Ashina Gui

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Mo Chuo belonged to the Ashina clan, the royal house of the Turks. His elder brother Qutlugh rebuilt the Eastern Turkic polity at the end of Emperor Gaozong's reign and became Ilterish Qaghan of the Second Turkic Khaganate. While Qutlugh was qaghan, he stationed Mo Chuo at the southern headquarters at Heisha Castle, northwest of modern Hohhot, and entrusted him with military and political affairs in the south. Mo Chuo accompanied his elder brother on campaign from an early stage and gained extensive military experience. During the Yongchang era in 689, he led troops against the Zhou frontier. Wu Zetian appointed Xue Huaiyi commander of the Qingping circuit to oppose him; Xue advanced to Chanyu Terrace, carved an inscription commemorating his expedition, and returned.

Proclaiming Himself Qaghan

In 691, the second year of Tianshou, Qutlugh died of illness. Qutlugh's son Mojilian was still young, so Mo Chuo proclaimed himself qaghan. At the time, the Second Turkic Khaganate was said to possess an army of four hundred thousand and had already established considerable power. After his accession, Mo Chuo continued his brother's expansionist policies. He campaigned west against the Tanguts, Basmyls, Türgesh, and the Ten Tribes of the Western Turks, and also carried expeditions into the region of the Nine Sogdian states of Central Asia, with repeated success. In the east he attacked the Xi and Khitan. His realm extended for thousands of li, and most of the peoples north of the Gobi came under his control. His power was broadly comparable to that of Illig Qaghan at the height of the earlier Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

Mo Chuo retained the institutions of the earlier Eastern Turkic state. Outside the territory directly controlled by the qaghan's court, he divided the realm into left and right wings and placed brothers and nephews over them as ch'a, also rendered shad or shad-like regional commanders, creating eastern and western wing commands.

Alternating War and Peace with Wu Zhou

Mo Chuo's relationship with Wu Zetian's Zhou regime was highly complex. In 694, the first year of Yanzai, he invaded Lingzhou but was defeated by Li Duozuo, General of the Right Eagle-Soaring Guard. In 695, the first year of Zhengsheng, Wu Zetian appointed Wang Xiaojie commander of the Shuofang expeditionary army to attack the Second Turkic Khaganate. In the tenth lunar month, Mo Chuo sent envoys offering submission. Wu Zetian made him Duke of Returning Allegiance, appointed him General of the Left Guard, and granted him five thousand bolts of goods.

In 696, the first year of Wansui Tongtian, the Khitan leaders Li Jinzhong and Sun Wanrong rebelled and captured Yingzhou. Mo Chuo sent envoys requesting the return of surrendered households from Hexi and offered to lead his tribal forces to attack the Khitan on behalf of the state. Wu Zetian agreed. Mo Chuo then campaigned against the Khitan, won a major victory, seized their families and baggage, and thereby strengthened his army. Wu Zetian sent envoys to confer on him the additional titles Specially Advanced, Xiedielishi Great Chanyu, and Khan Who Established Merit and Repaid the State.

In 698, the first year of Shengli, Mo Chuo submitted a memorial asking to establish a mother-son relationship with Wu Zetian, requested a marriage alliance for his daughter, demanded the surrendered households of the six prefectures of Feng, Sheng, Ling, Xia, Shuo, and Dai and the lands of the Chanyu Protectorate, and also requested agricultural tools and seed grain. Wu Zetian at first refused. Mo Chuo became furious and detained the Zhou envoy Tian Guidao. Fearful of his military power, the court accepted the advice of the senior officials Yao Shu and Yang Zaisi and agreed to the alliance. Thousands of tents of surrendered households from the six prefectures were transferred to him, together with more than forty thousand shi of seed grain and three thousand agricultural implements. Mo Chuo's strength grew further.

