First Turkic Khaganate

First Turkic Khaganate
First Turkic Khaganate
552–603
	Tamga of Ashina tribe.
	FIRST TURKIC KHAGANATE The First Turkic Khaganate at its greatest extent, in 576.
Status	Khaganate (Nomadic empire)
Capital	Ötüken (eastern); Suyab (western);
Common languages	Old Turkic (official, dynastic and common) ; Sogdian (official, diplomacy, coinage) ; Ruanruan (official) ;
Religion	Tengrism
Demonym(s)	Türük; Türk
Qaghan
• 552	Bumin Qaghan (first)
• 599–603	Tardu (last)
Yabgu
• 552–575	Istämi (first)
• 575–599	Tardu (last)
Historical era	Post-classical
• Bumin Qaghan revolts against Rouran Khaganate	542
• Established	552
• Göktürk civil war	581
• Brief re-unification	603
• Division of Western and Eastern Turkic Khaganates	603
Area
557	6,000,000 km2 (2,300,000 sq mi)
Population
• 6th century	3 million
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Rouran Khaganate
	Hephthalite Empire
Eastern Turkic Khaganate
Western Turkic Khaganate

The First Turkic Khaganate, also referred to as the First Turkic Empire, the Turkic Khaganate or the Göktürk Khaganate, was a Turkic khaganate established by the Ashina clan of the Göktürks in medieval Inner Asia under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his brother Istämi. The First Turkic Khaganate succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the hegemonic power of the Mongolian Plateau and rapidly expanded their territories in Central Asia, and became the first Central Asian transcontinental empire from Manchuria to the Black Sea.

Although the Göktürks spoke a Siberian Turkic language directly antecedent to the Orkhon Turkic of the Second Turkic Khaganate, the First Khaganate's early official texts and coins were written in Sogdian. It was the first Turkic state to use the name Türk politically. The Old Turkic script was invented at the first half of the sixth century.

The Khaganate collapsed in 603, after a series of conflicts and civil wars which separated the polity into the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and Western Turkic Khaganate. The Tang China conquered the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in 630 and the Western Turkic Khaganate in 657 in a series of military campaigns. The Second Turkic Khaganate emerged in 682 and lasted until 744, when it was overthrown by the Uyghur Khaganate.

First Khaganate

The origins of the Turkic Khanate trace back to 546, when Bumin Qaghan made a preemptive strike against the Uyghur and Tiele groups planning a revolt against their overlords, the Rouran Khanate. For this service he expected to be rewarded with a Rouran princess, thus marrying into the royal family. However, the Rouran khagan, Yujiulü Anagui, sent an emissary to Bumin to rebuke him, saying, "You are my blacksmith slave. How dare you utter these words?" As Anagui's "blacksmith slave" (Chinese: 鍛奴; pinyin: duànnú) comment was recorded in Chinese chronicles, some claim that the Göktürks were indeed blacksmith servants for the Rouran elite, and that "blacksmith slavery" may have indicated a form of vassalage within Rouran society. According to Denis Sinor, this reference indicates that the Türks specialized in metallurgy, although it is unclear if they were miners or, indeed, blacksmiths. Whatever the case, that the Turks were "slaves" need not be taken literally, but probably represented a form of vassalage, or even unequal alliance.

A disappointed Bumin allied with the Chinese dynasty of the Western Wei against the Rouran, their common enemy, by marrying Princess Changle. In 552, Bumin defeated Anagui and his forces north of Huaihuang (modern Zhangjiakou, Hebei).

Having excelled both in battle and diplomacy, Bumin declared himself Illig Khagan of the new khanate at Otukan, but died only months later. His son, Muqan Qaghan, defeated the Hephthalite Empire. Bumin's brother Istämi (d. 576) bore the title "Yabgu of the West" and collaborated with the Sassanid Empire of Iran to defeat and destroy the Hephthalites, who were allies of the Rouran. This war tightened the Ashina clan's grip on the Silk Road. The alliance with China was further reinforced in 568 through the marriage of the Turkic princess Ashina, daughter of Muqan Qaghan, with Emperor Wu of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Zhou dynasty.

