Yunzhong

Yunzhong, 雲中, was a commandery on the northern frontier of China.^[1] The Xiongnu raided it under the Han. The Rouran fought the Northern Wei there.^[2] The Sui emperor Yangdi passed through it on his way to Yami Khan in 607.^[3] Under the Tang the name passed to a command and a protectorate over the surrendered Göktürks. The family of Ilterish Khan were chiefs under its governor.^[4]

Under the Han

According to the Shiji and the Han Shu, the state of Zhao, under its king Wuling, built a long wall from Dai along the foot of the Yin mountains to Gaoque. It set up the commanderies of Yunzhong, Yanmen and Dai.^[1] The Shiji places the court of the chanyu of the Xiongnu opposite Dai and Yunzhong.^[5] In the fourth year of his reign the chanyu Junchen broke the marriage peace. He sent thirty thousand horse each into Shang commandery and Yunzhong.^[5] Under the Later Han an edict allowed the Southern Chanyu to move into Yunzhong.^[6]

The Rouran and the Wei

According to the Wei Shu, the Rouran khan Datan heard in the autumn of 424 that the Wei emperor had died. He raided Yunzhong.^[7] The Zizhi tongjian gives him sixty thousand horse.^[8] The new emperor, Taiwu, reached Yunzhong in three days and two nights.^[7] Datan’s horsemen surrounded him more than fifty ranks deep before they withdrew.^[7] Five years later Taiwu answered with his campaign across the desert.^[9]

The Sui and the Göktürks

According to the Zizhi tongjian, the emperor Yangdi left Yulin in the eighth month of 607. He passed Yunzhong and travelled up the Jin river to Yami’s camp, on the visit of 607.^[3] The Sui Shu writes Yunnei where the Bei Shi and the Tongdian write Yunzhong.^[10]

The Tang and the Göktürks

In 622 Ilig Khan invaded. In the campaign of 622 the Tang sent Li Zihe to make for Yunzhong and fall on the khan’s rear.^[11] In the first month of 630 the Tang general Li Shiji came out of Yunzhong and broke the Göktürks at Baidao.^[12] After Ilig’s fall the Tang divided his land into six prefectures under two area commands, Dingxiang on the left and Yunzhong on the right. This was the settlement that followed the court debate of 630.^[13]

After the capture of Chebi Khan in 650 the Tang set two protectorates, Shanyu and Hanhai, over the Göktürks.^[14] The Jiu Tang Shu gives the Shanyu protectorate three commands, Langshan, Yunzhong and Sanggan, and fourteen prefectures.^[15]

In 664 the Tang moved a protectorate into the old town of Yunzhong and named it the Yunzhong protectorate. It had authority over the tribes south of the desert.^[16] The Xin Tang Shu explains that the town had been the residence of Princess Yicheng, the Sui wife of Yami Khan and of the khans after him.^[17] After Ilig’s fall Li Jing had settled several hundred tents of broken Göktürks there and set a chief of the Ashide over them.^[18] When they grew stronger they asked for a Tang prince as their khan, to rule them from afar.^[18] The emperor answered that the khan of today was the chanyu of old. He renamed the Yunzhong protectorate the Shanyu Grand Protectorate.^[18]

The Second Khaganate

In 679 the revolt that began the war of restoration broke out among the Göktürks of the Shanyu protectorate.^[19] The grandfather of Ilterish Khan had been a chief under Sheli Yuanying, the governor of Yunzhong on the right of the protectorate. He had held the rank of tudun by inheritance.^[4]

Location

The name covered several places in turn. Yunnei, the Yunzhong county of the Northern Zhou, has been placed fifty li south-west of Huairen in Shanxi.^[20] The same translation equates the Tang commandery of Yunzhong with Datong in Shanxi, and the Tang county of Yunzhong with the Sui garrison of Heng’an.^[21] It sets the area command of 630 on the border of the province of Suiyuan, and the protectorate four hundred li north-west of Datong.^[22]