Western Turkic Khaganate


The Western Turkic Khaganate or Onoq Khaganate was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century after the split of the Turkic Khaganate into a western and an eastern Khaganate.
The whole confederation was called Onoq, meaning "ten arrows". According to a Chinese source, the Western Turks were organized into ten divisions.
The khaganate's capitals were Navekat and Suyab, both situated in the Chui River valley of Kyrgyzstan, to the east from Bishkek. Tong Yabgu's summer capital was near Tashkent and his winter capital Suyab.
The Western Turkic Khaganate was subjugated by the Tang dynasty in 657. It was succeeded by the Khazars.

History

Summary: The first Turkic Khaganate was founded by Bumin in 552 in Mongolia and quickly spread west toward the Caspian. Within 35 years the western half and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate were independent. The Western Khaganate reached its peak under Tong Yabghu Qaghan. After Tong's murder there were conflicts between the Dulu and Nushibi factions, many short-lived Khagans and some territory was lost. From 642 the expanding Chinese Tang dynasty began interfering. The Tang destroyed the Khaganate in 657–659.
552-575: Western expansion: The Gokturks and Mongols were the only two empires to rule both the eastern and central steppe. The Gokturks were the first steppe empire to be in contact with three great urban civilizations: Byzantium, Persia and China. Their expansion west from Mongolia is poorly documented. Gumilyov gives the following. Bumin gave the west to his younger brother Istami. 1. The campaign probably began in the spring of 554 and apparently met little resistance. They took Semirechye and by 555 had reached the Aral Sea, probably on a line from the lower Oxus, across the Jaxartes, north of Tashkent to the western tip of the Tian Shan. They drove before them various peoples: Xionites, Uar, Oghurs and others. These seem to have merged into the Avars whom the Gokturks drove across the Volga in 558. 2. The Turks then turned southeast. At this time the Ephthalites held the Tarim Basin, Ferghana, Sogd, Bactria and Merv, with the Persians at approximately their present border. Khosrow I made peace with the Byzantines and turned on the Ephthalites. Fighting started in 560 after the Ephthalites murdered a Turk ambassador to the Shah. The Persians won a victory in 562 and the Turks took Tashkent. In 565 the Ephthalites were defeated at Qarshi and withdrew to Bactria where fragments remained until the Arab conquest. The Turks demanded the tribute formerly paid to the Ephthalites and when this was refused, crossed the Oxus, but thought better of it and withdrew. In 571 a border was drawn along the Oxus, the Persians expanding east to Afghanistan, while the Turks gained the Sogdian merchant cities and their control of the silk road. 3. Around 567-576 the Turks took the area between the Caspian and Black Seas. 4. In 568 they took part of Bactria.
575-630: Istami was followed by his son Tardush. About 581 he intervened in the eastern Gokturk civil war. In 588/89 Turks were defeated by Persians near Herat. In 599-603 he gained the eastern half of the Khaganate, but after his death the two halves were definitely split. Heshana Khagan was driven out of Dzungaria and then defeated by Sheguy, Tardush's grandson, who conquered the Altai, reconquered Tashkent and raided Ishfahan. His brother Tong Yabghu Qaghan was the greatest Khaghan. He ruled from the Tarim basin to the Caspian, met Xuanzang, sent men to fight the Persians south of the Caucasus and sent his son Tardush Shad to fight in Afghanistan. In the year of his death the Chinese overthrew the Eastern Khaganate in Mongolia. He was murdered by his uncle Külüg Sibir with Duolu support. The Nushibi put Tong's son Sy Yabgu on the throne. However, Nushibi quickly rebelled against Sy and enthroned Ashina Nishu as Duolu Khan who was followed by his brother Ishbara Tolis. There was a Dulu-Nushibi conflict and Yukuk Shad, son of the final eastern Khagan, was brought in. The factions quarreled and the Nushibi and Emperor Taizong of Tang enthroned Irbis Seguy. The Chinese demanded part of the Tarim Basin and then seized part of it until the war was stopped by Taizong's death. Irbis was overthrown by Ishbara Qaghan who, after about six years of war, was defeated at Battle of Irtysh River and captured by the Chinese. After this there were several puppet Khagans. In 679-719 the old Gokturk capital of Suyab was one of the Four Garrisons of Anxi. The Chinese remained in the area until the time of An Lushan's rebellion.

