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Yiqu (; Old Chinese (444 BCE): *ŋaih-ga > Eastern Han Chinese: *ŋɨɑiᴴ-gɨɑ,Schuessler, Axel (2014). p. 265 or ), was an ancient Chinese state which existed in the Hetao region and what is now Ningxia, eastern Gansu and Shaanbei Shaanxi during the Zhou dynasty, and was a centuries-long western rival of the state of Qin. It was inhabited by a semi- people called the Xirong of Yiqu (), who were regarded as a branch of Xirong by contemporary writers, whom modern scholars have attempted to identify as one of the ancestors of the minority people in Northwest China.
According to The Treatise on the Western Qiang in the Book of the Later Han, "During the late reign of King Ping, Zhou was undergoing decline. The Rong harried the Huaxia from Mount Long to the east. Up until the Yi and Luo Rivers, the Rong were everywhere. Thereupon, there were for the first time Di, Huan, Kai, and Ji Rong in the Wei River valley, there was the Yiqu Rong in the north of the Jing River, and there were the Dali Rong in Luochuan." King Ping died in 720 BC, which means that the state of Yiqu was founded no earlier than that year. From this source it is clear that the Yiqu were considered one of the peoples called "Xirong", a kind of warlike foreigner. For the remainder of the Spring and Autumn period, contemporary sources are silent on Yiqu.
The Yiqu first attacked and defeated Qin in the mid fourth century. Qin followed this with an attack four years later when Yiqu was in turmoil. Yiqu then submitted to Qin and became its vassal in 327 BC. Qin set up a county in its territory. However, the Yiqu were never subservient to Qin, and the two sides continued to do battle. Qin attacked soon later, taking the city of Yuzhi. Although Yiqu beat Qin at Libo two years later in 318 BC, it suffered a heavy defeat soon after: Yiqu ceded twenty-five cities to Qin in 315 BC, during the reign of King Hui of Qin.
However, approximately forty years intervened before the final destruction of Yiqu. In 311 BC, a few years after Qin took twenty-five cities from Yiqu, King Hui died. His son became King Wu of Qin, who attacked the Yiqu in the second year of his reign. However, he died just three years later, in 307 BC. It was not until the late reign of King Zhao of Qin that the Yiqu were destroyed. Historians have analysed this as part of a power struggle in the Qin court, with the Queen Dowager on one side, and the King on the other. When King Zhao came to power, he was but a boy, so his mother, Queen Dowager Xuan, served as regent. However, though the King grew older, the Queen Dowager kept control. She had the support of a powerful minister and three generals inside the court, and the support of the Yiqu King outside it. The Queen's need for a backup force against her son may be why the Yiqu were spared for a while.
In the end, Qin plotted to trap and kill the Yiqu King, and sent troops to launch a surprise attack to destroy Yiqu. The Treatise on the Western Qiang says, "When King Zhao of Qin came to the throne, the Yiqu King had an audience with him in Qin. Consequently, the Yiqu King had relations with his mother, the Queen Dowager Xuan, who bore him two sons. In the 43rd year of the reign of King Nan of Zhou 272, the Queen Dowager Xuan trapped and killed the Yiqu King in the Ganquan Palace. Qin raised troops and exterminated the Yiqu kingdom, and established Longxi, Beidi Commandery, and Shang Commandery commanderies in." The attribution of the Yiqu King's murder to the Queen Dowager may be a way to disguise the fact that it was actually King Zhao who had him killed. Indeed, King Zhao could personally take power after the removal of his mother's military support, and banished the Queen Dowager and her supporters from the state.
After Qin destroyed Yiqu, it established commanderies and set up counties in the Yiqu territories, and the Yiqu Rong became subjects of Qin. Qin then built "long walls" to protect against other peoples in these new territories.
It is not known exactly how many cities the Yiqu built in their lands; from the number of cities cited which were taken by Qin according to historical texts, they may have numbered over twenty.
If the Yiqu Rong are to be tentatively identified with any other "Rong" people, it would be the "Quanrong" (also named "Xunyu" or "Xianyun"). This people attacked Zhou during the reign of Gugong Danfu (mid 12th century BCE), forcing the Zhou out of the city-state of Bin in the Jing River basin, which is where Yiqu established a state in the late eighth century. In addition, at the end of Western Zhou (781 BC–771 BC) the Quan Rong launched a series of attacks and invaded the Zhou capital, which weakened royal power and contributed to the moving of the Zhou capital to the east. As mentioned above, the Yiqu first appear as one of the many "Rong" which moved into the Central Plain around 720, settling in territory nominally controlled by the Zhou king. After this development, references to Xianyun, Xunyu, and Qian Rong in the Jing River basin are supplanted by "Yiqu" or "Yiqu Rong".
Furthermore, the Xianyun may be linked to the Siwa culture in the Tao River basin in what is now eastern Gansu, which dates to approximately the 14th century BCE, which some scholars believe is the remains of a Beidi branch of the Qiang. Indeed, the word "Yiqu" borrowed into ancient Chinese with the characters "義渠" (Old Chinese (444 BCE): */ ŋaih-ga/) may be an Old Qiang toponym meaning "Four Waters", which corresponds to the four rivers which meet at the old Yiqu capital at present-day Miaojuping. However, evidence for this is based on alleged correspondence between the unattested Old Qiang language and Amdo Tibetan, which is spoken in southern Gansu, and the assumption of a close relationship between these Tibetan speakers and the ancient Qiang and Rong, which cannot be firmly verified.
Sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the Xiongnu who later established the first nomadic empire on the Eurasian steppe were part of the Yiqu people, before the Qin general Meng Tian drove them north out of the Ordos region in 215 BC.
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