Who ruled
- Western Göktürk Khaganate Tardush 576–603 · Niri Khan 587–603
And beyond the steppe
- China Sui Emperor Wen 581–604
- Iran Sasanian Khosrow II 591–628
- Korea Goguryeo Yeongyang 590–618
- Byzantium Justinian Maurice 582–602
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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Environment · The Late Antique Little Ice Age reaches central Mongolia, by the lake record: long hard winters, livestock deaths, famine; the good grass of the khaganate's founding ends
Climate and the steppe empires · The Göktürk Civil War · First Göktürk Khaganate
From the sediments of Lake Telmen; the study links it to the disintegration of about 603
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Environment · Lake Telmen stands 4.8 metres above its present level, a humid phase before the drying that follows (600–700)
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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Economy · The many small lords of the Chach oasis strike coins with legends entirely in Sogdian and the Sogdian title xwb, lord; a single very rare type carries the Göktürk title tudun
The literature dates the coinage to the sixth and seventh centuries, not to a year
China
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Tardush meets the Sui general Shi Wansui at Mount Dajin and flees without a fight
Battle of Mount Dajin (600) · Tardush · Yami Khan · Sui
Also dated 599 (The annals of the Sui Shu, in one translation): Shi Wansui's victory stands under 599, before Tulan's death.