Relations with the Persians and Byzantines

During the late 6th century, the Turks consolidated their geopolitical position in Central Asia, as the lynchpin in trade between East Asia and Western Asia – in which Persia and Byzantium were the dominant powers. For much of this period, Istämi ruled the Khaganate from a winter camp near Karashar. A timeline of the westward expansion of the Turks under Istämi might be reconstructed as follows: 552 Mongolia; 555 Aral Sea ; 558 Volga River ; 557–565 in alliance with the Persians, the Turks crushed the Hephthalites, after which a Turco-Persian border along the Oxus lasted several decades; 564 Tashkent; 567–571 the North Caucasus; 569–571 the Turks were at war with Persia, and; 576 a major incursion into the Black Sea area, including Crimea.
A first Turk legation to reach Constantinople visited Justin II in 563. A Sogdian merchant named led a Turco-Sogdian legation to Constantinople in 568, pursuing trade and an alliance against the Avars and Persians. A Byzantine official named Zemarchus accompanied Maniakh on his return journey; Maniakh now proposed to bypass the Persians and re-open a direct route north of the Caspian. If trade on this route later increased it would have benefited Khorezm and the Black Sea cities and might have had something to do with the later rise of the Khazars and Rus’.
The Turks' control of the Sogdian merchant cities along the Oxus from the late 6th century gave the Western Turks substantive control of the central part of the Silk Road. A Chinese general complained that the: "Turks themselves are simple-minded and short-sighted and dissention can easily be roused among them. Unfortunately, many Sogdians live among them who are cunning and insidious; they teach and instruct the Turks." Sinor saw the Byzantine alliance as a Sogdian scheme to benefit themselves at the expense of the Turks. A related fact is that the Eastern Turks extracted a large amount of silk as booty from the Chinese which had to be marketed westward. Before 568, Maniakh, a leading merchant, visited the Sassanian Persian court, in a bid to open up trade; this proposal was refused, apparently because the Persians wanted to restrict trade by and with the Byzantines. The members of a second Turk legation to Persia were reportedly poisoned. From 569, the Turks and Persia were at war, until the Turks were defeated near Merv; hostilities ceased in 571.
In 576, Valentinus led a Byzantine mission to a Turxanthos whose camp was west of the Caspian. Valentinus wanted action against the Persians and Turxanthos complained that Byzantium was harboring the Avars. Valentinus then went east to meet Tardu. What caused this hostility is not clear. In 576–77 a Turk general called Bokhan and an Utigur called Anagai captured the Crimean Byzantine town of Panticapaeum and failed at a siege of Chersonesus. This marks the westernmost extent of Turk power.
A major incursion into Bactria by the Turks, in 588–589, was defeated by the Sasanians.
The Turk-Byzantine alliance was revived in the 620s during the last great Byzantine-Persian war before the Arab conquests. In 627 Tong Yabghu Qaghan sent out his nephew Böri Shad. The Turks stormed the great fortress of Derbent on the Caspian coast, entered Azerbaijan and Georgia, did a good bit of looting and met Heraclius who was besieging Tiflis. When the siege dragged on, the Turks left and Heraclius went south and won a great victory over the Persians. The Turks returned, captured Tiflis and massacred the garrison. On behalf of the Byzantines, a Turk general named Chorpan Tarkhan then conquered most of Armenia. What the Turks gained from this is not clear.

The Onoq or ten tribes

For the origin of the Onoq two contradicting accounts are given:
The first statement dates their origin back to the beginning of the First Turkic Qaghanate with Istämi, younger brother of Tumen, who had brought with him the ten tribes probably from the Eastern Qaghanate at Mongolia and left to the west to expand the Qaghanate. The exact date for the event was not recorded, and the shanyu here referred to might be Muhan Khan.
The second statement contributes it to Dielishi, who took over the throne in 635 and began to strengthen the state by further affirming the initial ten tribes and two tribal wings, in contrast with the rotation of rule between the Tumen and Istämi lineages in the Western Qaghanate. Thereafter, the name "ten tribes" became as a shortened address for the Western Turks in Chinese records. Those divisions did not include the five major tribes, who were active further east of the ten tribes.
The earlier tribes consisted of eight primary tribes ruled by eight chiefs-in-command: the five Duolu tribes, and the three Nushibi tribes. Syriac and Greek sources also confirmed that initially, the Western Turkic Khaganate were divided into eight tribes during Istämi's lifetime and at his death.
The ruling elites were divided into two groups and the relationship between the two groups were tense: the more aristocratic Duolu shads held the title churs, and the lower-ranking Nushibi in west were probably initially made up of Tiele conscripts and their shads held the title irkins. During the reformation the more powerful Nushibi tribes such as A-Xijie and Geshu were sub-divided into two tribal groups with a greater and lesser title under a fixed tribal name, resulting in the attested On Oq & 十箭 shíjiàn "ten arrows").

Orkhon Inscriptions

Bilge Khagan inscription, main side, 16:
Bilge Khagan inscription, 1st side, 1:
Bilge Khagan inscription, 2nd side: 15:

Bain Tsokto inscriptionDenison Ross, E. (1930). The Tonyukuk Inscription. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 6(1), 37-43.

Tonyukuk inscription, main side, 19:
Tonyukuk inscription, main side, 30:
Tonyukuk inscription, main side, 33:
Tonyukuk inscription, main side, 42:
Tonyukuk inscription, main side: 43:

Rulers of the Western Turkic Khaganate

Kaghanreignfather,
grandfather		Regnal name
Personal name
Niri Qaghan587–604Yangsu Tegin,
Muqan Qaghan		Nílì Kèhán向氏
Xiàngshì
Heshana Khagan604–611Niri Qaghan
Yansu Tegin		Chùluó Kèhán達曼
Daman
Sheguy611–618Tulu Tegin,
Tardu		Shèguì Kèhán射匮
Shèguì
Tong Yabghu Qaghan618–628Tulu Tegin,
Tardu		Tǒng yèhù Kèhán統葉
Tǒng yèhù
Külüg Sibir628–630Tardu,
Istämi		Qūlìqí pí Kèhán莫贺咄
Mòhèduō
Irbis Bolun Cabgu631–632Tong Yabgu Qaghan,
Tulu Tegin		Yǐpí bōluō sìyèhù Kèhán阿史那咥力
Āshǐnà xilì
Duolu Qaghan633–634Bagha Shad,
unknown		Duōlù Kèhán阿史那泥孰
Āshǐnà Níshú
Ishbara Tolis634–639Bagha Shad,
unknown		Shābōluō Kèhán阿史那咥力
Āshǐnà Tóng
Yukuk Shad639–642Illig Qaghan,
Yami Qaghan		Yǐpí duōlù Kèhán阿史那欲谷
Āshǐnà Yùgǔ
Irbis Seguy642–650El Kulug Shad,
Ishbara Tolis		Yǐpí shèkuì Kèhán阿史那莫賀咄
Āshǐnà Mòhèduō
Ashina Helu651–658Böri Shad,
unknown		Shābōluō Kèhán阿史那賀魯
Āshǐnà Hèlǔ

;Claimants
;Later claimants
;Kunling Protectorate
;Mengchi Protectorate