Chapter 457: The Weight of the Khagan Title

The title of Khagan — or, more precisely, the possession of a Khagan title — actually came with its own system of inheritance and its own set of rules.

And those rules were quite substantial.

So that raises a question: throughout history, the leaders of tribes great and small on the steppe could all call themselves Khagan, like so many self-styled kings — it sounds as if the title wasn't worth much at all!

Yes, in point of fact, a bare Khagan title really wasn't worth much.

What actually carried weight was the title placed before "Khagan."

For example, the title Heavenly Khagan, which later generations have never tired of discussing — its prestige lay entirely in that word "Heavenly."

In fact, transliterated, Heavenly Khagan could be rendered as Dengli Khagan or Dengli Khagan, or more directly as Tengri Khan.

The reason it came to be called Heavenly Khagan was that the Tang dynasty's translators and the steppe tribal chieftains collectively produced a masterpiece of flattery.

Heavenly Khagan — it sounds so awe-inspiring! It was almost like being called King of the World.

And it could be explained plausibly, because Tengri in the Turkic languages meant the heavens above, the blue sky, the sky god — indeed, many steppe peoples' original faith was in Tengri.

This word had astonishing vitality, surviving all the way into the later republican era.

The Mongols' Eternal Heaven is also Tengri, so translating Dengli Khagan or Tengri Khan as Heavenly Khagan seems unproblematic.

To be sure, within the steppe Khagan system, Tengri Khan did stand just a little above other khan titles.

But to regard Tengri Khan as the Khan of Khans is incorrect.

However, after the relay efforts of Emperor Taizong of Tang and his son Emperor Gaozong, the title Tengri Khan began to grow more exalted in the hearts of the steppe peoples.

Now let us look at the title Gur Khan, which later generations also liked to translate as Khan of Khans.

This too is incorrect, because the word "Gur" in Gur Khan can actually also be translated as Gur or Chuluo.

In other words, Gur Khan is equivalent to Gur Khan and Chuluo Khagan.

And their etymology is the word "Kul," which in later Latin-alphabet spelling is written Kul — a pronunciation quite close to "Kul."

Its original meaning is glory or honor, so the original meaning of Gur Khan, Chuluo Khagan, and Gur Khan is "Khagan of Glory."

So why did Gur Khan come to be called the Khan of Khans?

Some later people even called India's Mughal Empire the Gur Khanate, and took it for granted that this title was supremely exalted.

That has to be traced back to Emperor Taizong of Tang.

Back then, after Emperor Taizong of Tang conquered the steppe, the Turks, Xueyantuo, Tiele, and other tribes acclaimed Emperor Taizong as Dengli Khagan — that is, Tengri Khan — and the Tang officials promptly translated it as Heavenly Khagan.

When Emperor Taizong passed away and Emperor Gaozong succeeded to the throne, the steppe custom held that the position of Khagan could be inherited, but the honorific title of Khagan could not.

Therefore, at that time, the various peoples north and south of the Gobi prepared to hold another acclamation assembly to bestow a Khagan honorific upon Emperor Gaozong.

But when the officials of the Tang's Yanran Protectorate — later the Anbei Grand Protectorate — learned of this, they nearly wet themselves in fright.

Are you people courting death or what?

If you acclaim him like this, wouldn't it mean the Great Tang Emperor only counts if the peoples north and south of the Gobi acclaim him?

Would that mean that in the future, when an emperor succeeds to the throne, he couldn't take the throne unless you recommended him as Khagan?

Have you gone mad? This isn't acclaiming a Khagan — you're holding a democratic election for the Great Tang Emperor! Is this not pure brain damage?

Once they understood, the chieftains of the peoples north and south of the Gobi were also terrified, and immediately dropped the idea of further acclamation.

But they couldn't just not give Emperor Gaozong a Khagan title either! That would also get them beaten.

So the tribal chieftains painfully made a decision that betrayed their ancestors: they let the title Heavenly Khagan — that is, Dengli Khagan — be passed down through the Tang emperors, and Emperor Gaozong duly became Heavenly Khagan.

Later, when the Tang declined, it still maintained relatively strong military power, and the steppe peoples depended on the Central Plains court for supplies, so the title Heavenly Khagan, by force of habit, continued to be passed down.