The appearance of the Pannonian Avars in the West has been interpreted as a nomadic faction fleeing the westward expansion of the Göktürks, although the specifics are a matter of irreconcilable debate given the lack of clear sources and chronology. Rene Grousset links the Avars with the downfall of the Hephthalites rather than the Rouran, while Denis Sinor argues that Rouran-Avar identification is "repeated from article to article, from book to book with no shred of evidence to support it".

Istämi's policy of western expansion brought the Göktürks into Europe. In 576 the Göktürks crossed the Kerch Strait into the Crimea. Five years later they laid siege to Chersonesus; their cavalry kept roaming the steppes of Crimea until 590. As for the southern borders, they were drawn south of the Amu Darya, bringing the Ashina into conflict with their former allies, the Sasanian Empire. Much of Bactria (including Balkh) remained a dependency of the Ashina until the end of the century.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

The Göktürks played a major role with the Byzantine Empire's relationship with the Persian Sasanian Empire. The first contact is believed to be 563 and relates to the incident in 558 where the slaves of the Turks (the Pannonian Avars) ran away during their war with the Hephthalites.

The second contact occurred when Maniah, a Sogdian diplomat, convinced Istämi (also known as Silziboulos in Greek writings) of the Göktürks to send an embassy directly to the Byzantine Empire's capital Constantinople, which arrived in 568 and offered silk as a gift to emperor Justin II and where they discussed an alliance. In 569 an embassy led by Zemarchus occurred which was well received and likely solidified their alliance for war.

Another set of embassies occurred in 575–576 led by Valentine which were received with hostility by Turxanthos due to alleged treachery. They required the members of the Byzantine delegation at the funeral of Istämi to lacerate their faces to humiliate them. The subsequent hostility shown by the new ruler Tardu would be matched in Byzantine writings. With the insults reflecting a breakdown of the alliance, the likely cause is that the anger was due to the Turks not having their expectations met from their agreements and realising they were being used when they no longer aligned with the current goals of the Byzantine Empire (who correspondingly lacked trust in the Turks as partners).

Göktürk petroglyphs from Mongolia (6th to 8th century).
Turkic horsemen with long hair on the tomb of a Sogdian trader, the Miho funerary couch. Circa 570 CE. Northern Dynasties, China.
The Sogdian trader An Jia with a Turkic Chieftain in his yurt. 579 CE, Tomb of An Jia, Xi’an, China.
The Sogdian trader An Jia (right) brokering an alliance with Turks (left). 579 CE, Tomb of An Jia, Xi’an, China.

Civil war

Göktürk civil war

The khaganate in 552 after its division into Western Turkic Khaganate and Eastern Turkic Khaganate

Gokturk khaganates at their height, c. 600 AD:

Western Gokturk: Lighter area is direct rule, darker areas show sphere of influence.

Eastern Gokturk: Lighter area is direct rule, darker areas show sphere of influence.

The Turkic Khaganate split in two after the death of the fourth ruler, Taspar Qaghan, c. 583. He had willed the title of khagan to Muqan's son Apa Qaghan, but the high council appointed Ishbara Qaghan instead. Factions formed around both leaders. Before long, four rivals claimed the title. They were successfully played off against each other by the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The most serious contender was the western one, Istämi's son Tardu, a violent and ambitious man who had already declared himself independent from the Qaghan after his father's death. He now seized the title and led an army east to claim the seat of imperial power, Otukan.

In order to buttress his position, Ishbara of the Eastern Khaganate applied to Emperor Yang of Sui for protection. Tardu attacked Chang'an, the Sui capital, around 600, demanding Emperor Yangdi end his interference in the civil war. In retaliation, Sui diplomacy successfully incited a revolt of Tardu's Tiele vassals, which led to the end of Tardu's reign in 603. Among the dissident tribes were the Uyghurs and Xueyantuo.

