Everything about Rouran totally explained
Rouran (;
Wade-Giles:
Jou-jan),
Ruanruan/Ruru also known as
Tan Tan was the name of a confederation of
nomadic tribes on the northern borders of
China Proper from the late
4th century until the late
6th century. It has sometimes been hypothesized that the Rouran are identical to the
Eurasian Avars who later appeared in Europe. The term Rouran is a
Mandarin Chinese transcription of the pronunciation of the name the confederacy used to refer to itself. Ruanruan and Ruru remained in modern usage despite once being derogatory. They derived from orders given by the
Emperor Taiwu of
Northern Wei, who waged war against the Rouran and intended to intimidate the confederacy.the power of the Rouran was broken by an alliance of
Göktürks, the Chinese
Northern Qi and
Northern Zhou dynasties and tribes in Central Asia in
552.
Origin and expansion
The Rouran were supposedly proto-
Mongolic people who were first noted as having defeated the
Gaoche and establishing an empire extending all the way to the
Hulun, at the eastern
Inner Mongolia. To the west of the Rouran was a horde known in the west as the
Hephthalites who originally, until the
5th century, were a vassal horde of the Rouran. The Rouran controlled the area of
Mongolia from the
Manchurian border to
Turpan and, perhaps, the east coast of
Lake Balkhash, and from the
Orkhon River to the
China Proper. Their ancestor Mugulu is said to have been originally a slave of the
Toba tribes, situated at the north banks of
Yellow River Bend. Mugulu's descendant
Shelun is said to be the first chieftain who was able to unify the Rouran tribes and to found the power of the Rouran by defeating the Gaoche and
Xianbei. Shelun was also the first of the steppe peoples to adopt the title of
khagan (可汗) in
402, originally a title of Xianbei nobility.
The Rouran and the Hephthalites had a falling out and problems within their confederation were encouraged by Chinese agents. In
508, the Gaoche, then operating under the name Tiele, defeated the Rouran in battle. In
516, the Rouran defeated the
Tiele. Within the Rouran confederation was a Turkic tribe noted in Chinese annals as the
Tujue. After a marriage proposal to the Rouran was rebuffed, the Tujue joined with the
Western Wei, successor state to the Northern Wei, and revolted against the Rouran. In
555, they beheaded 3,000 Rouran. European history books commonly claim that the Rouran then fled west across the steppes and became the Avars, though this is probably a mistake. The remainder of the Rouran fled into China, were absorbed into the border guards, and disappeared forever as an entity. The last Rouran khagan fled to the court of Western Wei, but at the demand of Tujue, Western Wei executed him and the nobles that accompanied him.
Little is known of the Rouran ruling elite, which the
Book of Wei cited as an offshoot of the Xianbei. The Rouran subdued modern regions of
Xinjiang, Mongolia,
Central Asia and parts of
Siberia and Manchuria from the late
4th century. Their frequent interventions and invasions profoundly affected neighboring countries. Though they admitted the
Ashina of
Göktürks into their federation, the power of the Rouran was broken by an alliance of Göktürks, the Chinese
Northern Qi and
Northern Zhou dynasties and tribes in Central Asia in
552. The Northern Wei, for instance, established the Six Garrisons bordering the Rouran, which later became the foci of several major mutinies in the early
6th century.
nb
Sources
Further Information
Get more info on 'Rouran'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://rouran.totallyexplained.com">Rouran Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
