Juqu Muqian surrenders to the Wei at Guzang
The Wei shu basic annals record that on the bingxu day of the ninth lunar month of Taiyan 5 (AD 439) Wannian (萬年), nephew of Juqu Muqian (沮渠牧犍), came over with his followers, and that on the same day Muqian with five thousand civil and military attendants presented himself bound at the gate of the Wei army; the emperor untied him and treated him with the courtesy due to a vassal ruler, and the Wei took over the more than two hundred thousand households and persons in the city and treasures beyond counting.
What this does and does not establish
An official history compiled 551-554 by Wei Shou under the Northern Qi from Northern Wei records; the English is an AI working translation. The figures are as reported. The city is not named in this span; the preceding entry records the emperor arriving at Guzang (姑臧) and besieging it in the eighth month.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- East Asia
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 太延 5 (太延五年 as numbered by the annals), lunar month 9
- How we use it
- Year assigned from the lunar month under which the Wei shu annals enter the item; the sexagenary day was not converted to a Julian day.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Lunar month 9 of 太延 5 = Julian 439-09-24 to 439-10-23, per Academia Sinica 兩千年中西曆轉換 year table(s) 太延5.html (sha256 a3a970791a18…); the whole month lies in AD 439.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Wei shu (Book of Wei), basic annals
Wei Shou (魏收), Northern Qi court historian
The credit or link shown here was corrected after an audit of the retained source.
Quoted text (Classical Chinese)
九月丙戌，牧犍兄子萬年率麾下來降。是日，牧犍與左右文武五千人面縛軍門，帝解其縛，待以藩臣之禮。收其城內戶口二十餘萬，倉庫珍寶不可稱計。AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
Ninth month, bingxu day: Muqian's elder brother's son Wannian came and surrendered at the head of his followers. On that day Muqian, with five thousand of his civil and military attendants, came with hands bound to the gate of the army camp; the emperor untied his bonds and treated him with the courtesy due to a vassal. [The Wei] took the households and persons within the city, more than two hundred thousand, and treasures from the storehouses beyond counting.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Wei shu, juan 4上, zh.wikisource transcription (revision 2318474). English renderings are AI working translations, not published translations.
Exact source version
0ebe736ce6c2465660f92d3bc9e6e90351e4073c10d5f38c50daecc57c0ba384Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-05. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1h_439_wei_1
Exact revision fingerprint
5e519f5d0726c4bd275ee6ba221aeb94456ad8e84fc7a3c5b88153ab9ed26389