Who ruled
- Rouran Khaganate Anagui 520–552
- Sasanian Persia Khosrow I 531–579
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 Yangwon 545–559
- Byzantium Justinian Justinian I 527–565
Eastern steppe
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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
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Anagui refuses Bumin a princess and calls him his blacksmith slave; Bumin kills the envoy; the War of Independence begins
The Rouran Marriage Refusal (546) · The Turkic War of Independence · Anagui · Bumin Khan · Rouran Khaganate
The war is dated from the refusal, not from the raid of 542
Western steppe
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Culture · Sogdian colonists found the first towns of Semirech'e, Suyab and Navaket among them, as estates of nobles (450–600)
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Bumin intercepts the Tiele rising against the Rouran and defeats them; more than fifty thousand submit to him
Defeat of the Tiele, 546 · Tiele · Bumin Khan · Anagui · Dzungaria
China
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Bumin returns an embassy of his own to the Western Wei court