Eastern Turkic Khaganate

The civil war left the empire divided into eastern and western parts. The eastern part, still ruled from Otukan, remained in the orbit of the Sui and retained the name Göktürk. The Shibi Khan (609–619) and Illig Qaghan (620–630) attacked the Central Plain at its weakest moment during the transition between the Sui and Tang. Shibi Khan's surprise attack against Yanmen Commandery during an imperial tour of the northern frontier almost captured Emperor Yang, but his ethnic Han wife Princess Yicheng—who had been well treated by Empress Xiao during an earlier visit—sent a warning ahead, allowing the emperor and empress time to flee to the commandery seat at present-day Daixian in Shanxi. This was besieged by the Turkic army on September 11, 615, but Sui reinforcements and a false report from Princess Yicheng to her husband about a northern attack on the khaganate caused him to lift the siege before its completion.

In 626, Illig Qaghan took advantage of the Xuanwu Gate Incident and drove on to Chang'an. On September 23, 626, Illig Qaghan and his iron cavalry reached the bank of the Wei River north of Bian Bridge (in present-day Xianyang, Shaanxi). On September 25, 626,Tang Taizong allied with Iligh Khan and met with the khan on the border bridge, Tang Taizong accused Iligh Khan of crossing the border, the khan saw that Taizong was imposing, mistakenly thought that the reinforcements of the Tang Dynasty had arrived, plus two years ago, he had seen Li Shimin, who was still the crown prince at that time, in Binzhou (彬州), and was asked to duel. The khan was afraid and agreed to retreat in an alliance, which is called the Weishui Alliance (渭水之盟) or the Alliance of Bian Qiao (便橋會盟 / 便桥会盟). On the third day after the meeting, the khan sent 3,000 horses and 10,000 sheep to the border to be prepared as compensation for the Tang dynasty, which Emperor Taizong did not accept, believing that this was too little. All in all, 67 incursions into China proper were recorded.

Before mid-October 627, heavy snows on the Mongolian-Manchurian grassland covered the ground to a depth of several feet, preventing the nomads' livestock from grazing and causing a massive die-off among the animals. According to the New Book of Tang, in 628, Taizong mentioned that "There has been a frost in midsummer. The sun had risen from same place for five days. The moon had had the same light level for three days. The field was filled with red atmosphere (dust storm)."

Illig Qaghan was brought down by a revolt of his Tiele vassal tribes (626–630), allied with Emperor Taizong of Tang. This tribal alliance figures in Chinese records as the Huihe (Uyghur).

On March 27, 630, a Tang army under the command of Li Jing defeated the Eastern Turkic Khaganate under the command of Illig Qaghan at the Battle of Yinshan (陰山之戰 / 阴山之战). Illig Qaghan fled to Ishbara Shad, but on May 2, 630 Zhang Baoxiang's army advanced to Ishbara Shad's headquarters. Illig Qaghan was taken prisoner and sent to Chang'an. The Eastern Turkic Khaganate collapsed and was incorporated into the Jimi system of Tang. Emperor Taizong said, "It's enough for me to compensate my dishonor at Wei River."

Western Turkic Khaganate

The Western khagan Sheguy and Tong Yabghu Qaghan constructed an alliance with the Byzantine Empire against the Sasanian Empire and succeeded in restoring the southern borders along the Tarim and Amu Darya rivers. Their capital was Suyab in the Chu River valley, about 6 km south east of modern Tokmok. In 627 Tung Yabghu, assisted by the Khazars and Emperor Heraclius, launched a massive invasion of Transcaucasia which culminated in the taking of Derbent and Tbilisi (see the Third Perso-Turkic War for details). In April 630 Tung's deputy Böri Shad sent the Göktürk cavalry to invade Armenia, where his general Chorpan Tarkhan succeeded in routing a large Persian force. Tung Yabghu's murder in 630 forced the Göktürks to evacuate Transcaucasia.

Western Turkic Khaganate was modernized through an administrative reform of Ashina clan (reigned 634–639) and came to be known as the Onoq. The name refers to the "ten arrows" that were granted by the khagan to ten leaders (shads) of its two constituent tribal confederations, the Duolu (five churs) and Nushibi (five irkins), whose lands were divided by the Chui River. The division fostered the growth of separatist tendencies. Soon, chieftain Kubrat of the Dulo clan, whose relation ship with the Duolu is possible but not proven, seceded from the Khaganate. The Tang dynasty campaigned against the khaganate and its vassals, the oasis states of the Tarim Basin. The Tang campaign against Karakhoja in 640 led to the retreat of the Western Turks, who were defeated during the Tang campaigns against Karasahr in 644 and the Tang campaign against Kucha in 648, leading to the 657 conquest of the Western Turks by the Tang general Su Dingfang. Emperor Taizong of Tang was proclaimed Khagan of the Göktürks.

