Lingzhou

Lingzhou, 靈州, was a prefecture on the frontier of Sui and Tang China.^[1] The Sui sent armies against the Göktürks by the Lingzhou road. Under the Tang the Göktürks raided the prefecture again and again.^[2] After the fall of the eastern khaganate the Tang set up commands for the surrendered Göktürks in the country from Youzhou to Lingzhou.^[3]

The Sui roads

In 598 an edict sent Xiu, the prince of Shu, out by the Lingzhou road against Tulan Khan.^[4] In the campaign of 599 Yang Su marched out by Lingzhou with Li Che and Han Sengshou, while Gao Jiong went by Shuozhou and Yan Rong by Youzhou.^[5] Later that year Tulan went on raiding. Yang Su set out from Lingzhou once more.^[4] Before the armies crossed the frontier, Tulan was killed by his own men in the twelfth month of 599.^[5]

In the fourth month of 600 Tardush raided the frontier.^[6] The emperor sent Guang, the prince of Jin, and Yang Su out by the Lingwu road.^[6] The Sui Shu says that the prince marched out from Lingzhou and that Tardush fled before him.^[4] In the same passage it has Shi Wansui meet Tardush at Mount Dajin.^[4]

Between the Göktürks and the Tang

The Tang crown prince Li Jiancheng once proposed giving up Fengzhou and ceding the land of Yuzhong.^[7] Then the Yushe Shad, a son of Chula Khan, moved with ten thousand tents of his people into the land south of the Yellow River. He made Lingzhou his frontier.^[7] According to the Zizhi tongjian, Yang Shidao, the commander of Lingzhou, beat the Göktürks in 621.^[8] In 622 Liang Shidu, a Chinese rebel allied with the Göktürks, sent his younger brother Luo’er with several tens of thousands of Göktürks to besiege Lingzhou.^[9] Li Daozong, the commander of Lingzhou, sallied out and broke them.^[9] He then drove the Yushe Shad out of the old land of Wuyuan and pushed the frontier forward by more than a thousand li.^[9]

In the campaign of 625 Ilig Khan raided Lingzhou in the sixth month and again in the eighth.^[10] On the second raid the Göktürks struck Lingwu. Li Daozong, now governor-general of Lingzhou, beat them.^[10] In the fourth month of 626 the Tang general Li Jing fought Ilig at Xiashi in Lingzhou from dawn into the afternoon. The Göktürks then drew off.^[10] The Xin Tang Shu says that in that year they attacked Yuanzhou and Lingzhou and besieged Liangzhou. It adds that they withdrew after Li Jing fought them at Lingzhou.^[7] In the eighth month, after the battle of Jingyang, Ilig reached the north bank of the Wei by the Bian bridge.^[10]

In the eleventh month of 629 the Tang sent their armies against Ilig in the war that ended the eastern khaganate.^[11] Xue Wanche, the governor-general of Lingzhou, led one of the columns. All the columns stood under Li Jing.^[11] Li Daozong beat the Göktürks at Lingzhou in the same month.^[11]

Suni Shi’s camp

Shibi Khan had made Suni Shi, a younger brother of Yami Khan, Shaboluo Shad over fifty thousand households.^[12] His camp lay north-west of Lingzhou.^[12] After his defeat in 630 Ilig rode to that camp. The Tang took him from it.^[12] Suni Shi then went over to the Tang with all his people. The land south of the desert was left empty.^[11]

The settlement of 630

After the court debate of 630 the emperor Taizong followed Wen Yanbo’s plan for the surrendered Göktürks.^[3] In the Shuofang country, from Youzhou to Lingzhou, he set up four governor-generalships, Shun, You, Hua and Chang.^[3] The commands belong to the loose-rein prefectures of the interregnum.

The Second Khaganate

In 693 Kapgan Khan, the ruler of the Second Khaganate, led his people against Lingzhou. He killed and carried off officials and people.^[13] The empress Wu sent Xue Huaiyi, a monk of the Baima temple, against him with ten generals.^[3] The army found no enemy and turned back.^[3] The Xin Tang Shu counts eighteen generals and sets the raid some years after Kapgan seized the throne.^[7]

When the emperor Zhongzong took the throne, Kapgan raided Mingsha county in Lingzhou.^[3] Shazha Zhongyi, the commander of the Lingwu army, fought him for a long time and was beaten.^[3] The Jiu Tang Shu counts more than six thousand dead, and the Xin Tang Shu nearly ten thousand.^[14] The Göktürks went on into the prefectures of Yuan and Hui and drove off more than ten thousand horses of the Longyou herds.^[3] The annals of the Jiu Tang Shu, in one translation, date the raid to 706.^[15]