Rouran epochGöktürk epochUyghur epochKirghiz epoch
RouranFirst GöktürkTang ruleSecond GöktürkUyghurKirghizHunsWestern GöktürkTürgeshKarlukKhazar
  • 400
  • 500
  • 600
  • 700
  • 800
  • 900

The Tang are the neighbour against whom the whole period after 618 is measured. The dynasty began as a client of a Göktürk khan. Within a dozen years it was the power that held the Göktürk khan prisoner. The fifty years between 630 and 682 are the one stretch in which the Göktürks had no state of their own.

Founded under Göktürk protection

The Jiu Tang Shu traces the Li house to Didao in Longxi, in Gansu. It names Li Gao, king of the Western Liang, as the ancestor of Li Yuan in the seventh generation.[1] Another account gives the origin differently. It regards Li Yuan and his son as Chinese of partly Turkish blood, and it traces the clan to a short-lived Xiongnu dynasty in the Didao region of Gansu.[2]

Li Yuan rose in 617 as one of several warlords during the collapse of the Sui. Shibi Khan armed him, as he armed the others. The Sui Shu names Liang Shidu and Liu Wuzhou among the men who received Göktürk titles and wolf’s-head standards in those years. Li Yuan was in the same position and paid the same price.[3]

The new dynasty went on paying under Chula and then Ilig. Ilig raided almost every year from 620. In 621 he pushed into Taiyuan. The Tang bought him off with tribute and the promise of a princess. In 626, eighteen days after Li Shimin had killed his brothers at the Xuanwu gate and taken the throne, Ilig stood before Chang’an with an army. He withdrew on terms. A dynasty that was armed by the steppe and spent its first decade buying it off is not the dynasty of the standard account. The reversal that followed is the more remarkable for it.

The reversal, 630 to 659

The eastern khaganate broke in the winter of 629 and 630. The campaign has its own article. The Tang account and the Göktürk account of why it broke are worth setting side by side. The Tang account records an offensive under Li Jing. The Jiu Tangshu also records the Göktürks’ own explanation.[4] In that explanation, Ilig entrusted everything to the hu, that is the Sogdians. He kept his own people at a distance. The laws multiplied, the army was set in motion year after year, and the tribes deserted.[4] Snow, famine, the secession of the Xueyantuo and the defection of a nephew did the rest.

What followed in the west took another generation and ended the same way. Between 640 and 659 the Tang dismantled the western khaganate. The conquest has its own article. By 660 the Tang held the steppe from the Khingan to the Syr Darya, in name.

Rule through the Ashina

The Tang did not administer the steppe directly and never tried. They ruled it through the bridle-and-halter prefectures. These were nominal Chinese commanderies whose governors were the tribal chiefs already in place. When a khan was wanted, the Tang placed an Ashina prince over them as khan. Ashina Simo and Ashina Funian held that position. Under the interregnum, Turkic Atlas sets out how the arrangement worked and why it kept failing.

The arrangement had an obvious logic and one fatal flaw. It preserved the Ashina as the house from which a khan must come. It therefore preserved what a rising would need. When the rising came in 682, it came from exactly there.

As the enemy in the inscriptions

The Göktürks wrote about the Tang. The passages are among the most unguarded political statements any state has left. The inscription says that the Chinese planned the destruction of the Göktürk people, to kill them and leave them without seed.[5] It adds that the Chinese worked by gifts and words rather than by arms. Their speech was sweet and their silks were soft. By these they drew the distant peoples close, then settled next to them and did their worst thinking there.[5]

The blame is not laid on the Chinese alone. According to the inscriptions, the Göktürks lost the state through their own men: khans who were foolish and cowardly, begs who gave up the Göktürk titles and took Chinese ones, sons made servants and daughters made slaves.[5] No Chinese source prepares a reader for a monument that was raised in triumph and yet devotes its central passage to the failings of its own people.

Afterwards

The Second Khaganate fought the Tang for sixty years and made peace with them in the end. Craftsmen sent by the Tang emperor built Kül Tegin’s tomb.[5] After 744 the Uyghurs reversed the relation altogether. An Lushan’s rebellion broke the Tang. Uyghur cavalry saved them, and they paid for it in silk for eighty years.

