page_title: Turks in the Tang military
section_title: Turkic generals and Tang military campaigns
hierarchical_section_title: Turks in the Tang military / Turkic generals and Tang military campaigns
caption_attribution_description: Met, camel and rider, Tang dynasty
context_page_description: The military of the Tang Dynasty was staffed with a large population of Turkic soldiers, referred to as Tujue in Chinese sources. Tang elites in northern China were familiar with Turkic culture, a factor that contributed to the Tang acceptance of Turkic recruits. The Tang emperor Taizong adopted the title of "Heavenly Kaghan" and promoted a cosmopolitan empire. Taizong regularly recruited and promoted military officers of Turkic ancestry, whose steppe experience contributed to the western and northern expansion of the Tang empire. The Turkic general Ashina She'er participated in the Tang capture of the Karakhoja, Karasahr, and Kucha kingdoms in Xinjiang. The half-Turkic general An Lushan started a revolt that led to the decline of Tang Dynasty.
  The Orkhon inscriptions by the Gokturks were critical of the Turks that had served the Tang Dynasty, and condemned them for helping the Chinese emperor expand his burgeoning empire. The Turkic soldiers stationed by the Chinese in the Tang garrisons of Central Asia settled in the region, spreading Turkic languages in an area that had been predominantly Indo-European.
context_section_description: Turkic generals led many of the Tang Dynasty military campaigns that expanded the dynasty's territorial reach into Central Asia. In total, ten Turks were able to reach the highest military position of general. Ashina She'er, formerly the ruler of Beshbaliq and Kharakhoja between 630 and 635 and a member of the Ashina clan, was recruited as a Tang general in 635. He fought as a commander in a successful campaign against Karakhoja in 640. She'er was chosen as the general for the military expedition against Karasahr. The Tang loyalist that had been installed as ruler after the first invasion of Karasahr in 644 by Chinese general Guo Xiaoke was deposed by his cousin in a revolt. The usurper was executed after the rebellion was suppressed, and Tang governance returned to the oasis state. She'er continued onward to the nearby kingdom of Kucha, a state that had supported Karasahr during its war against the Tang.
  Emperor Taizong himself tended to the injuries of the Turkic Generals Qibi Heli and Ashina Simo, who were both wounded during the campaign against Goguryeo.
  Ashina Zhong, the brother of She'er, also served as a Turkic general of the Tang Dynasty, and was a participant in a military performance hosted by Emperor Gaozong in 655. Another Turkic member of the Ashina clan, Ashina Helu, briefly served as a commander of the Tang army in Gansu before his rise as a kaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate. During his reign, the Turkic tribes were unified under a single leader. Emperor Gaozong, Taizong's successor, dispatched a military expedition in 657 against Helu, who had been raiding Tang settlements. The campaign was led by the general Su Dingfang and the Turkic commanders Ashina Mishe and Ashina Buzhen, who were opposed to Helu. Helu was defeated and captured by the Tang forces, and the territories annexed from the Western Turks were placed under Tang governance through the Anxi Protectorate.
  Gaozong awarded the military service of the Turkic commanders Mishe and Buzhen by appointing them as proxy rulers of ten Western Turkic tribes. The ten tribes were split between the two cousins, and the western half was given to Buzhen while Mishe controlled the eastern tribes. In 685, the sons of Mishe and Buzhen were sent from the Tang capital of Chang'an, where they resided, to succeed their fathers in the west. Neither lasted long as Turkic rulers; one was overthrown by his tribal subjects and the other was deposed by the Second Turkic Khaganate after an invasion in 690.
  An Lushan was a Tang general of mixed Turkic and Soghdian ancestry whose revolt between 755 and 763, the An Shi Rebellion, devastated the Tang Dynasty. Unlike the majority of Turkic military officers, An Lushan served the Tang as an official closely involved with the politics of the imperial court, rather than as a general in a garrison on the Tang frontier. The dynasty might have collapsed had it not been for their alliance with the Uyghur Turks. The rebellion diminished the Tang enthusiasm for cosmopolitanism that was a characteristic of the dynasty's earlier years.
  The Orkhon inscriptions, a memorial erected by the Turks, lamented the Tang influence on the Turks and the Turkic adoption of Chinese titles:
  "The Turkish people let their state.... go to ruin... their sons worthy of becoming lords became slaves, and their daughters worthy of becoming ladies became servants to the Chinese people. The Turkish lords abandoned their Turkish titles. Those lords who were in China held the Chinese titles and obeyed the Chinese emperor and gave their service to him for fifty years. For the benefit of the Chinese, they went on campaigns up to [the land of] the Bukli qaghan in the east, where the sun rises, and as far as the Iron Gate in the West. For the benefit of the Chinese emperor they conquered countries."
  The inscriptions, made to commemorate the elites of the Second Turkic Empire, stress the importance of loyalty between a kaghan and the ruler's subjects. The Turks that sided with the Tang are condemned, and the disunity of the Turkic tribes is blamed on a lack of respe
caption: Camel with rider, earthenware, Tang Dynasty
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