Shishu Huxi

Shishu Huxi was an adviser at the court of Shibi Khan.^[1] The Sui official Pei Ju counted him among the hu, the western foreigners who guided the Göktürks. Pei Ju had him killed in an ambush.^[1] After his death Shibi stopped coming to the Sui court.^[1]

Pei Ju told the emperor that the Göktürks were simple by nature and easy to set against one another.^[1] The trouble was the many hu among them, all of them cunning, who taught and led them.^[1] Of these he named Shishu Huxi as the one most full of schemes and as a favourite of Shibi. He asked leave to lure him out and kill him.^[1] The emperor agreed.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian calls Shishu Huxi a minister of the Göktürks, a man of many plans whom Shibi favoured and trusted.^[2]

Pei Ju sent word that the Son of Heaven had brought out precious goods to Mayi and wished to trade there with the frontier peoples.^[1] The Zizhi tongjian calls it a pretended market.^[2] Shishu Huxi was greedy and believed it.^[1] He set out at speed with his whole tribe and all his herds, hoping to be the first to trade. He did not tell Shibi.^[1] Soldiers waiting below Mayi cut off his head.^[1] The murder took place between the emperor’s stay at the Huaiyuan garrison in 614 and the siege of Yanmen in 615.^[3]

An edict told Shibi that Shishu Huxi had deserted the khan with his tribe and had been beheaded on the khan’s behalf.^[1] Shibi knew what had happened. From then on he did not come to court.^[3]

Name

His name begins with 史, Shi, one of the family names that the Chinese texts give to people from Sogdiana.^[4] Modern accounts understand Pei Ju’s words on the hu among the Göktürks as words about Sogdians. The Sogdians were present in large numbers in the administration, the army and the diplomatic service of the khaganate.^[5] The histories give no other detail of his origin.