Tip: These 5 theories have not been resolved in academic circles, which today bring great difficulties to the study of the history of the Turkic peoples, and then there are some confusing claims. We believe that the ancestors of the Turks in the true sense of the word as a nation were the Xiongnu, who originated in the Altai Mountains, that is, the "Gaochang Beishan Theory", which is the most reliable. They are yellow people, the degree of Sinicization has been very high, in addition to retaining the language and nomadic characteristics, has been close to the Han people. The fourth theory, "Pingliang Miscellaneous Nonsense", is just an extension of the fifth theory, "Gaochang Beishan Theory".
The Turks are the collective name of the ethnic groups that have historically been active in the Mongolian plateau and Central Asia, and are also another important nomadic people in the northwest and northern steppes of China since the Xiongnu, Xianbei and Ruoran. Regarding their origins, Xue Zong is summarizing them into 5 types in his Turkic History (China Social Sciences Press, 1992), which are now listed in a simple way:
1. The right of the Aral Sea says
The History of the North, vol. 99, edited by the Tang Dynasty historian Li Yanshou:
The Turks, whose ancestors lived on the right side of the West Sea (Xue Zongzheng believed that the West Sea referred to the Aral Sea), were independent of the tribe and covered the other species of the Huns. The surname is Ashina. Later, it was destroyed by neighboring countries and exterminated its people. There was a son, who was ten years old, and when the soldiers saw that he was small, he could not bear to kill him, but cut off his arm and abandoned the grass. There are wolves with meat bait, and long, and they mate with wolves, so that they are pregnant. When the king heard that he was still alive, he sent him back to kill him. The messenger saw the wolf on the side and wanted to kill the wolf. If there is a divine object at that time, throw the wolf in the east of the West Sea and fall on the northwest mountain of Gaochangguo. The mountain has caves, and there are Pyongyang lush grasses in the caves, and there are mountains on all sides. The wolf hid in it, and ten men were born. Ten male chiefs, foreign wives pregnant, followed by a surname, Ashina is one of them, the most virtuous, so as the chief of the king, so the tooth gate built a wolf head, showing that he did not forget his origin. Gradually to hundreds of families, after several generations, there are sages who lead the tribe out of the cave and subject to the creep.
2. Mobei Suoguo said
Book of Zhou compiled by the Tang Dynasty, volume 50:
The Turkics, out of the Suo Kingdom, were north of the Huns. His tribe lord is known as Ah Yu Bu, seventy brothers, one of whom is the Izu Mud Master, born of wolves. But Abel was equal and foolish, and the kingdom was destroyed. The mud masters are not only different from the atmosphere, but can conquer the wind and rain. Taking the second wife, Yun is the daughter of the god of summer and winter. Four males are born from one pregnancy: one of them becomes Bai Hong; one of his countries is between Afu Shui and Jian Shui, and his name is Qi Bone; one of his countries folds water everywhere; and one of them folds Shi Shan at the place of Baosi, that is, his eldest son. There are still Ayubu species on the mountain, and there are many cold dews, and the eldest son is warm and nourished by the fire, and the saltiness is all over, so the second year is the main one, and the number is Turkic.
This theory holds that the Turks originated in the northern Suo state of Mobei to the north of the Xiongnu.
3. Sea God Yin said
Tang Duan Chengshi "Youyang Miscellaneous" Volume 4:
The turkic ancestor, the sun-shooting Mosheli sea god, the god in the west of ashid caves. Archery has a supernatural effect...
This theory holds that the Turks originated in the Ashide Caves in Haidong.
4. Cool miscellaneous nonsense
Book of Sui compiled by Tang Changsun Wuji et al., vol. 84:
The first turkic, Pingliang Zahuye, surnamed Ashina. Emperor Taiwu of Wei destroyed the Qu clan, and Ashina ran with five hundred families. Living in the sun of the Golden Mountain, he is a creeping iron worker. Jinshan is shaped like a hood, and the common name is Turkic, because it is a trumpet.
This theory holds that the Turks originated in the Han Dynasty.
5. Gaochang Beishan said
This theory also comes from the Book of Zhou, which holds that the Turks were originally a branch of the Xiongnu, but were later destroyed by neighboring countries, when there was a 10-year-old boy, the soldiers saw that he was young, did not have the heart to kill him, so they cut off his feet and threw him into the wild grass. Later, the child was rescued by a she-wolf, and when he grew up, he united with the wolf, and the king of the neighboring country heard that the child had grown up, and fearing that there would be trouble, he sent someone to kill him, and the person who killed him saw that there was a wolf next to him, and he also wanted to kill it together, and the wolf escaped and fled to the cave north of Gaochang. In that cave, the wolf gave birth to 10 little boys, who gradually grew into adults, each starting a family and reproducing. One of them, living in the Altai Mountains, resembles a helmet in battle, and the locals call it Turkic, so they use turkic as their clan name.
