Hebei

Hebei, 河北, was the country north of the Yellow River and east of the Taihang mountains.^[1] The name means “north of the river”.^[2] Göktürk horsemen raided it together with a rebel in 622. Kapgan Khan laid it waste in 698.^[3]

In the Tang histories, the same two characters also stand for the land north of the Yellow River. In 639 the Tang sent Ashina Simo and his people there.^[4] One translation renders the characters in that passage as north of the Yellow River, in Suiyuan.^[5]

The fall of the Sui

Heshana Khan, the former khan of the western Göktürks, lived at the Sui court and followed the emperor on his journeys.^[6] According to the Zizhi tongjian, the Sui general Yuwen Huaji killed the emperor Yangdi at Jiangdu in 618.^[7] In the disorder that followed, Heshana went with Huaji to Hebei.^[8] The Sui Shu says that Heshana fled to the capital when Huaji’s cause was about to fail. There the Göktürks of the north had him put to death.^[6]

The raid of 622

According to the Jiu Tang Shu, Liu Heita, a rebel allied with Ilig Khan, brought more than ten thousand Göktürk horsemen to raid Hebei in the sixth month of 622.^[9] Ilig himself rode south at the same time, in the campaign of 622.^[3] The Xin Tang Shu calls the country Shandong, “east of the mountains”. It adds that Liu Heita laid Dingzhou waste.^[10] One translation explains this Shandong as Hebei, the land east of the Taihang mountains.^[11]

The Second Khaganate

In 687 Ilterish Khan and Ashide Yuanzhen raided Changping during the war of restoration.^[3] One translation places Changping eight li north of the modern county of the same name in Hebei.^[12]

In 698 the empress Wu Zetian sent a man of her own family to marry the daughter of Kapgan Khan.^[13] Kapgan held the bridegroom. He asked the envoys whether a son of the Wu family was a son of the Son of Heaven.^[3] In a letter to the court, preserved in the Tang Huiyao, he wrote three things. His daughter should marry a son of the emperor. The Wu were a small clan. He had raised his army to take Hebei.^[14]

At the start of his wars with the Tang, Kapgan’s army of more than a hundred thousand fell on the Tang frontier garrisons and the prefectures of Gui and Tan.^[3] It took Feihu county in Weizhou, killed the prefect of Dingzhou and burned the houses of its people.^[3] At Zhaozhou an official opened the gates to the Göktürks. The prefect refused to yield and was killed.^[3] The empress made the prince of Luling crown prince and grand marshal of the Hebei army.^[3] Before that army set out, Kapgan carried off eighty to ninety thousand men and women of Zhaozhou and Dingzhou. He left by the Wuhui road.^[3] The Xin Tang Shu adds that he killed them all.^[10] Di Renjie, the marshal of Hebei, followed him with a hundred thousand men. He did not catch him.^[3]

One translation places Gui, Tan, Feihu and Zhaozhou in the modern province of Hebei.^[15]