Diplomacy can often play a pivotal role in the international arena. During the Warring States period, the Qin state carried out the "long-distance friendship and close attack", which disintegrated the six-nation united people; in recent history, Britain adopted the policy of "continental balance of power" to let the European continents fight among each other, and itself expanded wildly at sea, eventually becoming an "empire where the sun never sets"; and the rise and fall of the Turks also had a lot to do with diplomacy. When the Turks arose, they were always able to unite the enemy's enemies, so they quickly defeated Rouran and Zhaoda, and dominated Eurasia. The decline of the Turks was also related to the foreign policy of the Sui Dynasty.
One, a princess provoked a war between two empires
In 580, there were great political changes in both of the two great powers of the East Asian continent.
Turkic side. Tuobao Khan died and was succeeded by his younger brother Shetu. In the process of this succession, there was a small episode in the dispute over the Khan's throne, and it was this episode that laid the hidden danger for the later division of the Turks. At that time, the Turks implemented a system of sub-feudalism, and in addition to the leadership of the Great Khan, there were three small Khans in the east, the north and the west. The Khan of the Middle East was the crown prince of the Khanate.
During the reign of Tuoba Khan, he believed that neither the Eastern Khan Norse tu nor his son Lingluo had the ability to rule the khanate, so The son of the Limuzhan Khan, Daluo, became the crown prince. After the death of Tuo Bao Khan, Da Luo was "motherly and inferior, and the people were disobedient", so the position of Great Khan was finally taken by the Eastern Khan Shetu, that is, the more famous Sha Bao Li Khan in history.
After shahbol khan came to power, three more minor khans were added, and the Turks saw the co-rule of the seven khans. The seven Khans here are the Eastern Khan Chu luohou, the northern khan Lingluo, the western Khan Datou, and the newly added three small khans of Apo, Fanna, and Qianhan, of which Apo Khan is the great bowel who lost the battle for the khan's position.
Northern Zhou. In 580, Emperor Xuan of Zhou died, the young Emperor Jing took the throne, and Yang Jian took control of the government. The following year, Yang Jian declared himself emperor and established the Sui Dynasty. In 580, Northern Zhou married Princess Qianjin to Sha Baoli Khan, which was nothing more than a regular peace between the two countries. Subsequently, the news of Yang Jian's destruction of northern Zhou and the murder of the Yuwen clan reached the desert, and Princess Qianjin was grief-stricken, turning grief into hatred, and began to encourage Sha Baoliu Khan to launch a war against the Sui Dynasty.
And Yang insisted that the attitude toward the Turks also changed dramatically. Yang Jian stopped paying tribute to the Turks, which caused the Turks to lose a lot of economic strength. Yang Jian stepped up the construction of the Great Wall and prepared for a large-scale war. At that time, Changsun Sheng, who knew more about the Turks, put forward the strategy of "attacking from afar and attacking closely, away from the strong and joining the weak", that is, using the contradictions between the Seven Khans of the Turks to differentiate them, so that they were "suspicious from the beginning and the end, and their hearts were separated from the obstruction".
Soon, Sui dynasty missions began to move around, they were sent to the stations of the small khans and began to lobby; some were sent to the surrounding ethnic areas of the Turks to encourage them and start anti-Turk wars. However, the diplomacy of the Sui Dynasty had not yet borne fruit, and the Turkic armies had already moved south. In 581, Sha Baoliu Khan "sent 400,000 men of the Five Khans into the Great Wall", the five khans attacked on all sides, Sha Baoluo had already attacked the Wei River, and the Sui Dynasty was facing the crisis of national subjugation.
At this time, the Diplomatic Means of the Sui Dynasty seemed to be in effect. The Turks in the north, the Khitans and Goguryeo in the east, and even persia and eastern Rome in the west all began to attack the Turks. When the news came, the Turkic armies withdrew north to extinguish the fire, and the Sui Dynasty was at peace. After quelling the crisis, Shabaolio launched another war, but this time khan Datou in the west refused to send troops. The Sui Dynasty took the initiative to send troops to plug it, and the Turks were defeated. It can be seen that the diplomacy of the Sui Dynasty did produce a very good effect.
Second, the Turkic civil war, Sha Bao was slightly subordinate
After returning to the north of the desert, Shabaoli Khan believed that the reason for the failure of the war was that the other minor khans refused to send troops, so he began to abolish the other khans, which directly led to the outbreak of the Turkic Civil War. At this time, the Turks were divided into two major camps: Shabal Khan and the eastern Khan Chuluohou were in the eastern camp, while the Khan of The Greedy Khan, Apo Khan, and The Khan of Shuluo belonged to the western camp by relying on the western khan Datou. In the war, Apo Khan rose rapidly, he defeated Sha Baoluo, "east of the capital Jinjin, west of the Golden Mountains, Guizi, Tiele, Yiwu and the Western Regions of the Hu Xi", became the hegemon of the desert north.
