Zihe Garrison

The Zihe garrison, 紫河鎮, was a post on the northern frontier of the Sui. The Sui Shu names it as the place where the royal tent of Ishbara Khan burned a month before his death.^[1] In the first month of 587 Ishbara sent his son to the Sui court with tribute. He asked leave to hunt between the prefectures of Heng and Dai.^[1] The emperor agreed and sent him wine and food. Ishbara and his people bowed twice to receive the gifts.^[1] In one day Ishbara killed eighteen deer with his own hand and sent their tails and tongues to the court.^[1]

When he came back to the Zihe garrison, his royal tent had been burnt by fire. Ishbara took it as an evil sign. A little more than a month later he died.^[1] The emperor suspended court for three days. He sent the officials of the sacrifices to offer condolence.^[1] The Bei Shi and the Cefu yuangui repeat the story from the Sui Shu.^[2]

Twenty years later the name appears again. In 607 the Sui emperor had more than a million men build a long wall from Yulin in the west to Zihe in the east. It was finished in twenty days.^[3] The Cefu yuangui adds that five or six in ten of the labourers died.^[4] Neither text says whether the wall ended at the garrison or at the river.

One identification places the garrison on the bank of the Zihe, the river also called the Ulan Müren, at Horinkar in Suiyuan.^[5] The same reading puts Dali, the town the Sui built for Yami Khan, on the bank of the same river.^[6]