Overview
Yujiulü Dengshuzi was the last qaghan of the western Rouran, raised to the title in 553 after the Göktürk revolt had destroyed the main Rouran army and driven Anagui to his death in 552. A cousin of Anagui and a son of the earlier qaghan Nagai, he led a remnant of a remnant: the khaganate that had dominated the Mongolian plateau for a century and a half was now being hunted across it by its former subjects.
His end in 555 is one of the starkest reversals in steppe history. The Chinese court that had once paid the Rouran for peace handed him and his followers to the Turks.
Rise to Power
After Anagui's death, the surviving Rouran split into eastern and western groups. In March 553 the western remnants enthroned Dengshuzi at Woye, near the northern shore of the Ulansuhai lake in present-day Inner Mongolia, with the backing of the Western Wei, which saw a Rouran remnant as a useful counterweight to the rising Göktürks.
Rule and Achievements
- Held together the western Rouran remnant for two years after the collapse of 552
- Relied on Western Wei support as the only protection available against Göktürk pursuit
- Retreated with 3,000 soldiers into Western Wei territory when the Göktürks overran the remaining Rouran in 555
- Was handed over, with his men, to the Göktürks by Emperor Gong of Western Wei under pressure from Muqan Qaghan, and died in 555
Legacy
Dengshuzi's fate closes the history of the Rouran Khaganate. His patron weighed the value of a defeated ally against the demands of a powerful new neighbour and chose the neighbour. The lesson is a hard one: protection that depends on someone else's interests lasts only as long as those interests do.
Within the Qaghan tradition, his death marks the moment the qaghan title passed decisively to the Göktürks, who carried it from the Chinese frontier to the borders of Byzantium.