Dzungaria

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

Dzungaria is the basin that lies between the Altai to the north and the Tian Shan to the south. It is open toward the Mongolian steppe in the east. Ranges close it in the west and leave only one gap, the Dzungarian Gate. The region lies between the Altai and Turfan, relatively far from the Chinese and the Mongolian spheres. Over the centuries the peoples known in turn as Di, Dingling and Tölös drifted westward into it. For the Ashina before their rise it was perhaps the most important region of all.^[1]

The Gaoche and the Tiele

The first people the sources set in the basin are the Gaoche, who broke from the Rouran. The Wei Shu says that in 487 Afuzhiluo refused to follow the Rouran khan south against the Wei. He led more than a hundred thousand tents west. He settled north-west of the anterior kingdom of Cheshi, that is, north of the Turfan depression.^[2] There he made himself king over the Gaoche, with his cousin.^[2] Turkic Atlas treats the secession separately. The whole basin may have been Tölös settlement land through the sixth century. If so, the risings of 508 and 520 and their suppression were Dzungarian affairs. After the second rising, Anagui beat the Tölös “again in Dzungaria” with a battle-tested army.^[1] Turkic Atlas covers the confederation under the Tiele.

The wars of 546 and 552

One modern account places Bumin’s decisive victory over the Tiele in 546 “in a battle in Dzungaria, between the Altai and Khan Tengri”. The Chinese sources put the Tiele strength at fifty thousand.^[1] The same account places the first of his two defeats of the Rouran “in January 552 in a small battle in Dzungaria”.^[1] The reasoning is that the Rouran had sent an army to stop him, as he had once stopped the Tiele. Dzungaria was by then Göktürk ground, on which Rouran border guards seldom stood.^[1] The Zhou Shu names no place for the Tiele campaign. It puts the battle that destroyed Anagui north of Huaihuang, on the Chinese frontier. The articles on the defeat of the Tiele and the battle of 552 record the two accounts side by side.^[3] After Bumin’s death the realm was halved. The west, under Istemi, began with Dzungaria, Lake Balkhash and the lands of the Issyk Kul.^[1]

The gate and the road to the Tarim

The Dzungarian Gate is a mountain pass, the single opening in a chain of ranges almost five thousand kilometres long. It is a natural passage between the Alakol lake of the Seven Rivers and the Ebinur lake. The corridor is about eighty kilometres wide. The Chinese know it as Ala Shankou and the Kazakhs as the gate of the Seven Rivers. It is famous for the north wind that drives through it.^[1] For the Ashina the gate made trade with the northern cities of the Tarim possible. It also carried news from China across the Tarim into the northern steppe and back. This is one of many signs that the Ashina and the other steppe peoples were well connected. The gate was probably the Rouran’s road into the Tarim, and it became the Göktürks’. From Ötüken they did not need to cross long distances into the basin. Dzungaria, once the Tiele’s stronghold, offered a unique opening, and through the gate they reached the Tarim with ease. In the same account the border between the eastern and the western wings ran from the Altai through Dzungaria to the gate into the Tarim. It separated Issik and then Mukan on the one side from Istemi on the other. Thereafter the gate served as a control point for movements between the two territories. It was also a corridor of Buddhism and later of Islam. Herodotus, in the fourth book of the Histories, describes a passage between mountain ranges that served the Scythians and other peoples. Some historians connect it with the Dzungarian Gate. The identification is disputed, because Herodotus wrote from hearsay. The god of the north wind, Boreas, was said to keep that gate. The Dzungarian pass is known for exactly that wind.^[1]

The rising of 605

The one event the Chinese chapters set in the basin by name is the Tiele rising against Heshana. The Sui Shu says that in the first year of Daye, 605, the western khan, then called Chuluo Khan, attacked the Tiele tribes and taxed their goods heavily.^[4] He suspected the Xueyantuo and the rest. Fearing a revolt, he gathered several hundred of their chiefs and killed them all. The tribes rose as one. They refused Heshana. At Tanhan mountain they set up the Qibi chief Geleng as Yiwuzhen Mohe Khan and the Xueyantuo chief Yedie as lesser khan.^[4] Once Heshana was beaten, the Mohe Khan grew great, brave and resolute beyond compare. The neighbouring states feared him. Yiwu, Gaochang and Karashahr all adhered to him.^[4] In one account, the rising drove the Göktürk ruler out of Dzungaria into the Ili valley about 605. It counts the rising among the decisive causes of the final division of the realm.^[5] The text says that the western khan had no fixed seat and was mostly in the old Wusun land. A lesser khan sat north of Kucha at Yingsuo.^[5]

Under the western Göktürks and the Tang

The Xin Tang Shu places the western Göktürks between the eastern Göktürks in the east, the Leizhu sea in the west, Kashgar in the south and the Hanhai in the north. Their southern court lay seven days north-west of Karashahr. Their northern court lay eight days north of it. They were mixed with the Üç Tuğlu, the Nushibi, the Karluks, the Chuyue, the Chumi and the people of Yiwu. The northern court is the basin.^[6] In the wars of the Ten Arrows the Üç Tuğlu Khan set his court west of the Zuhe mountain and called it the Northern Court. The Boma and the Kirghiz adhered to him. Ashina Helu held his yabgu’s command on the Duoluosi river, fifteen hundred li due north of Xizhou. The Chuyue, the Chumi, the Gusu, the Karluks and the Nushibi were under him. After his flight to the Tang he was settled at Mohe city in Tingzhou. When he rose, it was Tingzhou itself that he raided.^[6] Tingzhou, the Tang prefecture at Jimsar on the northern slope of the Tian Shan, became the Beiting protectorate. The text names its protectors among the officers who fought the Türgesh in the eighth century.^[6] The second khaganate’s attempts on Beiting in 714 and 721 are treated in the Tonyukuk and Kapgan articles.^[6]

Assessment

Dzungaria was never a capital and always a road. The Tiele lived in it, the Göktürks crossed it, and the Tang garrisoned it. The Gate at its western end is the reason the Göktürk state could be one state from the Orkhon to the Oxus. The eastern and the western wings met where the basin narrows. Whoever held the corridor held the Tarim trade.