But in reality, in the hearts of the steppe peoples, the Heavenly Khagan succession had already ceased to exist after the An Lushan Rebellion.

Because after the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang court invited the Uyghur Khagan into the Central Plains to suppress the rebellion, and was repeatedly humiliated by the Uyghurs — it could no longer be called Heavenly Khagan.

So the period in which the Tang court's Heavenly Khagan title was truly deserved ended in the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.

Although some steppe tribes continued to call the Tang emperor Heavenly Khagan afterward, that was merely a ploy to swindle tributary gifts and rewards.

But with the Heavenly Khagan gone, were there still Khagans on the steppe?

There were — and there weren't.

"There were" means Khagans always existed — for instance, Huairen Khagan, Zhongzhen Khagan, Baoyi Khagan, and the like. One only has to look at the names to see these were Khagans without honorifics, bestowed by the Tang.

That Yinan Khagan whom Emperor Taizong toyed with bore the khan title Zhenzhu Pijia Khagan — that too was not an honorific Khagan title, but a self-designation with religious overtones.

So one could also say there were none, because their Khagan titles either simply used their own names or were characters bestowed by the Tang — of the honorific Khagan titles in Old Turkic, there was not a single one.

The only Khagan with a faint trace of an honorific was Pang Tegin, who, after founding the Kara-Khanid Khanate, styled himself Pijia Kul Qadir Khan.

In his name, this "Kul" is the very same Kul that can be translated as Gur and Chuluo.

But in fact, Pang Tegin himself knew that this "Gur" was just him amusing himself — no one would acknowledge it.

So he didn't even dare call himself directly Gur Khan or Chuluo Khagan, but added "Pijia" and "Qadir" to cover it up.

Therefore, whether his descendants or the surrounding tribes, everyone consistently addressed Pang Tegin as Qadir Khan, and absolutely never mentioned that word "Kul."

Moreover, the title Gur Khan that the various tribes of Suyab bestowed upon Zhang Zhao was in fact this very "Kul" that Pang Tegin had used.

Considering that Suyab was once part of the territory of Pang Tegin's Kara-Khanid Khanate, one has to admit that in calling himself Gur Khan, the Kara-Khanid Khanate did have a tradition of it.

Zhang Zhao didn't know this at the time, and accepted it with a cheerful smile.

Only after returning to Liangzhou did he learn — damn, so that's what it was. It was simply too embarrassing! So he never again let anyone bring up the title Gur Khan.

And the Kara-Khanid Khanate, after Pang Tegin, began to go astray.

Not daring to use honorific titles, they changed the senior Khagan's title to Arslan Khan — that is, Lion Khan — and the deputy khan's title to Bughra Khan — that is, Male Camel Khan — and these could be passed down generation after generation.

From Heavenly Khagan to lions and male camels representing animals — what kind of nonsense is this?

The prestige had sunk below sea level, so of course these were not honorific Khagan titles either.

This makes it understandable why, after Yelu Dashi was jointly acclaimed as Gur Khan by more than a dozen peoples and tribes including the Uyghurs, Merkits, Uligu, and Shiwei, the whole world — especially the steppe tribes — was so shocked.

Because from the year 762, when Emperor Xuanzong of Tang died, to the year 1132, when Yelu Dashi was acclaimed as Gur Khan, a full three hundred and seventy years had passed — and for the first time on the steppe, a jointly acclaimed honorific Khagan, Gur Khan, had appeared.

In nearly four hundred years, the only one to bear an honorific khagan title would naturally be called by the crowd of petty khagans below him — whose titles came from names, religions, and all manner of strange beasts — the Khan of Khans.

And this time, after being fooled by the Juer Khan title, Great King Zhang had also furiously crammed on the rules by which the steppe khagans assumed honorific titles.

He swore he would turn that humiliating experience of being fooled into reality.

He would become the only honorific-titled Khagan in a hundred and eighty years!

Actually, before this, there had been one man who could also have obtained an honorific khagan title — Zhang Zhao's nominal uncle, Yelu Abaoji.

But Yelu Abaoji did not dare accept it, because the Khitans practiced elective succession for their khagans. If he had dared to seek an honorific khagan title, would that not have confirmed the legitimacy of the Khitan system?

So Yelu Abaoji, in order to pass the Khitan khaganate to his descendants, simply did not seek an honorific khagan title and instead directly became Emperor.

