First Turkic Khaganate: A Visual History

The First Turkic Khaganate was founded in 552 when Bumin, a vassal ironworker of the Rouran, overthrew his masters and took the title khagan. Under his brother Istami and son Muqan the Gokturks destroyed the Hephthalites with Sasanian help, took control of the Silk Road, exchanged embassies with Byzantium and dominated the steppe from Korea to the Crimea. Succession disputes split it into eastern and western khaganates around 603.

When it existed: the era ribbon

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Khaganate territory

Timeline of the First Turkic Khaganate

1. 552
   Bumin defeats the RouranTakes the title khagan; dies the same year.
2. 553
   Muqan KhaganThe Rouran destroyed; expansion east.
3. 557
   Hephthalites crushedWith Sasanian Persia; the Oxus becomes the border.
4. 568
   Embassy to ConstantinopleSogdian merchant Maniakh leads it.
5. 572
   Taspar KhaganChina's northern dynasties pay tribute.
6. 581
   Succession crisisThe Sui play the claimants off.
7. 603
   Permanent splitEastern and Western khaganates.

Blacksmiths' revolt

The Ashina clan of Turks worked iron for the Rouran khagans in the Altai. Bumin asked for a Rouran princess, was mocked as a 'blacksmith slave', allied instead with the Chinese Western Wei and destroyed the Rouran in 552. He died within months; his son Muqan finished off the Rouran remnants and pushed east to Manchuria.

Istami in the west

Bumin's brother Istami led the western wing. Allied with Khosrow I of Persia he crushed the Hephthalites around 557, then quarrelled with the Sasanians over silk and sent an embassy via the Caspian to Constantinople in 568. The Byzantine envoy Zemarchus visited the Turkic court; the two powers coordinated against Persia. Turks also expelled the Avars, who fled to Europe.

Division

Taspar Khagan (572-581) played the rival Northern Zhou and Northern Qi against each other and patronised Buddhism. His death produced a four-way succession dispute that China's new Sui dynasty exploited. By 603 the khaganate had split permanently into eastern and western halves, both later destroyed by the Tang.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Rouran Khaganate (330 to 555)
• Eastern Turkic Khaganate (603 to 630)
• Western Turkic Khaganate (603 to 742)
• Hephthalite Empire (440 to 560)
• Sasanian Empire (224 to 651)
• Byzantine Empire (395 to 1453)
• Northern Zhou (557 to 581)
• Northern Qi (550 to 577)
• Sui dynasty (581 to 618)
• Avar Khaganate (567 to 822)

8 surprising things about the First Turkic Khaganate

1. The Rouran khagan reportedly refused Bumin's marriage proposal by calling him 'my blacksmith slave'; the Turks destroyed the Rouran the next year.
2. The word 'Turk' first appears in history with this empire, in Chinese records as Tujue.
3. The Turkic khaganate and Byzantium negotiated an alliance against Persia in the 560s partly to reroute the silk trade around Iran.
4. The Avars who terrorised Europe from the 560s were refugees from the Turkic conquest.
5. Northern Zhou and Northern Qi both paid the Turks huge quantities of silk to secure their support against each other.
6. The Turkic ruling clan, the Ashina, claimed descent from a boy raised by a she-wolf.
7. The Turks used a runic-like script; the earliest inscriptions date from the second khaganate.
8. Taspar Khagan had Buddhist scriptures translated into Turkic and built a temple on the steppe.

Sources

• First Turkic Khaganate Wikipedia
• Turk (people) Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Gokturks World History Encyclopedia
• Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992) Harrassowitz

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