Ozmish Khan

The Tang history calls him the Left Shad. He was one of two cousins of Bilge Khan who between them commanded the army during the regency of the boy khan Tengri. The Left Shad controlled the east, and the Right Shad controlled the west.^[1] Tengri and his mother lured the Right Shad to them and beheaded him. The Left Shad, “fearing the same fate, led his troops against Tengri and killed him, and set himself up under the name Wusumishi Khan”.^[1] He was not accepted either. The Tang history says: “the Basmïl tribe rose in arms against him. The Left Shad was heavily defeated and fled for his life, and the whole country fell into chaos.”^[1] The Göktürk chapter of the Jiu Tang Shu ends with that sentence and with the list of the princesses and princes who went over to the Tang and were received in Chang’an in the eighth month of 742.^[1]

The other account

Ozmish was a Göktürk shad, and the Basmïl were his enemies. That is what the Tang history says.^[1] The Uyghur chapter of the same history says that in 744 the Basmïl were led by a chief named Ashina Shi. The Tang had recognised him as khan.^[2] A second account tells the end differently.^[3] In it a coalition of Basmïl, Karluk and Uyghurs topples the dynasty in 742. The Basmïl chieftain Ozmïš is proclaimed khan. In 744 an Uyghur-led coalition topples him in turn, and this is the birth of the Uyghur Khaganate.^[3] It is a position, not the account of the sources.^[3] That the last Ashina khan of the Orkhon fell in 744 to the Uyghurs is common to every account.

Account of the Xin Tang Shu

The lower chapter of the Xin Tang Shu contains the end that the Jiu Tang Shu lacks. It tells the beginning differently. In it the Left Shad is Pan Kül Tegin. He set up a son of Bilge. The yabgu Guduo killed the boy. Pan Kül Tegin then set up the boy’s brother, whom the yabgu killed in turn before making himself khan.^[4] At the start of Tianbao the Uyghurs, Karluk and Basmïl rose together against the yabgu and killed him. They raised the Basmïl chief as Jiedie Yishi Khan.^[4] The Uyghurs and Karluk made themselves his yabgus of left and right. The people set up Pan Kül Tegin’s son as Wusumishi Khan, with his own son as Right Shad.^[4] The emperor sent envoys ordering him to submit. He would not, and his people would not follow him. The three tribes attacked him together.^[4] In the third year of Tianbao, 744, the Basmïl killed him and sent his head to the capital. It was offered in the ancestral temple.^[4] His younger brother, the tegin Gulongfu, was set up as Baimei Khan. The country fell into turmoil.^[4] The Tang general Wang Zhongsi struck the eleven tribes of the left. Meanwhile the Uyghurs and Karluk killed the Basmïl khan and set up the Uyghur Guli Peiluo as Kutluk Bilge Kül Khan.^[4] In the next year they killed Baimei Khan and sent his head. Bilge Khan’s widow, the Katun Guduolu Pofu, came in with her people. She was made a lady of the court with a yearly allowance.^[4] With that, the chapter says, the Göktürk state that had begun under the Western Wei was no more. Its lands passed wholly to the Uyghurs.^[4]

References

^ a b c d e Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ Mackerras 1972
^ a b c Golden 1992
^ a b c d e f g h i Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215

Sources

Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)