His elder brother, who would not kneel and rode ten thousand li west instead. Built a city on the Talas, killed the envoys sent to talk to him, and was shot through the nose on the wall and died in his inner quarters.
He considered the road too far, and resented that Han backed his brother; he built a walled town in a foreign land, killed the envoys sent to talk to him, and was shot through the nose on the upper story.The historians' framing of Zhizhi Chanyu, whose own letter from Kangju claimed he lived in straits and wished to come; Hanshu, juan 94 lower, Biography of the Xiongnu, and juan 70, Biographies of Gan Yanshou and Chen Tang
Appears in
Relations
- Huhanye Chanyu brother — The two brothers were rivals for one title across a war of five chanyus; one submitted to the Han and one would not, and the Han built its settlement on that refusal.
- Chen Tang enemies — The deputy who forged the edict and marched forty thousand to the Talas; the head his memorial asked to hang in the barbarian hostel street was Zhizhi's.
- Gan Yanshou enemies — The Protector General at the head of the columns that ringed his city, whose wife and ladies shot from the wall until an arrow took the chanyu in the nose.
Myth vs record
Zhizhi was a cornered nomad who simply refused to come east, and his city was an accident of the retreat.
He was a builder and a breaker of envoys. The record has him absorb three steppe states, march into Kangju, raise a walled town with a doubled wooden palisade on five hundred conscripts a day for two years, and then write to Chang'an pretending he was in straits and wished to come, which the commentator Yan Shigu reads as mockery. Three missions sent to ask for the bodies of Gu Ji's party he detained and humiliated. He died fighting room to room into his inner quarters after an arrow went through his nose on the upper story of the wall (Hanshu, juan 70; juan 94 lower).