Shibi Khan

Shibi took back in ten years what his father had given away in twelve. The Jiu Tang Shu admits it, although it was written for the dynasty he helped to power.^[1] All peoples from the Khitan and Shiwei in the east to the Tuyuhun and Gaochang in the west were his subjects. He had more than a million archers, “such strength among the northern barbarians there had never been”.^[1] From the Yinshan he looked down on China.^[1]

Accession (609)

When Yami died the Sui emperor installed his son Duojishi as Shibi Khan. Shibi asked to marry his father’s widow, the princess Yicheng, and the emperor allowed it according to Göktürk custom.^[2] The reign turned away from his father’s policy from its first years.^[3] Shibi reorganised the army, which had been neglected under Yami. He strengthened the mounted archers and made the tribes furnish their old contingents in return for wider autonomy. He also revived old alliances with the steppe peoples.^[3] From 612 the influence of Chinese advisers at Ötüken was reduced.^[3] Economic independence through trade with Persia and the Sogdian cities was the ground of political autonomy. The greatest danger, he saw, lay in China.^[3] For the first years the Sui Shu records only a visit to the eastern capital in 615.^[2]

Yanmen (615)

That summer the emperor Yangdi went to the Fenyang palace to escape the heat. In the eighth month Shibi led his people into the frontier and surrounded him at Yanmen.^[2] The emperor called up troops from every commandery. When the relief armies arrived, Shibi withdrew, and from then on the tribute stopped.^[2] The Zizhi Tongjian dates the encirclement to 11 September 615. It has the emperor weeping all day in fear, gives the counsel of Yuwen Shu for a sortie and of Su Wei against it, and tells the ruse that ended the siege.^[3] The princess Yicheng, Shibi’s wife, spread a false report in the Göktürk camp of an attack from the north. Shibi raised the siege. As the account puts it, “once again it was a woman from China who did the Turks’ fortunes harm.”^[3] The next year Shibi raided Mayi, and the duke of Tang, Li Yuan, drove him off.^[2] Yanmen belongs in the context of two events. One is the Sui’s Koguryŏ wars, with at least three hundred thousand Chinese dead by the Sui Shu’s own count. The other is the peasant risings of 612 to 614, which Shibi supported with money and men from Ötüken.^[3]

Warlords of the north

As the Sui fell apart, countless Chinese went over to him. His state grew strong enough to overshadow China.^[2] He received the Sui empress Xiao and settled her at Dingxiang.^[2] Xue Ju, Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, Liu Wuzhou, Liang Shidu, Li Gui, Gao Kaidao and their like each usurped an imperial title. Yet all faced north as his subjects and received khan’s titles from him. Envoys were never out of sight on the roads between.^[2] The titles are recorded.^[3] According to some scholars, Liang Shidu was Dayidu Bilge Khan, with a wolf’s-head standard, and with his help the Göktürks occupied the Ordos. Afterwards he was “Son of Heaven who settles matters”. His ally Guo Zihe was made a shad.^[3] With Göktürk help Liu Wuzhou, with ten thousand men, took the Loufan commandery and the Fenyang palace. He sent the captured palace women to the khan and received horses.^[3] After taking Dingxiang he was named Dingyang Khan, “the khan who rules over Yang”, with a wolf’s-head standard of his own.^[3] By giving Turkic titles and symbols to Chinese rulers, Shibi built a network of allies who served his interests and weakened the Chinese centre.^[3]

Li Yuan

The most important of them founded the Tang. When Li Yuan rose at Taiyuan he sent Liu Wenjing to Shibi to ask for support.^[1] Shibi sent the tegin Kang Shaoli with a thousand horses to meet him in the commandery of Jiang. He also sent two thousand riders, who helped to take the capital.^[1] After Li Yuan’s accession the gifts could not be counted. Shibi, relying on his services, grew ever more arrogant, and his envoys at Chang’an were overbearing. The emperor, with the central plain not yet settled, always indulged him.^[1] The help consisted of two thousand horses and five hundred riders. It was a decisive factor in Li Yuan’s early successes, above all at Huoyi in 617.^[3] In 618 Shibi sent Kutluk Tegin to court. There he was feasted in the Taiji hall with the nine-part music.^[1]

Death (619)

In the second month of 619 Shibi led his army across the Yellow River to Xiazhou, where Liang Shidu came out to join him for a raid.^[1] He gave Liu Wuzhou five hundred riders to send into Gouzhu. He gathered more troops to attack Taiyuan, and that month he died.^[1] His son Shiboubi, later Töles Khan, was too young to succeed. He was made Nibu Shad in the east, north of Youzhou. Shibi’s brother, the Silifu Shad, became Chula Khan.^[1] Shibi died unexpectedly on a raid. His death ended a period of rebuilding of Turkic power.^[3]

Assessment

Only the fall of the Sui forestalled the collapse of the eastern khaganate. Shibi was the khan who made the Sui fall faster.^[4] The balance is two-sided. He restored Turkic autonomy and military strength and was more popular and more successful than his father.^[3] His reforms were not yet consolidated, and the structural weaknesses remained. By helping the Tang to power he had, indirectly and unwillingly, sealed the fall of the khaganate in east and west.^[3] The Tang themselves said as much in 631. They listed Shibi’s siege of Yanmen among the ingratitudes for which Heaven had destroyed his house.^[1] Taizong’s own account of the “incense fire” between him and Shibi’s son Töles shows what Shibi had rebuilt. So does the fact that the Tang founder’s first embassy went to Shibi as to an overlord.^[1]