Tuyuhun

Tuyuhun (Chinese: 吐谷渾; LHC: *tʰɑB-k/jok-guən[1]), also known as Azha (Tibetan: ‘A-zha),[2] was a kingdom established by the nomadic peoples related to the Xianbei in the Qilian Mountains and upper Yellow River valley, in modern Qinghai, China.[3]

Tuyuhun

284–670
Asia in AD 565, showing Tuyuhun and its neighbors.
StatusKingdom
CapitalFuqi
Common languagesTuyuhun
GovernmentMonarchy
Khagan 
• 284-317
Murong Tuyuhun
• 635-672
Murong Nuohebo
History 
• Established
284
• Vassal of Tang China
634
• Destroyed by the Tibetan Empire
670
Succeeded by
Tibetan Empire
Today part ofChina
Rouran Khaganate, Tuyuhun, Yueban and Northern Wei

History

After the disintegration of the Xianbei state, nomadic groups were led by their khagan, Tuyuhun, to the rich pasture lands around Qinghai Lake about the middle of the 3rd century AD.

Murong Tuyuhun (慕容吐谷渾) was the older brother of the Former Yan's ancestor Murong Hui[4] and elder son of the Chanyu Murong Shegui (慕容涉歸) of the Murong Xianbei who took his people from their original settlements on the Liaodong Peninsula to the region of the Yin Mountains, crossing the Yellow River between 307 and 313, and into the eastern region of modern Qinghai.[5]

The Tuyuhun Empire was established in 284[6] by subjugating the native peoples referred to as the Qiang, including more than 100 different and loosely coordinated tribes that did not submit to each other or any authority.

After Tuyuhun died in Linxia, Gansu in 317, his sixty sons further expanded the empire by defeating the Western Qin (385-430) and Xia (407-431) kingdoms. The Qinghai Xianbei, Tufa Xianbei, Qifu Xianbei and Haolian Xianbei joined them. They moved their capital 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) west of Qinghai Lake.[7]

These Xianbei groups formed the core of the Tuyuhun Empire and numbered about 3.3 million at their peak. They carried out extensive military expeditions westward, reaching as far as Hotan in Xinjiang and the borders of Kashmir and Afghanistan, and established a vast empire that encompassed Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, northern Sichuan, eastern Shaanxi, southern Xinjiang, and most of Tibet, stretching 1,500 kilometers from east to west and 1,000 kilometers from north to south. They unified parts of Inner Asia for the first time in history, developed the southern route of the Silk Road, and promoted cultural exchange between the eastern and western territories, dominating the northwest for more than three and half centuries until it was destroyed by the Tibetan Empire.[8] The Tuyuhun Empire existed as an independent kingdom outside China[9] and was not included as part of Chinese historiography.

Conflict between the Tang and Tibetan empires
Emperor Taizong's campaign against Tuyuhun in 634 AD

In the beginning of the Tang dynasty, the Tuyuhun Empire came to a gradual decline and was increasingly caught in the conflict between China and Tibet. Because the Tuyuhun controlled the crucial trade routes between east and the west, the empire became the immediate target of invasion by the Tang.

The Tibetan Empire developed rapidly under the leadership of Songtsen Gampo, who united the Tibetans and expanded northward, directly threatening the Tuyuhun Empire. Soon after he took the throne of the Yarlung Kingdom in Central Tibet in 634, he defeated the Tuyuhun near Qinghai Lake and received an envoy from the Tang.[10] The Tibetan emperor requested marriage to a Chinese princess, but was refused. In 635-6 the Tang emperor defeated the Tibetan army; after this campaign,[11] the Chinese emperor agreed to provide a Chinese princess to Songtsen Gampo.[12]

The Tibetan emperor, who claimed that the Tuyuhun objected to his marriage with the Tang, sent 200,000 troops to attack. The Tuyuhun troops retreated to Qinghai, whereas the Tibetans went eastward to attack the Tangut people and reached into southern Gansu. The Tang government sent troops to fight. Although the Tibetans withdrew in response, the Tuyuhun Empire lost much of its territory in southern Gansu to Tibetans.

Battle of Dafeichuan

The Tuyuhun Government was split between the pro-Tang and pro-Tibet factions, with the latter increasingly becoming stronger and collaborated with Tibet to bring about an invasion. The Tang sent general Xue Rengui to lead 100,000 troops to fight Tibet in Dafeichuan (present Gonghe County, Qinghai). They were annihilated by the ambush of 200,000 troops led by Dayan and the Tibetans. Tibet overtook the entire territory of the Tuyuhun.

Disintegration
Remnants of Tyuhun in northern Hebei and northern Qinghai (907-1125)
Remnants of Tuyuhun in northern Hebei and northern Qinghai (1207)

After the fall of the kingdom, the Tuyuhun people split. Led by Murong Nuohebo on the eastern side of the Qilian Mountains they migrated eastward into central China. The rest remained and were ruled by the Tibetan Empire.

