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| The Tü-Chüeh ordo |
1 general Cv, 2 caparisoned cavalry Cv, 8 light horses LH (one is missing on the photo above) and an unit mounted on bactrian camels Mtd-3Bw.
The Göktürk (552-745, in Chinese: 突厥 Tu-kiu) constituted a khanate created by the Ashina clan. They reigned over Central Asia and its creation contributed to the expansion of the Turks into the Caspian Sea. Two and a half centuries after their fall, the Turkish tribes reached Anatolia.
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| Standard awarded to Tu Chueh / Göktürk |
At the beginning of the eighth century, the Turks created a script known as "runic" because it resembles the runes. They are the first nomads of Central Asia to have left inscriptions. Those written by the Göktürk originate from the Orkhon Valley in northern Mongolia. The heart of their empire was there. Entries from southern Siberia are attributable to other Turkish peoples. Those of the Yenisei valley, short funeral inscriptions, had to be written by the Kyrgyz.
The Göktürk received Buddhist, Manichaean and Nestorian missionaries, but remained mainly Shamanists. They also had an imperial religion, tengrism, based on the veneration of Tängri, the God-Heaven. The language of the Göktürk is called the Göktürk. Référence: Wikipedia
It is a nomadic army from Central Asia, generic enough in the outfit. I play it as Türuks (first Turkish) The DBA format allows me to play them alone against most opponents or align them as allies of my army in the city-state of Dunhuang.
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| The heavy cavalry including the khan |
The Turkish nomad armies are largely made up of light riders, like their Iranian counterparts (Parthians, Scythians ...) or Mongols (Tartars, Khitan ...)
This army is one of the few to be able to align real camel drivers. Meharists of other armies, often called "camel-drivers", actually ride two-bumpredcamels. In the case of nomadic Turks, this is infantry mounted (fighting on foot with a bow and riding Bactrian camels for displacement).
The baggage of the army consists of a caravan of camels bactriens.
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| Territoires contrôlés par les T+u Chüeh au VIIème siècle |
On the Ordoo forum of the Red Raven, dedicated to the horsemen, Che Khan wrote a presentation of this people. I quote it below:
[The Tujue are considered to be the first ancestors of the great Türk family.
There are several denominations for this people:
Türks Tujue, T'ou-kiue, Türük or Köktürks ("Türks Bleus" in reference to the blue sky )
At the beginning of the 6th century, they were pure nomads living in the Altai.
They are known to have helped the Jouen-Jouen to crush a revolt of rebellious tribes.But because of the ingratitude of these, they revolt. In 552, under the authority of the kaghan Bumin, they crush the Jouen-Jouen, whose empire immediately collapses.
This victory made it possible to establish until 630 the first dominion of the Tujue. This is the danger they represent for China, which leads to the second period of construction of the Great Wall.The empire of the Türks Tujue is then composed of 2 parts:
The eastern Tujue Türks, located on a territory ranging from Manchuria to the Great Wall, whose center is the Orkhon Valley, and the seat is the Ötüken Forest, the sacred place of the Türks
The Western Tujue Türks of the Altai, which goes from Chinese Turkestan to the Sea of Aral and Persia including the Sogdiana.These were placed under the sphere of Sogdian cultural influence, of which they initially used writing and language. Sogdians administered their empire. Many religions such as Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity and Taoism coexisted during this period, but it was not possible to say whether one of them prevailed and was particularly adopted by the Türks.This first khanate reached its peak in the 6th century when the Western Tujue Türks first allied themselves with Iran and defeated the Hephtalites or "White Huns", then with Byzantium against Iran from 602 AD but without success .In the east, the eastern Tujue Türks worried China, which continued its policy of division, thus clearing the Western and Eastern Türks. The latter nevertheless benefited from troubles related to the end of the Souei dynasty. They attacked China several times around 620.They were however defeated in 630 by the Chinese empire with the advent of the Tang dynasty, and underwent their rule until 680.Around 680, the Kaghan Elterich reconstructed a second Tujue khanate, rallying the various Türk tribes. For 30 years, Elterich and his successors will carry out many victorious expeditions against China.But the domination to the west of the Altai is not frank, and even encounters failures against the Arabs who are already crowding in Sogdiana. Then, from 711, many struggles between tribes weakened the power of the Tujue until 740.
This second khanate, less brilliant than the previous one, saw the appearance of the first monuments with inscriptions in the Turkish language, using a "runic" alphabet.]