One could say he was forced into it. Had Yelu Abaoji not needed to turn the elective system into a hereditary one, he would long since have gone and had himself acclaimed with an honorific title.

As for the question of a steppe honorific being far less exalted than a Central Plains imperial title —

For example, after Tang Taizong received the title of Heavenly Khagan, he almost never used it, and still issued orders in his capacity as Emperor of the Great Tang.

And the Manchu Qing emperors likewise never used the honorific titles the Mongols conferred on them, but styled themselves Emperors of the Great Qing.

This was in fact determined by the Central Plains culture of "no two suns in the sky": the steppe Khagan and the imperial Emperor had to have one ranked above the other, so they preferred to use the more exalted title of Emperor.

But Zhang Zhao did not see it that way. An honorific khagan title — what a fine thing it was!

It could be used to stir up the winds and clouds of the great desert, to channel the steppe's troubles westward, and to strengthen the centripetal force of the steppe peoples.

Of course it should be used — and used well.

This was perhaps the greatest difference between Zhang Zhao and the emperors of past dynasties: he knew what lay to the west, rather than gazing only at the Central Plains realm.

Arm the various steppe peoples, assimilate them, then use them as claws and fangs, pressing ever westward to find them a way to survive — and thereby rouse the Han people's ever-greater ardor for venturing beyond the frontier.

Was that not far more satisfying than agonizing over whether an honorific khagan title or an imperial title was better?

On the second day of the second month, when the dragon raised its head, Zhang Zhao built a general-mustering platform at Yanqi.

He appointed Bai Congxin as Western Route Pacification Commissioner, commanding Ma Shacai, Li Cunhui, and the other generals.

With the surrendered general Zhai Guozhong as guide, they led a total of fifteen thousand cavalry out of Baishui Army City, pressing westward to recover Zhangbao Garrison (Urumqi), Wuzai Garrison (Manas), and other places.

He then appointed Murong Xinzhang as Northern Route Pacification Commissioner, leading Huang Yingda, She Deyuan, Murong Yanzhao, Wang Shenqi, Zhao Kuangyin, and others, with an army of twelve thousand.

With Kirghiz traveling merchants as guides, they marched north from Tingzhou, then westward, to summon and pacify the Kirghiz near Xuanchi (Lake Zaysan).

In mid-March, Bai Congxin, Li Cunhui, and the other generals recovered the two garrison cities of Zhangbao and Wuzai, and discovered traces of the Karluks and Saktu.

At the end of March, Murong Xinzhang and the other generals reached the vicinity of Lake Manas and named the lake the Great Salt Pool.

But because the wind and snow were too heavy, the original plan to continue north and reach the former Great Tang Yinshan Protectorate failed, and of course they could not continue north to Xuanchi either.

But Murong Xinzhang knew why Zhang Zhao had sent him north. If the main army could not get through, he would send a small force.

He therefore dispatched Zhang Xibao with five hundred elite cavalry to press on with the Kirghiz traveling merchants, while he himself turned the army around and moved to link up with Bai Congxin's force.

At the end of April, Murong Xinzhang and Bai Congxin joined forces, and the thirty-thousand-strong army continued west to Huangcao Pool, near what later generations would call Lake Ebinur.

The army soon discovered and launched a surprise attack on Saktu's force, which had been waiting and watching there, still hoping to enter Tingzhou.

The two sides fought fiercely for two double-hours. Saktu was once again crushingly defeated and forced to flee farther west with a few thousand battered survivors, breaking away from the Karluk tribes and escaping into the territory of the Oghuz.

At the end of May, Bai Congxin, Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, and the others returned with the chieftains and headmen of the Karluk Tashili and Chuyue tribes.

The two tribal chieftains presented Zhang Zhao with white camels, white horses, white oxen, and other tribute, expressing their submission.

In mid-June, the Guo family of Suyab, Governor Rashid Salman of Hucheng, and the Samanid Persian Emir Hamid all sent envoys to Yanqi.

At the end of June, Zhang Xibao, who had advanced to the former Great Tang Yinshan Protectorate, returned, bringing with him several petty kings of the Kirghiz tribes along with tiger pelts and wolf pelts as tribute.

By this point, the various conditions for acclaiming an honorific Great Khan had essentially reached the minimum standard.

All chapters have been cached for you. Download the APP to view them.