Through this period, the Xianbei underwent massive diasporata over a vast territory that stretched from the northwest into central and eastern parts of China, with the greatest concentrations by Mt. Yin near Ordos Loop. In 946, a Shatuo, Liu Zhiyuan, conspired to murder the highest Xianbei leader, Bai Chengfu, who was reportedly so wealthy that “his horses had silver mangers”.[13] With the looted wealth that included an abundance of property and thousands of fine horses, Liu established the Later Han (Five Dynasties) (947-950), which lasted only four years and became the shortest dynasty in Chinese history. The incident took away the central leadership and stripped the opportunity for the Xianbei to restore the Tuyuhun Kingdom, although later they were able to establish the Western Xia (1038-1227), which was destroyed by the Mongols.[14]

Language

Alexander Vovin (2015) identifies the extinct Tuyuhun language as a Para-Mongolic language, meaning that Tuyuhun is related to Mongolic as a sister clade but is not directly descended from the Proto-Mongolic language.[15] The Khitan language is also a Para-Mongolic language.

Culture

The Tuyuhun people were experts in horse breeding and also practised agriculture. As a realm just between the Chinese empires in the east (Northern Wei, and the Southern Dynasties) and other steppe tribes such as the Rouran Khaganate and the Tiele people, the Tuyuhun acted as envoys and traders, while many Buddhist missionaries and travelers crossed their country.

When the Chinese pilgrim monk, Songyun, visited the region in 518, he noted that the people had a written language, which was more than a hundred years before Thonmi Sambhota is said to have returned from India after developing a script for writing the Tibetan language.[16]

Rulers
Regal namesFamily names and given nameDurations of reigns
Henan King (河南王)慕容吐谷渾 Mùróng Tǔyùhún284-317
Henan King (河南王)慕容吐延 Mùróng Tǔyán317-329
Tuyuhun King (吐谷渾王)慕容葉延 Mùróng Yèyán329-351
Tuyuhun King (吐谷渾王)慕容碎奚 Mùróng Suìxī351-371
Bailan King (白蘭王)慕容視連 Mùróng Shìlián371-390
Tuyuhun King (吐谷渾王)慕容視羆 Mùróng Shìpí390-400
Da Chanyu (大單于)慕容烏紇褆 Mùróng Wūgētí400-405
Wuyin Khan (戊寅可汗)/
Da Chanyu (大單于)/
Wu King (武王)		慕容樹洛干 Mùróng Shùluògān405-417
Bailan King (白蘭王)慕容阿柴 Mùróng Āchái417-424
Hui King (惠王)/
King of Longxi (隴西王)		慕容慕璝 Mùróng Mùguī424-436
Henan King (河南王)慕容慕利延 Mùróng Mùlìyán436-452
Henan King (河南王)/
Xiping King (西平王)		慕容拾寅 Mùróng Shíyín452-481
Henan King (河南王)慕容度易侯 Mùróng Dùyìhóu481-490
慕容伏連籌 Mùróng Fúliánchóu490-540
Khan慕容夸呂 Mùróng Kuālǔ540-591
Khan慕容世伏 Mùróng Shìfú591-597
Busabo Khan (步薩鉢可汗)慕容伏允 Mùróng Fúyǔn597-635
Zhugulüwugandou Khan (趉故呂烏甘豆可汗)/
Daning King (大寧王)/
Xiping Commandery King (西平郡王)		慕容順 Mùróng Shùn635
Wudiyebaledou Khan (烏地也拔勒豆可汗)/
Heyuan Commandery King (河源郡王)		慕容諾曷鉢 Mùróng Nuòhébō635-672

Rulers family tree
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See also

References
  1. Schuessler, Axel. (2007) An Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. University of Hawaii Press. p. 502, 259, 290
  2. Beckwith 1993, p. 17.
  3. Frederick W. Mote (2003). Imperial China 900-1800. p. 170.
  4. Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 90.
  5. The T'u-yü-hun from the Northern Wei to the time of the Five Dynasties, p. XII. 1970. Gabriella Molè. Rome. Is.M.E.O.
  6. 281 is the foundation for the first or 'Former' (of the four) Murong Xianbei Kingdoms. See Charles Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.-A.D. 907: 221 B.C.-A.D.907,University of Hawaii Press, 2001 pp.130-131.
  7. "Note sur les T’ou-yu-houen et les Sou-p’i." Paul Pelliot. T’oung pao, 20 (1921), p. 323.
  8. Zhou, Weizhou [周伟洲] (1985). The Tuyühu History [《吐谷浑史》] . Yinchuan [银川]: Ningxia People's Press [宁夏人民出版社].
  9. Beckwith 2009, p. 128-129.
  10. Tibetan Civilization, p. 57. R. A. Stein. 1972. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-8047-0901-9 (paper).
  11. OTA l. 607
  12. Tibet: A Political History, p. 26. Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa. 1967. Yale University Press. New Haven and London.
  13. Molè, Gabriella, 1970, The T'u-yü-hun from the Northern Wei to the time of the five dynasties. Roma, Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. p. xxiv.
  14. Lü, Jianfu [呂建福], 2002. The Tu History [《土族史》]. Beijing [北京]: Chinese Social Sciences Press [中囯社会科学出版社].
  15. Vovin, Alexander. 2015. Some notes on the Tuyuhun (吐谷渾) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot. In Journal of Sino-Western Communications, Volume 7, Issue 2 (December 2015).
  16. Ancient Tibet: Research Materials from the Yeshe De Project (1986), p. 136. Dharma Publishing, California. ISBN 0-89800-146-3.

Works cited
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