Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When did the Xiongnu exist?
The Xiongnu [ɕjʊ́ŋ.nǔ] (Chinese:匈奴; Wade–Giles:Hsiung-nu) were a confederation[3] of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Asian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Chinese sources report that Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire.[4]
In 51 BCE a pretender to the Xiongnu's throne Huhanye re-established the "heqin" peace and kinship treaty with the Han empire, and fled to China with a fraction of the Xiongnu, partitioning the Xiongnu state into the Northern Xiongnu and Southern Xiongnu, and establishing a new polity allied with China. The Southern Xiongnu retained a title "Chanyu" for their leader, and started a new dynastic line beginning with Huhanye. Huhanye himself belonged to the 8th generation of the Maodun line of the dynastic paternal Luanti tribe, the tribe Qiang ("Kiyan") was a maternal dynastic tribe of the Southern Xiongnu. During the existence of the Southern Xiongnu state, its Xiongnu population greatly varied depending on the events in the steppe, at times it was swelling with numerous Xiongnu tribes fleeing trouble events, and at times it was losing Xiongnu tribes when they returned after return of peaceful times. The Chinese policies also affected the in and out flows. Until the event with Zhang Xiu in 179 CE, the Southern Xiongnu continued electing their Chanyus without explicit Chinese intervention, Jiangqu was the first Southern Xiongnu Chanyu who broke the traditional Xiongnu succession laws, undermining the integrity of the Southern fraction. Tribes that did not want to recognise a non-eligible leader either revolted against him, or left the area under his control.
The Xiongnu ruled over the area of Tuva prior to 200 AD. The identity of the ethnic core of Xiongnu has been a subject of varied hypotheses and proposals by scholars including Mongolic and Turkic. At this time a people known to the Chinese as Dingling inhabited the region. The Chinese recorded the existence of a tribe of Dingling origin named "Dubo" in the eastern Sayans. This name is recognized as being associated with the Tuvan people and is the earliest written record of them. The Xianbei defeated the Xiongnu and they in turn were defeated by the Rouran. From around the end of the 6th century, the Göktürks held dominion over Tuva up until the 8th century when the Uyghurs took over.
The Eastern Han (), also known as the Later Han (), formally began on 5 August 25, when Liu Xiu became Emperor Guangwu of Han. During the widespread rebellion against Wang Mang, the state of Goguryeo was free to raid Han's Korean commanderies; Han did not reaffirm its control over the region until AD 30. The Trưng Sisters of Vietnam rebelled against Han in AD 40. Their rebellion was crushed by Han general Ma Yuan (d. AD 49) in a campaign from AD 42–43. Wang Mang renewed hostilities against the Xiongnu, who were estranged from Han until their leader Bi (比), a rival claimant to the throne against his cousin Punu (蒲奴), submitted to Han as a tributary vassal in AD 50. This created two rival Xiongnu states: the Southern Xiongnu led by Bi, an ally of Han, and the Northern Xiongnu led by Punu, an enemy of Han.
