The Yenisei Kyrgyz destroy the Uyghur Khaganate
In 840, after a palace coup, famine and a disastrous winter had weakened the Uyghurs, a rebel Uyghur commander led the Yenisei Kyrgyz against the Uyghur capital on the Orkhon: the khagan was killed and his court burned. The Uyghur tribes scattered — west to the Karluks, to Tibet and the Tarim oases, south to the Chinese frontier — and the empire that had ruled the Mongolian steppe for nearly a century came to an end.
- Date
- 840year known
- Place
- Ordu-Baliq (Karabalgasun)today: Khar Balgas ruins in the Orkhon valley, Khotont district, Arkhangai Province, Mongolia · Central and Northern Asia
- Route
- Lands of the Yenisei Kyrgyz (Minusinsk Basin) → Ordu-Baliq (Karabalgasun)
- Participants
- Yenisei Kyrgyz, Uyghur Khaganate, Karluks, Tang dynasty
- Threads
- Central Asia and the steppe (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Fall of the Uyghur Khaganate; Kyrgyz conquest of Ordu-Baliq; Zhangxin Qaghan; Hesa Qaghan; Qasar Qaghan; Jueluowu; Julu Mohe; Wujie Qaghan; Ögä Qaghan; Princess Taihe; Падение Уйгурского каганата; Чжансинь-каган; Хэса-каган; Цзюэлоу; Цзюйлу Мохэ; Уцзе-каган; Царевна Тайхэ; 黠戛斯; 烏介可汗
The Kyrgyz of the upper Yenisei had been subdued by the Uyghurs in 758, but according to the Zizhi tongjian, once Uyghur power declined their ruler, the A-re, took the title of khagan, and for more than twenty years Uyghur armies fought him without success; he taunted the Uyghur khagan: “Your fortune is spent — I shall surely take your golden tent!” In 839 the Uyghur court fell into strife: after a failed plot against Zhangxin Qaghan, the minister Jueluowu, helped by Shatuo Turks whom he had hired for three hundred horses, attacked the khagan, who killed himself, and Hesa Tegin was raised in his place. The same year, the Tang histories say, famine and epidemic struck, and heavy snow killed many of the Uyghurs’ sheep and horses.
In 840 a Uyghur commander, Julu Mohe, an enemy of Jueluowu, went over to the Kyrgyz and led them — a hundred thousand horsemen, by the count of the Tang histories — against the Uyghur capital, usually identified with Ordu-Baliq on the Orkhon. They killed the khagan and Jueluowu and burned the khagan’s camp to the ground. The Uyghurs fled in all directions: fifteen tribes under the minister Sazhi and Prince Pang went west to the Karluks, other groups to Tibet and to Anxi in the Tarim Basin, and thirteen tribes that camped near the khagan proclaimed Wujie khagan and moved south to the Tang frontier. The Kyrgyz captured the Tang princess Taihe, who had been married to the Uyghur khagan in 821; claiming descent from the Han general Li Ling, and so kinship with the Tang imperial house of Li, they sent her back towards China, but Wujie intercepted her escort and kept the princess with him.
Wujie’s Uyghurs raided the frontier until in 843 the Tang general Shi Xiong surprised his camp, freed the princess and routed them; in 846 Wujie was killed by one of his own ministers, and by 848 the last Uyghurs in the east had been dispersed. The Tang recognised the Kyrgyz ruler as khagan in 847, but according to Michael Drompp the Kyrgyz kept their centre on the Yenisei and did not hold the Mongolian plateau for long; in the 10th century the Khitans extended their power over it. The Uyghurs who went west founded new states at Ganzhou in Gansu and in the Turfan oasis (Qocho), where Manichaeism long survived beside Buddhism. In China the fall of the khaganate deprived the Manichaeans of their protectors: from 843 the Tang suppressed their temples, a prelude to the persecution of Buddhism and other foreign religions in the Huichang era.
Connections
Related events
- The Uyghurs overthrow the Turks: the Uyghur Khaganate744 · Central and Northern Asiathe khaganate founded at Ötüken in 744 fell to the Kyrgyz in 840
- Bögü Qaghan makes Manichaeism the religion of the Uyghursbetween 762 and 763 · Central and Northern Asiathe fall of the khaganate deprived the Manichaean church of its royal patrons
- Death of Langdarma and the break-up of the Tibetan Empire842 · Central and Northern Asiawithin two years both great powers of Inner Asia, the Uyghur and the Tibetan empires, collapsed
- Huichang persecution: Emperor Wuzong suppresses the Buddhist monasteries10 May – 12 September 845 · East Asiaafter the Uyghur collapse the Tang confiscated the estates of the Uyghurs and of Manichaean temples (843), a prelude to the persecution of 845
Same participants
- Battle of TalasJuly 751 · Central and Northern Asiavia Karluks
- Jang Bogo’s Cheonghae garrison and the trade of the Yellow Seabetween 18 May and 15 June 828 – between December 841 and April 846 · East Asiavia Tang dynasty
- Ennin’s pilgrimage to Tang China12 July 838 – 30 October 847 · East Asiavia Tang dynasty
Same place
- Bumin overthrows the Rouran: the Turkic Khaganate is foundedbetween February and March 552 · Central and Northern Asia
- Civil war and split of the Turkic Khaganate581–603 · Central and Northern Asia
- The Orkhon inscriptions: memorial stelae of Kül Tegin and Bilge Qaghan1 August 732 – 735 · Central and Northern Asia
- Karakorum becomes the Mongol capital1235 · Central and Northern Asia
- Death of Yaroslav II in Karakorum30 September 1246 · Central and Northern Asia
Adjacent events in the thread
- The Tang–Tibet treaty of 821–822 and the treaty pillar in Lhasa8 November 821 – March 823 · Central and Northern Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- The “Rhos” at the court of Louis the Pious18 May 839
- Aghlabid conquest of SicilyJune 827 – 1 August 902
Eastern Europe
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
- Construction of Sarkelbetween 833 and 841
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
Balkans and Anatolia
- Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843
Middle East and Egypt
- The mihna: the Abbasid inquisition over the createdness of the Qur’an833 – between 848 and 852
- The House of Wisdom and the translation movement in Baghdadc. 800 – c. 900
Africa
- Ifriqiya under the Aghlabids800 – March 909
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
South Asia
- The tripartite struggle for Kannaujbetween 783 and 790 – between 915 and 918
- Mihira Bhoja and the Pratihara empire of Kannaujc. 836 – c. 885
East Asia
- Ennin’s pilgrimage to Tang China12 July 838 – 30 October 847
- Jang Bogo’s Cheonghae garrison and the trade of the Yellow Seabetween 18 May and 15 June 828 – between December 841 and April 846
North America
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Cacaxtla and Xochicalco: the Epiclassic cities of central Mexicoc. 650 – c. 900
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Uyghur Khaganate
- Wikipedia (English): Yenisei Kyrgyz
- Wikipedia (English): Kyrgyz Khaganate
- Wikipedia (Russian): Уйгурский каганат
- Wikipedia (Russian): Енисейские кыргызы
- Сыма Гуан. Цзычжи тунцзянь, гл. 246–248.
- Лю Сюй и др. Цзю Тан шу (Old Book of Tang), гл. 195: жизнеописание уйгуров.
- Оуян Сю, Сун Ци. Синь Тан шу (New Book of Tang), гл. 217Б: жизнеописания уйгуров и кыргызов.
- Drompp M. R. Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History. — Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2005. — (Brill’s Inner Asian Library; vol. 13).