These five theories have not been resolved in academic circles, which today bring great difficulties to the study of the history of the Turkic peoples, and then there are some confusing claims. We believe that the ancestors of the Turks in the true sense of the word as a nation were the Xiongnu, who originated in the Altai Mountains, that is, the "Gaochang Beishan Theory", which is the most reliable. They are yellow people, the degree of Sinicization has been very high, in addition to retaining the language and nomadic characteristics, has been close to the Han people. The fourth theory, "Pingliang Miscellaneous Nonsense", is just an extension of the fifth theory, "Gaochang Beishan Theory".
When studying history, it is necessary to combine the reality of geography. Putting aside the myths and legends, it will be found that these 5 theories are actually very simple, only telling people a geographical problem, and the third statement "Sea God Yinzhi Said" can be directly excluded.
The second theory , "Mobei Suoguo Theory" is also close to the legend, this "Suoguo" should be said to be in today's Mongolian plateau, but it has not left a trace of history, on the contrary, in the past, some northern ethnic minorities had the habit of using wolves as totems, and we analyze that this "Suoguo" should be in today's Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai areas.
The "History of Zhou Benji" records that at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, Tianzi went west to conquer Inuyasha and "obtained four white wolves and four white deer to return". This "white wolf" should not be a wolf, but a dog, a wolf dog, and the "dog" of "inuyasha" is a truth. At the same time, in China's ancient books, there is also a record of "the Yellow Emperor gave birth to a white dog", that is, inuyasha is also a descendant of the Yellow Emperor. However, later, some ethnic minorities in the north interpreted this "dog" as a "wolf".
Therefore, the second term ,"Desert North Sogo Theory" can also be ruled out, it may be a concept of geographical orientation that has been misplaced.
The first theory of the right of the Aral Sea also has little scientific basis. If the West Sea refers to the Aral Sea (located at the junction of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in present-day Central Asia), the right refers to the west of the ancients, and the ancients took the west as the right, rather than the upper north and lower south, left west, right and east on our map today, then it is impossible for the Turks to develop and grow on the right side of the Aral Sea (that is, what is today called west of Central Asia) and then enter northern China.
By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, China's power had reached Central Asia, and Dawan, which produced sweat and blood, was also a vassal state of the Han Dynasty, and no "right of the Aral Sea" nation could develop and grow, crossing the Pamir Plateau to today's Xinjiang, China. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, although the Central Plains Dynasty's control over the Western Regions was not as strong as that of the Western Han Dynasty, it basically ruled this area effectively. It was almost impossible for the Turks to develop and grow from the west in this dynasty, not to mention that they would have to face the two powerful national groups of Xianbei and Rouran in the process of development, and the odds were close to zero.
In this way, the fifth theory is "Gaochang Beishan theory" and the fourth theory is "Pingliang Miscellaneous Nonsense". Allow us to first look at the Altai Mountains in the "Gaochang Beishan Theory", this place is actually a zone where the ethnic minorities in northern China and the local ethnic minorities in the territory of present-day Xinjiang in China met and integrated, and the northern ethnic minorities from the Mongolian plateau are very easy to hide here, and some local ethnic minorities in ancient Xinjiang will also fall into this place after being squeezed by large tribes, which provides a certain space for the development of the Turks. Only then could the true Turkic tribe Ashina clan develop and grow into a national group from dozens of families, absorbing other ethnic components.
As for the claim that the Turks are descendants of the Huns, we think it is very reasonable and very scientific, and it is even more in line with the logic of historical development. Because, in our history, although there have been migrations of the northern steppe peoples, such as the westward migration of the Northern Huns (whether this claim is as miraculous as some people say, producing such serious results, we have always doubted), but there has never been an extermination-type mass killing.
That is to say, no matter who unified the northern steppes and who ruled the Central Plains Dynasty, the ethnic minorities in the north were there, and the people or those people were just renamed. From the Xiongnu to the Xiongnu to the Xianbei, turkic, Khitan, Mongol, and so on, there is a relationship of inheritance, and our history has not had the experience of changing the blood of the northern steppe peoples, and it is impossible for God to let a certain ethnic group in northern China fall from the sky every once in a while.
Secondly, we analyze that the name "Turkic" may come from the Kunxian tribe of the Xiongnu, which is an aristocratic tribe of the Xiongnu, also called Hun evil. Both Kun evil and Hun evil have harmonic sounds with the Turks, and harmonic accounts of this situation are not uncommon in ancient Chinese historical texts.
The Xiongnu Kun evil tribe is very familiar to everyone, in the second year of the Yuan Hunt (121 BC), Huo went ill and broke through Longxi, capturing the Hun evil prince and Xiang Guo and Du Wei. The Xiongnu single-mindedly wanted to kill the Hun Evil King. The Hun Evil King and the King of Xiu Tu surrendered to the Han Dynasty, totaling more than 40,000 people, numbering 100,000. He was the Marquis of Luoyin. The five counties of Longxi, Beidi, Shuofang, Yunzhong, and Dai had five subordinate subordinates. Han thus occupied the land between the rivers.