In 119 BC, when the Xiongnu suffered a catastrophic defeat by the Han armies, the Chanyu moved his court (located in present-day Inner Mongolia) to another location north.[145][146] This had the desired result that the Xiongnu were separated the Wuhuan people, which also prevented the Xiongnu from exacting many resources from the Wuhuan.[145] The Han court placed the Wuhuan in tributary protection and resettled them in five northeastern commandaries, namely Shanggu, Yuyang, Youbeiping (present-day Hebei), Liaoxi, and Liaodong (present-day Liaoning).[147] A new office, the Colonel-Protector of the Wuhuan, was established (near present-day Beijing) in order to prevent contact between the Wuhuan with the Xiongnu and to use them to monitor the Xiongnu activities.[147] Nevertheless, the effective Han control over the Wuhuan was lacking through much of the Western Han period, since the Xiongnu had considerable military and political influence over the Wuhuan while relations between the Wuhuan and Han often remained strained at best.[148] This can be exemplified by a situation in 78 BC, when the Xiongnu led a punitive campaign against the Wuhuan, resulting in General Fan Mingyou (范明友) leading a Han army to impede further incursions.[149] When they learned that the Xiongnu had left by the time the army arrived, the Han court ordered Fan to attack the Wuhuan instead, killing 6000 Wuhuan men and three chieftains, since the Wuhuan had recently raided Han territory.[149] Only in 49 AD, when 922 Wuhuan chieftains submitted during Emperor Guangwu's reign, did many of the Wuhuan tribes come under tributary system of the Han empire.[150] The Han court provided for the Wuhuan and in return the Wuhuan tribes guarded the Han frontier against the Xiongnu and other nomadic peoples.[150][151]
In the spring of 127 BC, the Xiongnu raided Liaoxi and Yanmen Commandery. Han Anguo tried to stop them with 700 men but failed and retreated to Yuyang. When Wei Qing and two other generals arrived, the Xiongnu fled. Wei Qing pushed forward and successfully evicted the Xiongnu south of the Yellow River, killed 2,300 Xiongnu at Gaoque (Shuofang), and captured 3,075 Xiongnu and one million livestock at Fuli (Wuyuan).
Also, according to the Han shu, Wang Wu (王烏) and others were sent as envoys to pay a visit to the Xiongnu. According to the customs of the Xiongnu, if the Han envoys did not remove their tallies of authority, and if they did not allow their faces to be tattooed, they could not gain entrance into the yurts. Wang Wu and his company removed their tallies, submitted to tattoo, and thus gained entry. The Shanyu looked upon them very highly.[30]
Chinese sources indicate that the Xiongnu did not have an ideographic form of writing like Chinese, but in the 2nd century BC, a renegade Chinese dignitary Yue "taught the Shanyu to write official letters to the Chinese court on a wooden tablet 31 cm long, and to use a seal and large-sized folder." The same sources tell that when the Xiongnu noted down something or transmitted a message, they made cuts on a piece of wood ('ke-mu'), and they also mention a "Hu script". At Noin-Ula and other Xiongnu burial sites in Mongolia and the region north of Lake Baikal, among the objects were discovered over 20 carved characters. Most of these characters are either identical or very similar to letters of the Old Turkic alphabet of the Early Middle Ages found on the Eurasian steppes. From this, some specialists conclude that the Xiongnu used a script similar to the ancient "Eurasian runiform", and that this alphabet was a basis for later Turkic writing.
Many immigrants lived in the Xiongnu pasturelands, but at first they did not mix with the Xiongnu. To be a Xiongnu, one had to be a member of a clan, born of Xiongnu parents. The newcomers were well off, but were outsiders, and could marry only among themselves, not the Xiongnu. Only later did they intermix, increase in numbers, even created a state that existed from 318 to 350 AD.
The Han–Xiongnu War,[3] also known as the Sino-Xiongnu War,[4] was a series of military battles fought between the Chinese Han empire and the Xiongnu confederated state from 133 BC to 89 AD. Under Emperor Wu's reign (r. 141–87 BC), the Han empire changed from a relatively passive foreign policy to an offensive strategy to deal with the increasing Xiongnu incursions on the northern frontier and also according to general imperial policy to expand the domain. In 133 BC, the conflict escalated to a full-scale war when the Xiongnu realized that the Han were about to ambush them at Mayi. The Han court decided to deploy several military expeditions towards the regions situated in the Ordos Loop, Hexi Corridor, and Gobi Desert in a successful attempt to conquer it and expel the Xiongnu.
