As we all know, in ancient society, it was normal for princesses from royal families to engage in political marriages. During the Han and Tang dynasties, princesses were often married to ethnic minority areas and relatives. For example, the Zhaojun of the Han Dynasty and the Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty entered Tibet, both of which were marriages for political gain. However, in the Taizong Dynasty, there was a khan who wanted to marry a Tang princess, and Tang Taizong did not want to marry the princess to him, so he asked him for 4 kinds of bride price. The khan gritted his teeth and made up the bride price, but the country perished. Who is this Khan? He was the Yi nan Khan of the Xueyantuo Khanate.
Yi Nan Khan
Xue Yantuo was not originally a state, but a part of the Xiongnu's other tiele. Initially mixed with the Xue people, and later destroyed and annexed the Yantuo tribe, so it was called "Xue Yantuo". During the Sui Dynasty, the Eastern Turks were powerful, and all the Tiele tribes living in the north of the desert were subject to it. Later, the Chuluo Khan carried out a brutal rule, killing more than 100 chieftains of Tiele, and the tiele tribes began to rebel by force, and jointly promoted the chief of Qifu as Yi Mozhen Mohe Khan, and the chief of Xueyantuo, Yi Wanbao, as Yi Xiao Khan, who was subordinate to the Western Turks.
In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, Yi Nan, the leader of XueYantuo, led 70,000 accounts to the Jieli Khan of the Eastern Turks. After Emperor Taizong of Tang defeated Jieli Khan, Yi Nan led his troops to surrender to the Tang Dynasty and established the Xueyantuo Khanate at YuduJun Mountain. In the second year of Zhenguan, the Western Turks were in civil strife, and Yi Nan led his troops back to the Orkhon River Valley in the north of the desert, and temporarily attached himself to Jieli Khan. At that time, Jieli Khan was under a brutal rule, and Xue Yantuo united with the nearby Nine Surnames Tiele and Hui Qi to rebel. The Tiele tribes in northern Turkistan supported Yi Nan and elected him as their leader.
In the third year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong of Tang decreed that Yi Nan, the leader of Xueyantuo, be named "Zhenzhu Vijaya Khan". Yi Nan accepted the canonization and sent envoys to see him. The following year, Yinan Khan united with Hui to help the Tang Dynasty attack the Eastern Turks, and set up a tent at Yudu Junshan, with 200,000 Chen soldiers. After the war, the SheyantHa Khanate rose strongly. However, Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, in no way wanted to set up a strong opponent for himself, so in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Sima, a clan member of the Jieli Khan, was made a khan and built a tooth tent in the south of he (tao). His real purpose was to use the old Eastern Turks to oversee Xue Yantuo.
Li Shimin
Emperor Taizong's move aroused the vigilance of Yi Nan Khan, so in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, Yi Nan Khan took advantage of Tang Taizong's sealing of Mount Tai and ordered his eldest son Dadu to lead Hui Qi and other troops to pursue Li Sima and reach the Great Wall. As a result, Dadu's army encountered the Tang general Li Ji's army in Shuozhou, Shanxi, and returned with a big defeat. The following year, Yinan Khan sent envoys to Tang, sacrificed 3,000 horses, and apologized for his sins and asked for marriage. However, Tang Taizong did not want to marry the princess to him, so he deliberately put forward conditions to make it difficult for him, saying that only by offering 4 kinds of animals as a bride price could the princess be married to him.
The four animals Mentioned by Li Shimin are also very common: horses, cattle, camels and sheep. However, the number of these four animals is somewhat large, with 50,000 horses, 10,000 cattle and camels, and 100,000 sheep. In order to seek forgiveness from the Tang Dynasty, he hugged Li Shimin's thigh, and Yinan Khan gritted his teeth and agreed. In order to make up for these bride price, he frantically stripped his herders and made people angry. The Xueyantuo Khanate was far from Chang'an, and on the way to Chang'an, many animals died of disease. Emperor Taizong of Tang refused Yinan Khan's courtship on the grounds that the bride price was insufficient. Inside Xue Yantuo, there were deep hidden dangers, and a few years later, Xue Yantuo was destroyed by Tang.