That same year, Wu Zetian sent Wu Yanxiu, Prince of Huaiyang, to marry Mo Chuo's daughter. Mo Chuo became enraged because Wu Yanxiu was not a son of the Li imperial house and detained him. He then launched a southern invasion, captured Dingzhou and Zhaozhou, killed the prefects Sun Yangao and Gao Rui, and massacred between eighty and ninety thousand captured men and women. Contemporary accounts describe indiscriminate killing along the route. Wu Zetian was furious. She decreed that anyone who killed Mo Chuo would be made a prince, contemptuously changed his name to “Zhanchuo,” restored Li Xian, Prince of Luling, as crown prince and nominal commander of the Hebei expeditionary army, and appointed Di Renjie deputy commander to oppose him. Mo Chuo, hearing of the mobilization, carried off the men and women of Zhao and Ding and withdrew north by the Wuhui route. Di Renjie led one hundred thousand troops in pursuit but could not catch him.

Later Expansion and Defeat

In 700, the first year of Jiushi, Mo Chuo seized more than ten thousand horses from the state herds in Longyou. In the spring of 702, the second year of Chang'an, he invaded Yanzhou and Xiazhou, broke through Shiling, harassed Bingzhou, and in the seventh lunar month again raided Daizhou. In 703 he again requested a marriage alliance, asking that his daughter marry a son of the crown prince, and Wu Zetian agreed.

In 705, the first year of Shenlong, Emperor Zhongzong returned to the Tang throne. Mo Chuo attacked Lingzhou, Yuanzhou, Huizhou, and other prefectures and seized more than ten thousand horses from the Longyou herds. In 706 he fought Tang at Mingsha and heavily defeated Shazha Zhongyi, commander of the Lingwu army; more than six thousand Tang soldiers were killed. In 708, Zhang Renyuan built the eastern, central, and western Surrender Cities north of the Yellow River and south of the Yin Mountains to restrict Mo Chuo's southward movement, but Mo Chuo continued to raid Tang territory. In 709, using the Türgesh defector Zhenu as a guide, he defeated and captured the Türgesh ruler Suoge and had him killed.

In 710, the first year of Jingyun, Mo Chuo again sent envoys to seek a marriage alliance. Tang promised Princess Jinshan, but the arrangement failed when Emperor Ruizong abdicated. In the eighth lunar month of 713, Mo Chuo sent his son Yangwozhi Tegin to court to request marriage. Emperor Xuanzong agreed to marry him to Lady Nanhe, daughter of the Prince of Shu.

In his later years, Mo Chuo treated subordinates harshly, and tribes subjected to his rule gradually rebelled or dispersed. Ministers and relatives also defected to Tang. In 714, the second year of Kaiyuan, he adopted the elaborate style rendered in the Chinese source as “Heaven-bestowed, Reward-receiving, Heavenly Son, Sacred Turkic Qutlugh Khan.” He sent his son Inel Qaghan, Tong'e Tegin, and his brother-in-law Huoba Shishibi with elite cavalry to besiege the Beiting Protectorate. The protector Guo Qian'guan held the city. Tong'e Tegin rode alone close to the walls and was killed by an ambush; the Turkic army withdrew.

In 715, the Ten Tribes of the Western Turks and Mo Chuo's sons-in-law Gao Wenjian, Tiedie Sitai, and others successively submitted to Tang, together totaling more than ten thousand tents. In 716, the fourth year of Kaiyuan, Mo Chuo campaigned north against the Bayïrqu of the Toquz Oghuz and won a major battle at the Dule River. Returning after victory, he became overconfident and failed to maintain security. On the twenty-ninth day of the sixth lunar month, the routed Bayïrqu warrior Xielüe ambushed him in a willow grove and beheaded him. Xielüe carried his head together with the Tang envoy to the steppe, Hao Lingquan, to Chang'an to claim a reward. After Mo Chuo's death, his son, the Lesser Khan of the Western Expansion, succeeded, but was soon killed by Kül Tegin, son of Qutlugh. Kül Tegin then placed his elder brother Mojilian on the throne as Bilge Khan.

