The Kirghiz had taken Taihe at the burning of the camp. They sent her home with an escort of ten dagan, because they held themselves to be of the same clan as the Tang.[6] Wujie was angry. He pursued the escort and killed the dagan. He carried the princess south across the desert, and the people of the frontier were afraid.[4] He asked the Tang for the city of Tiande to live in with her.[3] When he attacked Tiande, the military governor Liu Mian held the Yunjia pass against him and drove him off.[4]

At the frontier

The Tang court was divided. The chief minister Li Deyu argued that the Uyghurs had earlier done the dynasty service. They were now hungry and in disorder, and their khan had nowhere to go. Therefore they should be fed and not attacked.[4] The emperor sent Wang Hui to comfort his people with 20,000 hu of grain and refused him the loan of Zhenwu. He ordered the envoy who carried the decree of investiture to delay his journey and wait for a change.[4] The Tang Huiyao adds that the court sent officials to proclaim its will and to give food. It returned the silk owed for horses. It stationed an envoy with the credentials at Hedong, to give them to the khan once he had settled.[5] No source records that the decree was handed over.[7]

The khan broke the peace. In the autumn of 842 his camp stood at Lümen Mountain north of Datong. He raided the districts of Tiande, Zhenwu, Yun and Shuo again and again.[3] He took Taihe with him and plundered the border. He entered Yunzhou without leave.[7] The Tang emperor judged that Heaven had counted out his days. The court ordered the military governors of Hedong and Youzhou to send troops.[8]

Rival Uyghur leaders did not submit to him. The chancellor Chixin was lured to the khan’s tent and killed there. Wujie later caught and killed the tegin Naxiechuo, who had seized Chixin’s tents.[3] Many of his people went over to the Tang. Among them was the chief Wumosi, who was given the Tang surname Li and the name Sizhong.[4] Wumosi is the man the literature writes Ormïzt.[9]

Shahu Mountain

In the first days of 843 the khan raided Zhenwu. Liu Mian, who had leave to act without the court, resolved to strike his camp.[10] Before the attack the Uyghur official Pugu Yi had offered to hand Taihe to the Tang commander at Youzhou. The khan’s camp stood eighty li from the Youzhou border.[3] That night Liu Mian’s troops fell on it. Wujie fled some four hundred li to the north-east, too late to take the princess with him.[3] The Xin Tang Shu says that Shi Xiong pursued him to Shahu Mountain and that he was wounded and fled. According to it, tens of thousands of his people surrendered with the baggage and the decrees the Tang had sent him.[4] The Tang Huiyao dates the victory to the first month of the third year of Huichang. It has the khan escape over the mountain with a hundred riders.[5]

The battle was fought on 13 February 843.[11] About 10,000 Uyghurs were killed, and between 5,000 and 20,000 were taken. The khan escaped with several hundred men to the Black Carts of the Shiwei.[11] The Jiu Tang Shu has him camp among the Shiwei and marry his sister to them. The Xin Tang Shu has him go to the Black Carts.[6] The sources do not make clear whether the Black Carts and the Shiwei are one group.[12]

The last years

In 845 a report from the Tang commander at Zhenwu put the khan’s camp 300 li north of Tiande.[13] His followers numbered about 1,500. They were poorly equipped and lived by raiding other tribes and stealing their animals.[13] Li Deyu hoped that the Kirghiz khan, once the Tang had confirmed his title, would attack them in the autumn of 845. No such attack came.[13] The Kirghiz asked for troops against the Uyghur remnant. The embassies of 842 to 844 are told in their own article.[4]

The Jiu Tang Shu says that the Uyghur minister Yiyin Chor forced the Uyghurs to kill Wujie at Gold Mountain. It says that they made his brother Enian khan.[3] The Xin Tang Shu says that the Black Carts killed him. Hongshun, the former Uyghur chief Aiyewu who had gone over to the Tang, had tempted them with gain and offered a reward for his death. His people then raised his brother Enian.[4] The killing took place some time in 846.[14] One study judges the Gold Mountain of the Jiu Tang Shu, the Altai, too far west to be plausible. It puts the killing farther east, nearer the Black Carts.[14]

Enian’s people lived on the supplies of the Xi chief Shuoshelang.[2] They numbered under 3,000 when Wujie was killed and rose to more than 5,000 under Enian.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 112
  2. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  5. ^ a b c d Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  6. ^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  7. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  8. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  9. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 157
  10. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 112–113
  11. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 114
  12. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 156
  13. ^ a b c Drompp 2005, p. 150
  14. ^ a b c Drompp 2005, p. 155

Sources

Literature

  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)
  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)

Related

What links here15

Persons
Apa (Kirghiz Chancellor) · Du-lü-shi Alp · Emperor Wuzong of Tang · Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (846–859) · Hesa Khan · Li Deyu · Li Shi (Tang envoy) · Princess Taihe · Shi Xiong
Battles & Events
Kirghiz campaign against the Shiwei (848) · Rescue of Princess Taihe (840–843) · Tang investiture of the Kirghiz (847)
Peoples
Heichezi
Institutions and Titles
Livestock Raids · Sheep

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Ögä Khan.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/oga-khan/

Last revised: 7 November 2026