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The Sui reunited China after three centuries. In the same generation, they divided the Göktürk khaganate after thirty years. The two were one policy. The Sui Shu, the dynasty’s own history, is the source for both.

Founding and the war with Ishbara (581–585)

Yang Jian, father-in-law of the last adult Zhou emperor, took the throne in 581 and founded the Sui.[1] He is not the Yang Jian of the embassy of 565 that fetched Empress Ashina. The two names are written with different characters, 楊堅 and 楊荐.[2] According to the Sui Shu, he treated the Göktürks coldly when he received the abdication. The northern barbarians were greatly resentful.[3] Ishbara joined the rebel governor Gao Baoning and took the Linyu garrison. The emperor ordered the frontier forts repaired and the long wall raised.[3] Ishbara’s wife, the Zhou princess Qianjin, grieved for the extinction of her house. She urged him day and night to restore the Zhou.[3] He mobilised the whole people: four hundred thousand archers.[3] The campaign of 583 went against the Göktürks, just as the civil war was beginning. Ishbara, with Apa and Tanhan, was beaten, and the retreat brought hunger, bone meal and plague.[4] The same account tells of the Sui surprise at Baidao. It also tells of the agents who set the commanders against each other, and of the Tiele rising that drew Tardush off.[4] In 585, Tardush pressed Ishbara. Ishbara asked to be received south of the desert at Baidao and declared himself a vassal. The Sui gave him protection, and he beat and captured Apa for them.[3] His letter states that since two suns do not shine in the heavens, only one ruler can reign on earth, and that the emperor of the Great Sui is the true emperor.[5]

The Sui may have fought the Göktürks with agents rather than soldiers. They then kept all the Ashina princes off balance. Ishbara submitted not because Chinese arms succeeded, but because forces were pulling the Göktürk state apart. The succession crisis gave the Sui princes to play with. The man who did the playing was Zhangsun Sheng, the envoy who had escorted Qianjin north.[6] He lived at Ishbara’s court and hunted with him. He came back with a map of the tribes and a plan to set the khans against one another.[6] He was the Sui’s spy at Ötüken.[6] In 589 the Sui conquered the Chen and ended the division of China.

Tulan and Yami (587–603)

The same history tells the next stage as a story of two brothers and a chancellor. After Ishbara’s death, the Sui recognised his brother and then his son Tulan.[3] Tulan sent tribute yearly and opened frontier markets with the emperor’s leave.[3] The leave dates to 588, though a second dating gives 594.[7][8] He was given four beautiful singing girls to induce him to kill Qianjin.[3] Yami, Ishbara’s other son, wanted a princess. The official Pei Ju told him that the princess would come when Qianjin was dead.[3] Yami slandered her. Tulan killed her in his tent.[3] In 597 Yami received the princess Anyi. Three hundred and seventy embassies passed between the courts. According to the history, “the emperor wished to divide the northern barbarians and therefore treated him with special generosity”.[3] Tulan said that he, the great khan, was worse off than his brother. He stopped the tribute and raided.[3] In 599 Tulan and Tardush destroyed Yami’s kin. Yami fled to the court with five horsemen and the Sui envoy.[3] The Sui armies broke Tardush. Yami was made Qimin Khan.[3] He was given the walled town of Dali in Shuozhou to live in. When Anyi died, he was given a second princess, Yicheng. He was then given the land between Xia and Sheng as his pasture, inside a ditch several hundred li long dug by Sui conscripts.[3] Tulan’s followers killed him. Tardush proclaimed himself Bujia Khan.[3] The Sui beat him at Mount Dajin. They helped Yami hold the passes against his nephew. In 601 they sent Yang Su north with Yami to recover his people from the tribes that raided them.[3] Tardush’s state collapsed, and he fled to the Tuyuhun. Yami took over his people and sent tribute yearly.[3] One reckoning dates Tulan’s death and the final division of the khaganate to 603, when Yami marched into Ötüken with Chinese troops. By contrast, the history tells Tulan’s death under 599.[6]

Yangdi and Yami (607–609)

In 607 the emperor Yangdi went north to Yulin. Yami came to him with three thousand horses.[3] In his memorial, Yami called himself the emperor’s subject and asked for Chinese dress and laws for his people.[3] Yangdi refused in a decree on the wisdom of not changing the customs of the barbarians. He wrote to Yami that the north beyond the desert was not yet quiet and that a loyal heart did not need a change of clothes.[3] The emperor feasted Yami and three thousand five hundred chiefs in a tent for a thousand. He gave Yami two hundred thousand pieces of silk and ranked him above the princes. He also visited his camp.[3] He wrote a poem on the tents opening to the sun and the Chanyu bowing his head.[3] A Koguryŏ envoy found at Yami’s camp was told to have his king come to court or the emperor would come to him.[3] The origin of the Sui’s Koguryŏ wars lies with that envoy.[6] By refusing Yami’s request, the Chinese themselves kept the Göktürks from fully adopting Chinese culture. They feared it would weaken the Göktürks as soldiers.[6] Yami died in 609. Yangdi installed his son Shibi.[3]