Qapaghan's expansion was bound up with the internal politics of Wu Zhou. In 696, when the Khitan chiefs Li Jinzhong and Sun Wanrong rebelled and took Yingzhou, Qapaghan raided Songmo and carried off the wives and baggage of both, whereupon the Khitan chiefs collapsed and his own following grew. When he invaded in 698, the frontier commander Murong Xuanze surrendered with five thousand men, the Turks entered Gui and Tan prefectures, broke the Feihu county of Weizhou, ravaged Dingzhou and killed its prefect Sun Yangao, burning houses so that villages stood empty; they besieged Zhaozhou, where the assistant Tang Boruo opened the city to them and the prefect Gao Rui died resisting. Wu Zhou sent Wu Zhonggui, Shazha Zhongyi and Zhang Rendan with three hundred thousand men and Yan Jingrong and Li Duozuo with a hundred and fifty thousand in support, but the generals stood off and dared not fight, and Di Renjie, pursuing with a hundred thousand, could not come up with them. Qapaghan carried off eighty or ninety thousand men and women from Zhao and Ding and withdrew northward by the Wu Hui road, plundering all the people, beasts and wealth in his path.

Thereafter he raided year after year. In 700 he swept away more than ten thousand horses from the Longyou pastures; in 702 he invaded Yan and Xia prefectures in the spring, broke Shiling and troubled Bingzhou, and raided Daizhou in the seventh month; in 703 he again asked for marriage, offering his daughter to a son of the heir apparent, and the empress had the princes Li Chongjun and Li Chongming receive his envoys at court and feasted them. After Emperor Zhongzong took the throne, the battle of Mingsha in 706 ended in the rout of the Tang commander Shazha Zhongyi with six thousand dead, and in 708 Zhang Renyuan built the three fortified cities east, middle and west between the Yellow River and the Yinshan to block his advance. In 709, guided by the rebel Turgesh general Zhenu, he defeated and killed the Turgesh qaghan Soge, and in 713 he sent his son Yangwozhi to court seeking marriage, and Xuanzong promised him a princess of Shu.

In his last years Qapaghan treated his subordinates harshly, and the subject tribes drifted away, ministers and kinsmen going over to the Tang. In 714 he styled himself "the heaven-descended, karma-rewarded, heaven-born man, holy qaghan of the Turks" and sent his son, the lesser qaghan Yinia, Tong'e Tegin and his brother-in-law Huoba Shishibi, with picked horse against the Beiting protectorate; Tong'e rode alone to the wall and was killed from ambush by the protector Guo Qiangquan, and the Turks withdrew. The next year the ten tribes of the Western Turks and his own son-in-law Gao Wenjian and Xiedie Sitai went over to the Tang, more than ten thousand households in all. In 716, on campaign against the Bayirku, he was killed on the return march, careless of his guard, by a routed Bayirku soldier named Xiezhibian, and his head was sent to the capital. After his death the Turkic realm briefly fell apart; his nephew Mojilian, the Bilge Qaghan, reunited the tribes with the help of Tonyukuk, and Tang-Turkic relations passed gradually from constant war to marriage and embassies.

The Later Turkic realm under Qapaghan carried on the old Eastern Turkic structure: below the qaghan were the two wings under their shads, with the lesser qaghan above them both; abroad he alternated war and marriage, pressing Tang, the Khitan, the Xi, the Turgesh and the Central Asian peoples with war to gain peace and with peace to prepare war. The Tang response shifted with him: from Wu Zetian's titles and great armies to Zhongzong's refusal of marriage and offers of reward for his head, and under the early Xuanzong to Zhang Renyuan's three fortified cities and the standing army of Shuofang holding the river line, the frontier passing from attack to defense in strength. After Qapaghan's death the Turks briefly dispersed and the Bilge Qaghan gathered the tribes anew with Tonyukuk's help, while the Tang turned their main effort to the Tibetans and the western regions, the pressure from the north easing greatly. Turkic inscriptions and Chinese histories corroborate one another, the former calling him the Apa Qaghan while the latter record in detail his wars and marriages with Wu Zhou and Tang, and together they form the base of present knowledge of the Later Turkic at its height.

Qapaghan moved and resettled great numbers of conquered peoples, and the Turkic realm was made up of many tribes — the basis of its manpower and labor, and one root of the dispersal that overtook his later years.

