Mount Dajin

Mount Dajin, 大斤山, was a mountain beyond the northern frontier of the Sui. The Sui Shu names it for a single encounter.^[1] In the twelfth month of 599 Tulan Khan was killed by his own followers. Tardush, the khan of the west whom the Chinese call Datou, proclaimed himself Bujia Khan.^[2] The Sui sent Shi Wansui, duke of Taiping, out by Shuozhou against him.^[1] He met Tardush at Mount Dajin. The Göktürks fled without fighting. The pursuit took more than two thousand heads and prisoners.^[1] The Bei Shi repeats the sentence without the figure. It is therefore no second witness.^[3]

The Zizhi tongjian sets the encounter in the fourth month of 600 and tells it at greater length.^[4] Tardush sent to ask who the Sui general was. The scouts answered that it was Shi Wansui. The Göktürks then asked whether this was the garrison soldier from Dunhuang.^[4] Told that it was, Tardush took fright and withdrew. Shi Wansui rode after him for more than a hundred li and routed him. He cut off several thousand heads and followed the fugitives several hundred li into the desert.^[4] In this account the army went out by the Mayi road.^[4] The biography of Pei Ju names the Dingxiang road and places the victory beyond the frontier. Pei Ju served as Shi Wansui’s chief of staff against Tardush.^[5]

The victory brought Shi Wansui nothing. Yang Su had led the other Sui column out by Lingwu, and he was jealous of Shi Wansui’s success. He told the emperor that the Göktürks had submitted long before and had come to the frontier only to graze their herds. The emperor set the merit aside.^[4] Pei Ju’s biography adds that Shi Wansui was executed and his merit never recorded.^[5]

The histories locate the mountain only by the roads the army took to reach it.^[6] One identification gives the mountain the further names Yinshan and Qinshan. It places the mountain at the Daqing Shan, north of the city of Guihua in Suiyuan.^[7]