Map of Asia in 545: the embassy of the Western Wei under An Nuopantuo from Jiuquan to the Ashina in the Altai, subjects of the Rouran, who rule the eastern steppe with the Tiele as further subjects, beside the Western and Eastern Wei, the Liang, the Tuyuhun, the Hephthalites, Sasanian Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire
545: Yuwen Tai, chancellor of the Western Wei, sends An Nuopantuo, a Sogdian of Jiuquan, to the Göktürks in the Altai, who are still subjects of the Rouran. It is the first embassy of a Chinese state to the Ashina. Modern map; the road is drawn, the source names no route.
Plate XX in the Atlas → © Emre-E Yavuz 2026

Who ruled

And beyond the steppe

  • China Eastern Wei Emperor Xiaojing 534–550 · Western Wei Emperor Wen 535–551
  • Iran Sasanian Khosrow I 531–579
  • Korea Goguryeo Anwon 531–545 · Yangwon 545–559
  • Byzantium Justinian Justinian I 527–565

Eastern steppe

  • Environment · Extreme weather in the eastern steppe, by the tree rings; one reading takes the six-year length of Bumin's war as a consequence (536–545)

    The Turkic War of Independence

    The same decade is the coldest of two thousand years by the tree rings of the Altai and by the ice cores

  • Environment · Late Antique Little Ice Age: the cold phase the Altai tree rings define from 536 to about 660 (536–660)

    Climate and the steppe empires · First Göktürk Khaganate · Avars

    The coldest decade in the Altai is the 540s

Western steppe