Xiongnu art is harder to distinguish from Saka or Scythian art. There was a similarity present in stylistic execution, but Xiongnu art and Saka art did often differ in terms of iconography. Saka art does not appear to have included predation scenes, especially with dead prey, or same-animal combat. Additionally, Saka art included elements not common to Xiongnu iconography, such as a winged, horned horse.[126] The two cultures also used two different bird heads. Xiongnu depictions of birds have a tendency to have a moderate eye and beak and have ears, while Saka birds have a pronounced eye and beak and no ears.[126]:102–103 Some scholars claim these differences are indicative of cultural differences. Scholar Sophia-Karin Psarras claims that Xiongnu images of animal predation, specifically tiger plus prey, is spiritual, representative of death and rebirth, and same-animal combat is representative of the acquisition of or maintenance of power.[126]:102–103
During the Han Dynastry, one of Kazakhstan's ancestors, the Wusun, intermarried with China, marking the beginning of relations. During the rule of Emperor Wu of Han, Zhang Qian was an official dispatched to the Western Regions to help the Wusun against the Xiongnu. Since the Wusun did not want to cooperate with the Xiongnu, they allied with the Han dynasty to push the Xiongnu out.
The Wusun subsequently took over the Ili Valley, expanding over a large area and trying to keep away from the Xiongnu. According to Shiji, Wusun was a state located west of the Xiongnu. When the Xiongnu ruler died, Liejiaomi refused to serve the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu then sent a force to against the Wusun but were defeated, after which the Xiongnu even more than before considered Liejiaomi a supernatural being, avoiding conflict with him.
The Donghu (or Tung Hu, the Eastern Hu), a proto-Mongol and/or Tunguz group mentioned in Chinese histories as existing as early as the 4th century BC. The language of the Donghu, unlike that of the Xiongnu, is believed by modern scholars to be proto-Mongolic. The Donghu were among the first peoples conquered by the Xiongnu. By the 1st century AD, the Donghu had split, along geographical lines in two: the proto-Mongolic Xianbei (Wade–Giles "Hsien-pei") in the north and the Wuhuan in the south. After the Xiongnu were driven back into their homeland by the Chinese (48 AD), the Xianbei (in particular) began moving (from apparently the north or northwest) into the region vacated by the Xiongnu.
Sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the Xiongnu were part of a Xirong group called Yiqu, who had lived in Shaanbei and had been influenced by China for centuries, before they were driven out by the Qin dynasty.[22] Qin's campaign against the Xiongnu expanded Qin's territory at the expense of the Xiongnu.[23] In 215 BC, Qin Shi Huang sent General Meng Tian to conquer the Xiongnu and drive them from the Ordos Loop, which he did later that year.[24] After the catastrophic defeat at the hands of Meng Tian, the Xiongnu leader Touman was forced to flee far into the Mongolian Plateau.[24] The Qin empire became a threat to the Xiongnu, which ultimately led to the reorganization of the many tribes into a confederacy.[23]
Harold Walter Bailey proposed an Iranian origin of the Xiongnu, recognizing all the earliest Xiongnu names of the 2nd century BC as being of the Iranian type.[9] This theory is supported by turkologist Henryk Jankowski.[10] Central Asian scholar Christopher I. Beckwith notes that the Xiongnu name could be a cognate of Scythian, Saka and Sogdia, corresponding to a name for Northern Iranians.[24][70] According to Beckwith the Xiongnu could have contained a leading Iranian component when they started out, but more likely they had earlier been subjects of an Iranian people and learned from them the Iranian nomadic model.[24]
In Chinese accounts, the Xiongnu first appear at Ordos in the "Yizhoushu" and "Shanhaijing" during the Warring States period before it was occupied by Qin and Zhao. It is generally thought to be their homeland, however when exactly they came to occupy the region is unclear, and it might have been much earlier than traditionally thought, as suggested by archaeological finds. As the Xiongnu expanded southward into Yuezhi territory around 160 BC under their leader Modun, the Yuezhi in turn defeated the Sakas (Scythians) and pushed them away at the Issyk Kul. It is thought the Xiongnu also occupied the Ordos area during the same period, when they came in direct contact with the Chinese. From there, the Xiongnu conducted numerous devastating raids into Chinese territory (167, 158, 142, 129 BC). The Han Dynasty started to fight the Xiongnu in the 2nd century BC under emperor Han Wudi, and colonized the area of the Ordos under Shuofang commandery in 127 BC. Prior to the campaign, there were already commanderies established earlier by Qin and Zhao until they were overrun by the Xiongnu in 209 BC.