In the west the Sui applied the same method. Pei Ju’s plan set Shegui, Tardush’s younger brother, against the western khan.[3] The khan fled to Gaochang. In 611 he came to the Sui court and received the title Heshana Khan and a princess. He never ruled again.[3]

Yanmen and the fall (615–618)

The Koguryŏ wars and the risings of 612 to 614 that followed broke the dynasty’s hold on the north. By the history’s own count, the wars cost at least three hundred thousand Chinese dead.[6] In the eighth month of 615 Shibi led his people into the frontier and surrounded Yangdi at Yanmen.[3] The emperor called up troops from every commandery. Shibi withdrew when the relief armies came. From then on, the tribute stopped.[3] In 616 Shibi raided Mayi. Li Yuan, the duke of Tang, drove him off.[3] In the disorder at the end of the Sui, countless Chinese went over to the Göktürks. Shibi received the empress Xiao at Dingxiang.[3] The warlords Xue Ju, Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, Liu Wuzhou, Liang Shidu, Li Gui and Gao Kaidao each held an imperial title of his own. All of them faced north as Shibi’s subjects and took his khan’s titles.[3] Li Yuan took Chang’an with a thousand Göktürk horses and two thousand riders from Shibi. In 618 he founded the Tang.[9] In essence, only the fall of the Sui forestalled the collapse of the eastern khaganate.[5]

Assessment

The Sui never won a battle against the Göktürks that mattered. They never lost the war either. The Sui Shu’s own summary of the reign of Wen is Yami’s memorial. Yami was a khan who owed the emperor his throne, his wives, his town and his pasture. The Sui’s method of agents and princesses was something the Göktürks never learned to counter. In 631 the Tang emperor Taizong drew the moral: the Sui had saved Yami’s house, and the house had repaid them by besieging their emperor.[6] The sequence belongs to the Hegemony Wars in Northern China. Its record is the Sui Shu.

Relations with other states

Red is war, blue alliance, gold trade. Where several held at once, the line shows what prevailed; alliance and trade can run side by side. Each line rests on an article. Point at a state to see its weightiest relation, select it to see its events. The slider shows what stood in a given year, and Play runs through the years.

  1. First Göktürk Khaganate582 to 603

References

  1. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 8
  2. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 5; Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 33
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  4. ^ a b Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Yavuz 2025
  5. ^ a b Golden 1992
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Yavuz 2025
  7. ^ Ecsedy 1968, p. 136
  8. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 81–82
  9. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Ildikó Ecsedy, Trade-and-War Relations between the Turks and China in the Second Half of the Sixth Century (1968)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)

Related

What links here93

Persons
Awusili Irkin · Chiji Shad · Duliu · Dusuliu · Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou · Empress Ashina · Hezhi Khan · Kang Shaoli · Kuhanzhen · Lady Xiang · Lijicha · Niri Khan · Pei Ju · Poshi Tegin · Princess Anyi · Princess Huainan · Princess Qianjin · Princess Xinyi · Que Dadu Shad · Rudan Tegin · Shishu Huxi · Silifa · Suopi Shad · Tanhan Khan · Wei Jie · Yang Zhong · Yintou Tegin · Yiwu Tudun Shad
States
First Göktürk Khaganate · Northern Zhou · Tang
Conflicts
Hegemony Wars in Northern China
Battles & Events
Assembly at Mount Yanzhi (609) · Battle of Baidao (583) · Battle of Mount Dajin (600) · Battle of Zhoupan (582) · Capture of Apa (587) · Death of Princess Dayi · Death of Tulan Khan · Edict of Emperor Wen against the Göktürks (583) · Embassy of Cui Junsu (608) · Embassy of Yu Qingze (584) · Fall of Heshana Khan (611) · Fall of Tardush (603) · Göktürk Aid to Li Yuan (617) · Göktürk Succession Crisis (581) · Ishbara's Hunt (587) · Murder of Shishu Huxi · Music of Empress Ashina (568) · Ransom of the Chinese from the Göktürks (631) · Submission of Ishbara (585) · The Archery Match at the Wu'an Hall (599) · The Attack on Yami Khan (599) · The Bargain with Mukan (562–563) · The Marriage of Princess Qianjin (580) · The Sui Campaign of 599 · The Sui Court in Exile at Dingxiang (620) · Yang Su's Northern Campaign (601–602) · Yangdi's Visit to Yami Khan (607)
Places
Baidao Plain · Beihai · Dali City · Dingxiang · Dujin Garrison · Hebei · Heng'an · Jade Gate · Jin River · Jiuquan · Kujie Valley · Lingzhou · Mount Dajin · Shuozhou · Xiazhou · Yiwu · Youzhou · Yulin · Yunzhong · Zhoupan · Zihe Garrison
Institutions and Titles
Border Markets · Drums and Banners for the Khans · Göktürk Dress and Hair · Great Khan · Ishbara (Title) · Sabao · The Western and Southern Khans
Religions
Omens and Divination
Customs & Pastimes
Göktürk Games · Hunting among the Göktürks · The New Year on the Steppe · Turkic Songs at the Tang Court
Sources
Tomb of Yu Hong

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Sui.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/polities/sui-dynasty/

Last revised: 8 November 2026