Qapaghan's titles shift repeatedly in the Chinese sources — Duke of Gui, Qaghan of Returning Goodness, Qaghan of Achievement and Service to the State, and finally the punning "Behead Qapaghan" — their rise and fall tracking the Tang court's alternation of war and peace with him.

Major Activities

Military Expansion

During his twenty-five-year reign, Mo Chuo campaigned in every direction and expanded the Second Turkic Khaganate to its greatest territorial extent. He attacked the Khitan and Xi in the east, campaigned against the Tanguts, Basmyls, Türgesh, and the Ten Tribes of the Western Turks in the west, and sent expeditions into the Nine Sogdian states of Central Asia, extending influence east of the Aral Sea. In 699, the second year of Shengli, he made his brother Duoxifu commander of the left wing and Qutlugh's son Moju commander of the right wing, each with more than twenty thousand troops. He also made his own son Fuju lesser khan, titled the Western Expansion Khan, and put him over more than forty thousand troops from the Chumukun and other tribes of the Ten Tribes. At this point Turkic power extended from the Bohai region in the east to the Tianshan in the west, over more than ten thousand li, with four hundred thousand bowmen. It was the most powerful Turkic empire since the height of Illig Qaghan. In 709, Mo Chuo used the Türgesh defector Zhenu as guide and led twenty thousand men to defeat and kill the Türgesh ruler Suoge.

War and Marriage Diplomacy with Tang

Mo Chuo's relations with Tang, including the Wu Zhou period, were characterized primarily by war but repeatedly punctuated by marriage diplomacy. He repeatedly invaded south, captured Dingzhou and Zhaozhou, killed prefects, massacred civilians, and seized large numbers of people and livestock. At the same time he repeatedly sent envoys seeking marriage alliances. He first asked to become Wu Zetian's son, later asked to marry his daughter to a son of the crown prince, and later sought a marriage with a younger brother of Emperor Xuanzong. Wu Zetian alternated conciliation and military force: she first made him Duke of Returning Allegiance, Qianshan Khan, and Khan Who Established Merit and Repaid the State, but later contemptuously renamed him “Zhanchuo” and offered a princely reward for his death. Under Emperor Zhongzong, Tang severed the marriage negotiations and again offered rewards for his capture or death. Under Emperor Ruizong, Princess Jinshan was promised to him, but the arrangement failed. Under Emperor Xuanzong, Lady Nanhe was promised, but that marriage also did not take place. Mo Chuo's repeated changes of course made him one of Tang's most difficult northern adversaries in the early eighth century.

Political Institutions

Mo Chuo continued the institutions of the earlier Eastern Turkic Khaganate. He divided the realm into left and right wings, placing brothers and nephews over them as ch'a or shad and styling them commanders of the eastern and western wings. He also made his own son lesser khan, ranking above the two wing commanders and placing him over the forces of the Ten Tribes. This structure strengthened the Second Turkic Khaganate and enabled it to control an extensive territory and numerous subject tribes.

Relations with Neighboring Peoples

Mo Chuo conquered the Khitan, Xi, Kyrgyz, Bayïrqu, Karluks, and other peoples and brought them under his authority. In his later years, however, his harsh rule and heavy demands caused subjected peoples to rebel and disperse. In 715, the third year of Kaiyuan, the Ten Tribes of the Western Turks and several of Mo Chuo's sons-in-law successively submitted to Tang, totaling more than ten thousand tents, indicating the depth of the crisis in his rule.