Full-scale war broke out in autumn 129 BC, when 40,000 Chinese cavalry made a surprise attack on the Xiongnu at the border markets. In 127 BC, the Han general Wei Qing retook the Ordos. In 121 BC, the Xiongnu suffered another setback when Huo Qubing led a force of light cavalry westward out of Longxi and within six days fought his way through five Xiongnu kingdoms. The Xiongnu Hunye king was forced to surrender with 40,000 men. In 119 BC both Huo and Wei, each leading 50,000 cavalrymen and 100,000 footsoldiers (in order to keep up with the mobility of the Xiongnu, many of the non-cavalry Han soldiers were mobile infantrymen who traveled on horseback but fought on foot), and advancing along different routes, forced the chanyu and his court to flee north of the Gobi Desert.[53] Major logistical difficulties limited the duration and long-term continuation of these campaigns. According to the analysis of Yan You (嚴尤), the difficulties were twofold. Firstly there was the problem of supplying food across long distances. Secondly, the weather in the northern Xiongnu lands was difficult for Han soldiers, who could never carry enough fuel.[note 1] According to official reports, the Xiongnu lost 80,000 to 90,000 men, and out of the 140,000 horses the Han forces had brought into the desert, fewer than 30,000 returned to China.
In a memorandum entitled Guard the Frontiers and Protect the Borders that he presented to the throne in 169 BC, Chao compared the relative strengths of Xiongnu and Han battle tactics.[121] In regards to the Han armies, Chao deemed the Xiongnu horsemen better prepared for rough terrain due to their better horses, better with horseback archery, and better able to withstand the elements and harsh climates.[122][123] However, on level plains, he regarded Xiongnu cavalry inferior especially when faced with Han shock cavalry and chariots as the Xiongnu are easily dispersed.[122] He emphasized that the Xiongnu were incapable of countering the superior equipment and weaponry.[122] He also noted that in contrast the Han armies were better capable to fight in disciplined formations.[122] According to Chao, the Xiongnu were also defenseless against coordinated onslaughts of arrows—especially long-ranged and in unison—due to their inferior leather armor and wooden shields.[122][123] When dismounted in close combat, he believed that the Xiongnu, lacking the ability as infantry, would be decimated by Han soldiers.[122][123]
The Xiongnu in the north had been a threat since the Qin dynasty. Qin Shi Huang had sent the general Meng Tian to oversee the defences on the Qin Empire's northern border and the construction of the Great Wall to repel the invaders. Meng Tian achieved success in deterring the Xiongnu from advancing beyond the border. However, after the Qin dynasty collapsed, the Xiongnu seized the opportunity to move south and raid the border again. In 201 BCE, Hán Xin (King of Hán) defected to the Xiongnu leader, Modu. In the following year, Emperor Gaozu led an army to attack the Xiongnu but was besieged and trapped by the enemy at the Battle of Baideng. Acting on Chen Ping's advice, he bribed Modu's wife with gifts and got her to ask her husband to withdraw his forces. Modu did so. After returning to the capital, Emperor Gaozu initiated the policy of "heqin", which involved sending noble ladies to marry the Xiongnu leaders and paying annual tribute to the Xiongnu in exchange for peace between the Han Empire and the Xiongnu.
In a memorandum entitled "Guard the Frontiers and Protect the Borders" that he presented to the throne in 169 BC, Chao compared the relative strengths of Xiongnu and Han battle tactics. In regards to the Han armies, Chao deemed the swift-riding Xiongnu horsemen better prepared for rough terrain due to better stallions, better with horseback archery, and were better able to withstand the elements and harsh climates than Chinese soldiers. However, he viewed Xiongnu cavalry inferior when faced with Han infantry and chariots on flat, level plains. He emphasized the superiority of Han iron armor and weapons over the Xiongnu's leather armor and wooden shields. He deemed the Chinese composite crossbow and repeating crossbow superior to the Xiongnu's composite bow. When dismounted, he believed that the Xiongnu, untrained in infantry tactics, would be decimated by Han infantry.