The Chronicle of the Xiongnu is even more detailed in its account of this battle: "The Evil King shan Yu and the King of Hutu lived in the west and killed tens of thousands of people by the Han, and wanted to summon them. The Hun Evil King and the King of Hugh Tu were afraid and plotted to surrender han, and Han sent the general Hun to meet him. The Hun Evil King killed King Hugh Tu and surrendered his people to Han. Whoever has more than 40,000 people is 100,000. Therefore, the Han Dynasty had already obtained the Hun Evil King, and then Longxi, Beidi, and Hexi Yishao Hu Kou moved to the poor people of Guandong to seize the Xiongnu in Henan and New Qinzhong, and reduced the number of pawns west of the northern land by half. ”
Let us briefly analyze this campaign, that is, the Battle of Hexi between the Western Han And the Xiongnu, which was divided into two battles, one was when General Huo Zhiyi sent troops from Longxi County, and the Han army made a long-distance attack across the Yanzhi Mountains (at the junction of Ganliang in the peak belt, 40 kilometers southeast of the county seat of Shandan County) and fought a decisive battle with the main Xiongnu forces at Gaolan Mountain (near Heli Mountain near Zhangye); the first was when General Huo Zhiyi crossed the Yellow River from present-day Lingwu in Ningxia, crossed the Helan Mountains to the north, and waded through the vast Tengger Desert and badain Jilin Desert. Detour through Juyanhai (present-day northwestern Inner Mongolia), turn from north to south, advance along the weak water, pass through the Xiaoyue clan (the Yueshi people who did not migrate west, around present-day Jiuquan, Gansu), and then turn from northwest to southeast, penetrate deep into the territory of the Xiongnu for more than 2,000 miles, and launch a fierce attack from the flank of the Hun Evil King and the HuTu King's army in the weak water upstream area between the Qilian Mountains and the Heli Mountains.
The main battlefield of these two battles should be in the area of present-day Zhangye in Gansu, and the Xiongnu Kun evil king controlled the area around Zhangye County in the Han Dynasty. It is conceivable that the Xiongnu Kun evil people who surrendered at that time should not all be, and some people will inevitably flee, but where can they escape, that is, the "Gaochang Beishan Theory" in the Book of Zhou, that is, the fifth theory of Turkic origin. Because the Han Campaign since then opened up the Hexi Corridor, and then opened up the Western Regions, and the Western Regions at that time only included the eastern and southern Xinjiang of present-day Xinjiang and the places far to the west, and did not involve the Northern Xinjiang region, the fleeing Xiongnu Kun evil tribes could only hide in the Altai Mountains.
In this way, it makes perfect sense that the Turks originated in the Altai Mountains. As for the Altai Mountains, which resemble helmets in battle, it may be a kind of imagination, and to be fair, every mountain looks like a helmet from a distance. Although this is not a feature of the Altai Mountains, it is possible that the Turks therefore love to wear a mountain-like hat, and the so-called environmental influence is such a reason. Therefore, in the context of "Kun evil" and "Turkic", we judge that the name Turk should have nothing to do with helmets or hats.
As for why the Turks originated from Pingliang Zahu, that is, the fourth theory of Turkic origins, this depends on the history of the Kun evil tribe of the Xiongnu: the Kun evil tribe, their surname is yiqu clan, and the world is the leader of the Hun evil tribe of the Xiongnu, that is, the kun evil king. Although the Hun Evil Tribe belonged to the Xiongnu, it was not a Donghu ethnic group, and in terms of ethnic origin, the basic members of the Hun Evil Tribe were the Yiqu people. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Yiqu people were active in the area from the north of present-day Jingshui to Hetao, an ancient ethnic group belonging to Xirong, and the Yiqu Rong was the strongest of the Zhurong, originally living in the Guyuan Grassland of Ningxia and the longshan mountains of LiupanShan.
Therefore, of course, the Kun Evil Sect is Pingliang Zaohu, their acceptance of Chinese civilization is very high, and they have maintained friendly relations with the Qin people, which should be yellow people or assimilated into yellow people. Many people know the story of "Empress Xuan's booby-trapping and killing of The King of Yiqu at Ganquan Palace", from the establishment of a slave monarchy by the Yiqu people in 772 BC to the killing of their king by Empress Xuan in 272 BC, this regime existed for 500 years, at that time, although there is no Sinicization, they have been baptized by Chinese civilization.
After qin destroyed the Yiqu, beidi county, Longxi county, shangjun, etc. were set up in its land, but this did not mean that the Yiqu people disappeared from then on, and at the time of the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Yiqu people gathered into a tribal group, known as the "Hun Evil Department", and later attached themselves to the Xiongnu and became a group in the Xiongnu tribal alliance. This is very logical, both historically and geographically, and it is possible to extend it to the "Turks".
Conclusion: The study of these today is conducive to clarifying the origin of the Turkic peoples, and the so-called Turkic peoples are only a handful of Turkic ethnic groups, the Ashina clan, and they have been integrated into the various ethnic groups in China, rather than the proliferation of names and names that they still exist in Central Asia and other places. (Wen | Lusheng)