Turkic Khaganates
The Uyghurs overthrew the Göktürks in 744 AD and established the most sophisticated steppe empire of the pre-Mongol era — the first to build a fixed capital city. Their adoption of Manichaeism and development of the Uyghur script, which later became the direct basis of the Mongolian alphabet, makes them the single most important cultural ancestor of the Mongolian Khagan tradition. The khaganate fell on the steppe in 840, when the Yenisei Kyrgyz sacked its capital; its last two qaghans led the survivors on the Chinese frontier until 848.
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Case · Lesson in What to Avoid
Qasar seized the throne in a year of famine; the rival he failed to win over invited the Kyrgyz, who sacked Ordu-Baliq within a year. A leadership fight during a crisis hands opponents the opening they need.
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The first Uyghur Qaghans overthrew the Göktürks, allied with Tang China during the An Lushan Rebellion, and transformed the khaganate from a tribal confederation into a sophisticated empire with a capital city, a state religion, and commercial dominance of the Silk Road.
Founder of the Uyghur Khaganate; led the coalition that overthrew the Second Göktürk Khaganate in 744; established the founding Yaghlakar clan's supremacy over the steppe; built Ordubaliq (Karabalghasun), the first permanent capital city in steppe history
Read the profileSon of the founder and the empire's greatest early ruler; consolidated Uyghur control from Manchuria to the Altai; crucially aided Tang Emperor Xuanzong and then Suzong during the devastating An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), recapturing the Tang capitals of Luoyang and Chang'an; in return, received enormously favorable silk-for-horse trade terms that made the Uyghur khaganate wealthy
Read the profileMade Manichaeism the official state religion after Manichaean priests converted him during a campaign to recapture Luoyang in 762–763; his conversion had lasting cultural consequences — Manichaean texts and art spread across the khaganate; assassinated by Tun Baga Tarqan in a coup triggered by his increasingly pro-Manichaean and pro-Tang policies
Read the profileSeized power by assassinating Bögü; reversed the pro-Manichaean dominance at court; launched major wars against the Tibetan Empire to the southwest; his decade-long reign saw military overextension that weakened central authority
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The Uyghur khaganate at its commercial and cultural peak — the Silk Road trade hub of Inner Asia, producing the Uyghur script that would later be adapted by the Mongols and preserved in use to the present day in Inner Mongolia.
Son of Tun Baga Tarqan; his one-year reign saw the Karluks seize the Futu valley and a joint Uyghur–Tang army defeated by Tibet at Beshbalik in 790.
Read the profileLast qaghan of the founding Yaghlakar line; with his son leading the army, the Uyghurs turned back Tibet and the Karluks at Lingzhou, Beiting and Gaochang in 791–792.
Read the profileA general of the Ädiz clan who took the throne when the Yaghlakar line ended, founding a new dynasty; restored stability and took Gaochang in 803.
Read the profileThe commander who had beaten Tibet in 792; as qaghan he seized Liang province from Tibet in 808 and held the khaganate at the height of its commercial power.
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The last Uyghur Qaghans faced a convergence of crises: internal succession disputes, famine, a series of unusually harsh winters, and the rise of the Yenisei Kyrgyz. The khaganate collapsed in 840 AD when the Kyrgyz Khagan defeated and killed the last Uyghur Qaghan.
Married the Tang princess Taihe in 821; repelled Tibet, raided Ushrusana and was paid 70,000 bolts of silk by the Tang in 822 to take home an army it had not asked for.
Read the profileBrother of Chongde; his reign ended in 832 when he was murdered by his own followers, the first sign of the court's loss of control.
Read the profileSon of Chongde; forced to kill himself in 839 when the minister Qasar seized power, in the same year famine, epidemic and a killing winter destroyed the herds.
Read the profileUsurper backed by Shatuo cavalry; a rival minister invited the Yenisei Kyrgyz, whose army sacked Ordu-Baliq in 840, executed Qasar and ended the khaganate on the steppe.
Read the profileLed some 100,000 survivors to the Tang frontier and demanded a city and protection for the Manichaeans; refused by Emperor Wuzong, he was defeated in 843 and killed in 846.
Read the profileLast qaghan of the Uyghur Khaganate; defeated by Tang forces in 847, his remnant dispersed by 848 to the new Uyghur kingdoms of Gaochang and Gansu.
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