The dynasty had come to depend on foreign commanders and on the armies of tribal vassals. These forces were called the claws and teeth of the empire. As the dynasty weakened, they pursued ends of their own.[6]

The dynasty’s two histories, the Jiu Tangshu and the Xin Tangshu, are the principal Chinese sources for the whole period after 618. Each has its own article.

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. Turk Shahi of Kabul and Kapisa619 to 758

    • Embassy619 to 758embassies and investiture as kings of Jibin

  2. First Göktürk Khaganate621 to 630

  3. Xueyantuo Khaganate (Syr Tardush)628 to 630

  4. Yabgus of Tokharistan635 to 759

    • Embassy635 to 759embassies and titles; area command from 661

  5. Western Göktürk Khaganate640 to 657

  6. Second Göktürk Khaganate682 to 716

  7. Uyghur Khaganate780 to 840

  8. Yenisei Kirghiz Khaganate842 to 867

    • Embassy842 to 867four envoys in 842 to 844, an investiture in 847

References

  1. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 1
  2. ^ Lattimore 1951, p. 544
  3. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  4. ^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  5. ^ a b c d Kül Tegin inscription
  6. ^ Kwanten 1979, p. 45

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)
  • Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1951)
  • Luc Kwanten, Imperial Nomads. A History of Central Asia, 500–1500 (1979)

Related

What links here98

Persons
Alp Inanch · Are Khan · Bagha Shad · Baghatur Khan · Buli Shad · Chula Khan · Emperor Wuzong of Tang · Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (846–859) · Emperor Yizong of Tang · Ilig Khan · Kang Shaoli · Kang Sumi · Kutluk Tegin · Li Jian · Nishu Bagha Shad · Pei Ju · Pofu Katun · Princess Taihe · Princess Yicheng · Que Dadu Shad · Rehan Tegin · Shibi Khan · Si Yabgu Khan · Sijie Irkin · Sulu Khan · Suni Shi · Ta-bu-he-zu · Tatik Iznanchu · Wen-wu Alp · Yinnai Tegin · Yizhi-lianji · Yukuk Shad · Yushe Shad · Zhenzhu Tong Irkin · Zhishi Sili · Zhu-wu Alp Sol
States
First Göktürk Khaganate · Later Tang · Northern Zhou · Sui · Yenisei Kirghiz Khaganate
Conflicts
Hegemony Wars in Northern China · Uyghur–Kirghiz War
Battles & Events
Banquet of the Wine Fountain (647) · Battle of Jingyang (626) · Bilge Khan's Tent Banquet (725) · Defection of Töles (628) · Göktürk Aid to Li Yuan (617) · Ilig Khan's Dance at the Weiyang Palace (633) · Killing of Heshana Khan (619) · Kirghiz Embassies to the Tang (842–848) · Kirghiz embassy of 648 · Music of Empress Ashina (568) · Night Attack on Dingxiang (630) · Plunder of Luoyang and the Silk Payment (757) · Raid on Yanmen (621) · Ransom of the Chinese from the Göktürks (631) · Submission of Yiwu (630) · The Court Debate of 630 · The Göktürk Campaign of 622 · The Göktürk Campaign of 625 · The great snow of 627 · The siege of Yanmen, 615 · The Standoff at Binzhou (624) · The Sui Court in Exile at Dingxiang (620) · The Uyghur Demand for the Prince's Dance (762) · The Wei bridge, 626
Places
Baidao Plain · Beilou Pass · Dingxiang · Hebei · Heng'an · Jade Gate · Jin River · Jingyang · Lingzhou · Shuozhou · Xiazhou · Yinshan · Yiwu · Youzhou · Yunzhong
Peoples
Eurasian Nomads · Shatuo
Lineages
Are
Institutions and Titles
Chinese Craftsmen at the Orkhon Monuments · Drums and Banners for the Khans · The Göktürk Oath · Uyghur Horse-Silk Trade
Religions
Manichaean Diet of the Uyghurs · Riding Round the Dead
Foods
Grape Wine in Central Asia · Tea among the Uyghurs
Customs & Pastimes
Seating at the Feast · The New Year on the Steppe · Turkic Songs at the Tang Court
Sources
Fengshi Wenjian Ji
Controversies
The Kirghiz descent from Li Ling

Cite this article

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

Last revised: 8 November 2026