The land of Sha Baoli Khan was constantly encroached upon, isolated and helpless, and even began to ask the Sui Dynasty for peace. Yang Jian gave the condition that Sha Baoliu Khan be called a vassal, and Sha Baoluo asked: "What is the name of the subject", and the emissary said: "The Sui kingdom is called a subject, just like this is called a slave". At this time, Sha Baoluo couldn't care less about any face, and actually said, "You have to be a slave of the Great Sui Heavenly Son, and the power of Yu Servant Shooting is also there." And Princess Qianjin also personally wrote a letter to Yang Jian, confessing the thief as her father, and was named "Princess of Dayi" by Yang Jian. After that, the Sui Dynasty also placed Sha Baoli Khan in the Baidao River in southern Monan, so that they could "serve the Han Baosai" like the Southern Xiongnu, which was also a common strategy of "using Yi to control Yi" in ancient China.
Princess Of Thousand Gold
The war in the north of the desert then continued. The strength of Apo Khan again caused dissatisfaction among Datou Khan, and war broke out in 586. Datou Khan was the most powerful of the great khans, and his crusade was stress-free, and he soon defeated Apo Khan. In 587, Shabaoli Khan died and was succeeded by his younger brother Chuluohou (formerly Eastern Khan), also known as Mohe Khan. Mohe Khan saw that Apo Khan was defeated and took the opportunity to send troops to Apo Khan and take Apo Khan prisoner. After that, Apo Khan was imprisoned in Luoyang until his death.
After the defeat of Apo Khan, Mohe Khan restored his rule in the north of the desert, and he decided to lead an army of 300,000 people to conquer Datou in the west and unify the Turks. However, it is unfavorable to go out of the division, "the middle of the arrow and the pawn". In 588, shabbul's son succeeded to the throne as Dulan Khan. Dulan Khan continued his western expedition. The war was divided into two stages: in the early stage, Datou Khan was attacked by Persia and Eastern Rome, and Dulan Khan took the opportunity to kill the western region; in the second stage, in 597, Datou defeated the Persian army and was able to counterattack in an all-round way, and Dulan Khan failed. The following year, Datou officially became the new Great Khan of the Turks.
Third, support the Qimin Khan, the Turks formally divided
The Turkic civil war undoubtedly eliminated the worries of the Sui Dynasty in unifying the whole country. In 589, the Sui Dynasty destroyed Southern Chen and unified China, and the power of the Sui Dynasty was further strengthened. After Mohe Khan restored the desert north, the relationship between the Turks and the Sui Dynasty began to change again. In 588, Princess Qianjin married Dulan Khan according to Turkic customs, and she continued to plan the Sui War, and subsequent frictions between the Turks and the Sui Dynasty appeared from time to time. Solving princess Qianjin became a problem that Yang Jian needed to consider.
At this time, the Northern Khan Dye Gan (son of Chu Luohou, Tuli Khan) began to propose peace to the Sui Dynasty. It turned out that at the time of the Turkic civil war, Tuli Khan had been sitting on the mountain watching the tiger fight, retaining his strength. When the relationship between Dulan Khan and the Sui Dynasty was rigid, Tuli Khan seized the opportunity to try to gain the support of the Sui Dynasty and replace it. The conditions given by Yang Jian were very crisp: one was to try to kill Princess Qianjin, and the other was to lead the tribe south to defend the frontier for the Sui Dynasty. Subsequently, the Tuli Khan walked around the news of the fornication between princess Qianjin and the next person, and successfully separated Dulan Khan and Princess Qianjin. Soon, Dulan Khan killed Princess Qianjin in a fit of rage. After that, Tuli Khan migrated to southern Monan and completed peace with the Sui Dynasty.
In 598, Datou began to launch a large-scale war against the Sui Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty also actively sent 100,000 troops to fight against it, and Datou Khan was defeated. The following year, Datou Khan attacked Tuli Khan again, but Tuli Khan was defeated, suffered heavy losses, was forced to annex, and declared himself a vassal to the Sui Dynasty, so the Sui Dynasty crowned him as Qimin Khan.
In 600, the Sui Dynasty's large army began to escort the Qiming Khan back to the north, launching a comprehensive counterattack against the Datou Khan. The war was deadlocked, with heavy casualties on both sides. It was not until the end of 601 that the Sui Dynasty army recovered the southern part of the desert, "since the Turks were far away, the moraine south had no yuting court." Qimin Khan also returned to the south of the desert and began to repair his strength, sending emissaries to his homeland to recruit the Tiele tribe. In the long war in Datou, its power has been seriously damaged, there are many rebellions in the surrounding tribes, and the strength of the two sides is changing.
In 603, More than 10 tribes, including Tiele, defected to Qimin Khan, and Datou Khan was defeated by the attack on both the north and the south, and was forced into exile in Tuguhun. Since then, the Turks have been officially divided into two parts, the founding khan of the Eastern Turks is the Qimin Khan, and the founding khan of the Western Turks is the son of the Datou Khan, Nili Khan.
The Eastern Turk Khaganate and the Xueyantuo Khanate
After 20 years of civil war, the Turks had already been seriously injured. In particular, the Eastern Turks, whose northern Tiele gained independence in 605 and established the Sheyantuo Khanate, while the Eastern Turks basically controlled the southern part of the desert. Although the power of the Eastern Turks was restored to a certain extent during the Sui Dynasty, it was never able to restore the vast area north and south of the desert. This laid the foundation for the later destruction of the Eastern Turks by the Tang Dynasty in World War I.
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