Although the Xiongnu finally had been split into two parts in AD 48, the Xianbei (or Hsien-pei in Wade–Giles) had moved (apparently from the east) into the region vacated by the Xiongnu. The Xianbei were the northern branch of the Donghu (or Tung Hu, the Eastern Hu), a proto-Mongol group mentioned in Chinese histories as existing as early as the 4th century BC. The language of the Donghu is believed to be proto-Mongolic to modern scholars. The Donghu were among the first peoples conquered by the Xiongnu. Once the Xiongnu state weakened, however, the Donghu rebelled. By the 1st century AD, two major subdivisions of the Donghu had developed: the proto-Mongolic Xianbei in the north and the Wuhuan in the south.
In 169 BC, the Han minister Chao Cuo presented to Emperor Wen a memorandum on frontier defense and the importance of agriculture.[141] Chao characterized the Xiongnu as people whose livelihood did not depend on permanent settlement and were always migrating.[142] As such, he wrote, the Xiongnu could observe the Han frontier and attack when there were too few troops stationed in a certain region.[142] He noted that if troops are mobilized in support, then few troops will be insufficient to defeat the Xiongnu, while many troops will arrive too late as the Xiongnu will have retreated by then.[142] He also noted that keeping the Xiongnu mobilized will be at a great expense, while they will just raid another time after dispersing them.[142] To negate these difficulties, Chao Cuo elaborated a proposal, which in essence suggested that military-agricultural settlements with permanent residents should be established to secure the frontier and that surrendered tribes should serve along the frontier against the Xiongnu.[142]
When the Hunye King surrendered to the Han in 121 BC, the Han court resettled all the 40,000 Xiongnu people from the Hexi Corridor into the northern frontier regions.[152] The Hexi Corridor proved to be an invaluable region, since it gave direct access and became the base of military operations into the Western Regions[46] Possession of the Western Regions was economically critical to the Xiongnu, since they exacted many of their necessary resources from the western states.[153] The diplomat Zhang Qian suggested to the emperor to establish diplomatic relations with the western states.[154] He proposed to try convince the Wusun in reoccupying their former territory in the Hexi Corridor and to form an alliance with them against the Xiongnu.[154] In 115 BC, Zhang Qian and his men were sent towards the Western Regions, but they did not succeed in convincing the Wusun to relocate.[155] They were, however, successful in establishing contact with the many states, such as Wusun, Dayuan (Ferghana), Kangju (Soghdiana), Daxia (Bactria), and Yutian (Khotan).[155] Although the Han empire tried to diplomatically sway the western states over the years, it met with little success due to the Xiongnu's influence over the Western Regions at the time.[156] Therefore, from 108 BC onwards, the Han resorted to conquest in order to bring the western states to submission.[157]
Yet Han sought to reconquer the Tarim Basin. At the Battle of Yiwulu in 73 CE, Dou Gu (d. 88 CE) reached as far as Lake Barkol when he defeated a Northern Xiongnu chanyu and established an agricultural garrison at Hami. Although Dou Gu was able to evict the Xiongnu from Turpan in 74 CE, when the Han appointed Chen Mu (d. 75 CE) as the new Protector General of the Western Regions, the Northern Xiongnu invaded the Bogda Mountains while their allies Karasarh and Kucha killed Chen Mu and his troops. The Han garrison at Hami was forced to withdraw in 77 CE (and was not reestablished until 91 CE). The next Han expedition against the Northern Xiongnu was led in 89 CE by Dou Xian (d. 92 CE); at the Battle of Ikh Bayan, Dou's forces chased the Northern Chanyu into the Altai Mountains, allegedly killing 13,000 Xiongnu and accepting the surrender of 200,000 Xiongnu from 81 tribes.