Personal Relations

• Elder brother: Qutlugh (Ilterish Qaghan), founder of the Second Turkic Khaganate
• Sons: Inel Qaghan; the Lesser Khan of the Western Expansion (Fuju); Tong'e Tegin; Yangwozhi Tegin; Mo Tegin, who submitted to Tang
• Grandson: Shi Jixian, son of Mo Tegin and later a Tang general
• Brother-in-law: Huoba Shishibi, a tribal leader who later submitted to Tang under the name Guiren and was made Prince of Yanshan Commandery
• Sons-in-law: Gao Wenjian, a Goguryeo magnate; Ashide Hulu, who later submitted to Tang
• Wu Zetian: granted him the titles Duke of Returning Allegiance, Qianshan Khan, and Khan Who Established Merit and Repaid the State, but later renamed him “Zhanchuo”
• Emperor Zhongzong of Tang: broke off marriage diplomacy and offered rewards for his capture or death
• Emperor Ruizong of Tang: promised Princess Jinshan in marriage
• Emperor Xuanzong of Tang: promised Lady Nanhe in marriage
• Li Duozuo: defeated Mo Chuo at Lingzhou in the first year of Yanzai
• Wang Xiaojie: appointed Shuofang expeditionary commander against the Turks in the first year of Zhengsheng
• Di Renjie: served as expeditionary commander in Hebei in the first year of Shengli and led one hundred thousand troops in an unsuccessful pursuit
• Shazha Zhongyi: heavily defeated at Mingsha and subsequently dismissed
• Zhang Renyuan: built the three Surrender Cities to block Turkic incursions
• Guo Qian'guan: Protector of Beiting who ambushed and killed Tong'e Tegin
• Xielüe: routed Bayïrqu warrior who killed Mo Chuo
• Yan Zhiwei: escorted Wu Yanxiu for the marriage mission, was falsely given the title “Khan of the South” by Mo Chuo, later escaped back to Tang and was executed
• Tian Guidao: Wu Zhou envoy detained by Mo Chuo
• Wu Yanxiu: Prince of Huaiyang, detained by Mo Chuo
• Suoge: Türgesh khan captured and killed by Mo Chuo
• Kül Tegin: son of Qutlugh; after Mo Chuo's death he killed Mo Chuo's son and enthroned Bilge Khan
• Bilge Khan: Mojilian, son of Qutlugh, who succeeded after Mo Chuo's death

Historical Assessment

Tang / Contemporary

• The *Old Book of Tang*, in its biography of the Turks, says that Mo Chuo “usurped the position and proclaimed himself qaghan,” condemning his seizure of power, but also records that “from this point his troops steadily grew stronger,” acknowledging his ability to expand the state.
• The *New Book of Tang* records that Wu Zetian decreed that anyone who killed Mo Chuo would be made a prince and changed his name to “Zhanchuo,” demonstrating the depth of Tang hostility toward him.
• Emperor Zhongzong issued an edict “breaking off the marriage alliance” and promising a princely title to anyone who could capture or kill Mo Chuo, reflecting Tang anger and frustration at his repeated reversals.

Song and Yuan Periods

• The *Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance* records Mo Chuo's relations and wars with Wu Zhou in detail. Sima Guang criticized the inconsistency by which Mo Chuo first “asked to become the empress's son” and then “imprisoned Yanxiu,” describing his manner as arrogant and his conduct as that of a strong power bullying a weaker one.
• Song compilers of the *New Book of Tang* compared Mo Chuo with Illig Qaghan and described him as controlling territory extending more than ten thousand li, recognizing him as one of the great rulers of the Turks.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Ming and Qing scholars often assessed Mo Chuo through the traditional Hua–Yi framework and treated him as a representative northern frontier threat. Wang Fuzhi, in *Commentaries on Reading the Comprehensive Mirror*, criticized the Wu Zhou court for “fearing his military strength” and therefore “agreeing to marriage,” which allowed the Turks to become still stronger.
• Later writers on the building of the three Surrender Cities noted that Zhang Renyuan's strict methods kept the Turks from crossing the mountains to pasture, which shows that Mo Chuo's strength obliged the Tang to strengthen its frontier defence.

Modern Assessments

• Modern historians of the Turks generally regard Mo Chuo as the ruler under whom the Second Turkic Khaganate reached its greatest power; his military expansion made it one of the strongest nomadic states in East Asia.
• Cen Zhongmian's *Collected History of the Turks* systematically examines Tang-Turkic relations under Mo Chuo and interprets his alternating marriage diplomacy and invasions as a reflection of the changing balance of power between Tang and the Turks.
• Xue Zongzheng's *History of the Turks* describes Mo Chuo as a ruler of “great talent and bold strategy,” while noting that in his later years he “treated those below harshly,” causing widespread defection and ending in his violent death and political disorder.