the turkic tribes 383responded that he was willing to discuss it if the Turks and their allies
raised the siege of Ma-yi. Ssu-ma Kuang blames the Princess of Yi-
ch’eng for Hsieh-li’s refusal and the subsequent fall of the town. On
Nov.22, 623, the Turks offered to evacuate Ma-yi in exchange for
peace (Tzu-chih t’ung-chien pp.5973-5974).
In early 624, Hsieh-li again raided border territories, but in the 6th
month (June/July) his envoys to the T’ang court offered gifts (Ts’e-fu
yüan-kuei p.5023; Tzu-chih t’ung-chien pp.5974, 5983).
Subsequently, Hsieh-li with a large Turkish army forced his way
deep into China and on Sept. 29,^9 624, reached a point just west of
Ch’ang-an. His second in command was the Shih-po-pi, son of the
Shih pi Qaghan, who had not been allowed to succeed his father’s in
619 because of his youth. Instead, he had been given the lesser title
of T’u-li Qaghan.^10 He cannot but have resented that he had been
deprived of his inheritance, and there were tensions between him and
Hsieh-li. The Chinese knew about these and exploited them. Bypass-
ing Hsieh-li, Li Shih-min, the middle son of Kao-tsu, sent an envoy
to T’u-li to open negotiations He did not lecture T’u-li about “profit
and harm”, as claimed by the Chinese sources, but unquestionably
offered peace with Chinese concessions. At this point Hsieh-li and
T’u-li disagreed, the former wishing to continue the war and the lat-
ter willing to strike a bargain. Hsieh-li was persuaded to send T’u-li
and A-shih-na Ssu-mo as envoys to Li Shih-min.^11 His conditions
for peace were a marriage alliance and payments of gold and silk. A
covenant was concluded between the Turks and Chinese, wherafter
Hsieh-li withdrew. On Oct.17, Kao-tsu sent the Supervisor of the
Left as envoy to the Turks (Chiu T’ang shu 194A:2b;Tzu-chih t’ung-chien
pp.5992-5993;Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 343:7b).
The Chinese had temporarily extricated themselves from a danger-
ous situation, but at a cost. War broke out again before the end of
October, 624 (Tzu-chih t’ung-chien p.5993).
In the 1st month (Jan./Feb.) of 625, envoys from Hsieh-li to
(^9) Correcting yi-mao to chi-mao.
(^10) He is not to be confused with the earlier T’u-li Qaghan who later was called
the Ch’i-min Qaghan and died in 609. While still a teenager, the Sui had given
Shih-po-pi the Princess of Huai-nan in marriage (Chiu T’ang shu 194A:5b; T’ung-tien
197:40b;Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 343:8a).
(^11) I leave the question open as to how central Li Shih-min was to the events here
discussed. A-shih-na Ssu-mo was a first paternal cousin of Hsieh-li’s father, A-shih-na
being the ruling clan of the Turks.