In 657, the Tang emperor could impose indirect rule along the Silk Road as far as modern-day Iran. He installed two khagans to rule the ten arrows (tribes) of Göktürks. Five arrows of Tulu (咄陆) were ruled by khagans bearing the title of Xingxiwang (興昔亡可汗) while five arrows of Nushipi (弩失畢可汗) were ruled by Jiwangjue (繼往絕可汗). Five Tulu corresponded to the area east of Lake Balkash while five arrows of Nushipi corresponded to the land east of the Aral Sea. Göktürks now carried Chinese titles and fought by their side in their wars. The era spanning from 657 to 699 in the steppes was characterized by numerous rulers – weak, divided, and engaged in constant petty wars under the Anxi Protectorate until the rise of Turgesh.

Genetics

A 2023 study analyzed the DNA of Empress Ashina (551–582), a royal Göktürk and immediate descendant of the Göktürk khagans, whose remains were recovered from a mausoleum in Xianyang, China. The authors determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North-East Asian mtDNA haplogroup F1d. Approximately 96–98% of her autosomal ancestry was of Ancient Northeast Asian origin, while roughly 2–4% was of West Eurasian origin, indicating an ancient admixture event circa 1000 BC, and she had no Chinese ("Yellow River") admixture. The Ashina individual was found to be genetically closer to East Asians than Turkic groups and shared "most genetic affinity with post‐Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic Steppe pastoralists", supporting the Northeast Asian origin of the Ashina tribe and the Göktürks.

However, the study also noted that the wider Turkic realm, including central-steppe Türks and early medieval Türks, exhibits a high (but variable) degree of West Eurasian ancestry, which indicates that there was genetic sub-structure within the Türkic empire. For example, the ancestry of early medieval Turks was derived from Ancient Northeast Asians for about 62% of their genome, while the remaining 38% was derived from West Eurasians (BMAC and Afanasievo), with the admixture occurring around the year 500 CE. This suggests that, beyond a clearly Ancient Northeast Asian original elite, the Turkic Khaganate developped from populations of various sources, and that the diffusion of the Turkic language resulted from a cultural diffusion rather than a demic diffusion.

A genetic study examined the remains of four elite Türk soldiers buried between ca. 300 AD and 700 AD. 50% of the samples of Y-DNA belonged to the West Eurasian haplogroup R1, while the other 50% belonged to East Eurasian haplogroups Q and O. The extracted samples of mtDNA belonged mainly to East Eurasian haplogroups C4b1, A14 and A15c, while one specimen carried the West Eurasian haplogroup H2a. The authors suggested that central Asian nomadic populations may have been Turkicized by an East Asian minority elite, resulting in a small but detectable increase in East Asian ancestry. However, these authors also found that Türkic period individuals were extremely genetically diverse, with some individuals being of near complete West Eurasian descent. To explain this diversity of ancestry, they propose that there were also incoming West Eurasians moving eastward on the Eurasian steppe during the Türkic period, resulting in admixture.

A study analyzed genetic data from 7 early medieval Türk fossils from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate (581–645) burial sites in Mongolia. The authors described the Türk samples as highly diverse, carrying on average 40% West Eurasian, and 60% East Eurasian ancestry. West Eurasian ancestry in the Türks combined Sarmatian-related and BMAC ancestry, while the East Eurasian ancestry was related to Ancient Northeast Asians. The authors also observed that the Western Steppe Herders-mediated West Eurasian ancestry in the Türks was largely inherited from male ancestors, which also corresponds with the marked increase of paternal haplogroups such as R and J during the Türkic period in Mongolia. Admixture between East and West Eurasian ancestors of the Türkic samples was dated to 500 CE, or roughly 8 generations prior. Three (50%) of the Türkic-affiliated males carried the paternal haplogroups J2a and J1a, two carried haplogroup C-F3830, and one carried R1a-Z93. The maternal haplogroups were identified as D4 and D2, B4, C4, H1 and U7.