Xiongnu Empire

Legacy

The Xiongnu set the pattern for later steppe empires and for China's frontier policy, and their pressure spurred early Great Wall building and the opening of the Silk Road.

Timeline of Xiongnu Empire

1. 209 BCE
   Modu kills his father Touman and becomes chanyu

   The Xiongnu were horse-riding nomads of the Mongolian Plateau, and in 215 BCE the Qin general Meng Tian had driven them out of their pastures in the Ordos. Their chief, Touman, favoured another son as heir and, according to Sima Qian, sent his eldest son Modu as a hostage to the Yuezhi, hoping he would be killed, but Modu escaped. Modu then trained his warriors to shoot wherever his whistling arrow flew, and in 209 BCE had them kill his father during a hunt. As chanyu (supreme ruler), he united the steppe tribes into a powerful confederation able to field large, coordinated armies.

2. 203 BCE
   Modu defeats the Yuezhi

   Having seized power, Modu turned on the Xiongnu's neighbours. By 208 BCE he had crushed the Donghu of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, whose survivors became the Xianbei and Wuhuan peoples, and he went on to subdue the Dingling and other peoples to the north. In 203 BCE he defeated the Yuezhi, the strong nomad people of the Gansu grasslands to the south-west who had once held him hostage. After these victories all the Xiongnu lords submitted to him, and his empire spread across the eastern steppe from Manchuria towards Gansu.

3. 200 BCE
   Modu surrounds the Han emperor Gaozu at Baideng

   Modu had also retaken the Ordos from the collapsing Qin, and when the Han vassal king Xin defected to him, their forces raided northern China. Emperor Gaozu marched north with a huge army but pushed ahead to Pingcheng (modern Datong) with only part of it, and Modu's cavalry surrounded him on Mount Baideng for seven days. The chanyu then let him escape; Sima Qian suggests Modu's wife persuaded him. In 198 BCE the Han agreed a peace giving the chanyu a bride, regular gifts of silk, wine and grain, and equal status, a pattern that lasted about sixty years.

4. 178 BCE
   Xiongnu overrun the Yuezhi and Wusun in Gansu and the Tarim Basin

   Modu followed up his success against China by making the Yuezhi and the Wusun his vassals. In 178 BCE the Xiongnu overran both peoples in Gansu and pushed into the Tarim Basin; according to later accounts, Modu's son Jizhu killed the Yuezhi king and made his skull into a drinking cup. Sources date this blow between 178 and 176 BCE. The Xiongnu now controlled the oasis kingdoms of the Western Regions and their trade routes, and by Modu's death in 174 BCE they were the most powerful of all the nomads bordering China.

5. 162 BCE
   Laoshang Chanyu drives the Yuezhi from their homeland

   Modu's son Jiyu, who ruled as Laoshang Chanyu from 174 BCE, kept up the pressure on both China and the Yuezhi, raiding within sight of the Han capital Chang'an in 166 and 165 BCE. During the 160s BCE his forces drove the remaining Yuezhi out of Gansu altogether; the sources date this final expulsion variously from c. 165 to 162 BCE. The Greater Yuezhi migrated far to the west, first to the Ili valley and later to Sogdia and Bactria, while the Lesser Yuezhi took refuge in the mountains to the south. The Xiongnu now held the Hexi Corridor without rivals.

6. 133 BCE
   Failed Han ambush at Mayi starts full-scale war

   For some seventy years the Han had paid gifts under the heqin treaties, yet Xiongnu raids continued, and the ambitious Emperor Wu wanted a decisive blow. In 133 BCE a trader at the border town of Mayi pretended to offer the city to Junchen Chanyu, while about 300,000 Han troops lay in hiding to ambush him. The chanyu grew suspicious at the sight of herds left without herders, captured a Han soldier who revealed the plan, and withdrew before the trap could close. No battle was fought, but the peace was over: raids escalated, and Han began building a cavalry army to strike deep into the steppe.

7. 127 BCE
   Wei Qing retakes the Ordos for Han

   After full-scale war broke out in 129 BCE, Emperor Wu's generals took the fight to the Xiongnu. In 127 BCE Wei Qing led 40,000 cavalry out of Yunzhong and outflanked the Xiongnu princes of Loufan and Baiyang, retaking full control of the Ordos, the grasslands inside the Yellow River loop that Modu had recovered after Qin's fall. Han settled about 100,000 people there, created the commanderies of Shuofang and Wuyuan, and repaired the old Qin walls. The Xiongnu lost a key base on the edge of the Chinese heartland.

8. 121 BCE
   Huo Qubing defeats the Xiongnu and Han annexes the Hexi Corridor

   In 121 BCE Emperor Wu twice sent the young general Huo Qubing against the Xiongnu tribes holding the Hexi Corridor, the chain of oases leading west from the Yellow River towards Central Asia. In the spring he fought through five kingdoms in six days and killed nearly 9,000 enemy troops. Fearing punishment from the chanyu after these defeats, the Xiongnu Prince of Hunye surrendered to Han in the autumn, bringing some 40,000 people with him. The Xiongnu lost the whole corridor from Gansu to Lop Nur, which Han organised into commanderies, cutting the Xiongnu off from the Qiang peoples to the south.

9. 119 BCE
   Battle of Mobei drives the Xiongnu from the Gobi

   After losing the Ordos and Gansu, the chanyu Yizhixie pulled his court north of the Gobi Desert, hoping the barren land would keep the Han out. In 119 BCE Wei Qing and Huo Qubing each led 50,000 cavalry, with many more foot soldiers, across the desert: Wei Qing routed the chanyu's army, while Huo Qubing destroyed the eastern Xiongnu forces. According to official Han reports, the Xiongnu lost 80,000 to 90,000 men, though fewer than 30,000 of the 140,000 Han horses came home. The Xiongnu were driven from the lands south of the Gobi and never again seriously threatened the Han heartland under Emperor Wu.

10. 53 BCE
    Succession war (60–53 BCE) ends with Huhanye submitting to Han

    When Xulüquanqu Chanyu died in 60 BCE, a distant relative, Woyanqudi, seized power, and the succession broke down into civil war, with as many as five rival chanyus at one point. Huhanye, Xulüquanqu's son, came out on top but was challenged by his own elder brother, Zhizhi. In 53 BCE Huhanye moved south and submitted to Han China, sending a son as hostage, and in 51 BCE he went to Chang'an to pay homage in person. The Xiongnu fell from the Han's equals to an 'outer vassal', and their realm was split between the pro-Han Huhanye and Zhizhi, who withdrew westward.

11. 36 BCE
    Huhanye's rival Zhizhi is killed by a Han army

    Driven west by his brother's Han-backed power, Zhizhi allied with the Kangju people near Lake Balkhash around 44 BCE and forced them to build him a fortress, probably near Talas in modern Kazakhstan. In 36 BCE the Han deputy commander Chen Tang, forging an order in the name of the ailing Protector-General Gan Yanshou, led an army of Han and allied troops that stormed the fort. Zhizhi was killed and his head was sent to Chang'an. Huhanye was left as the only chanyu, and the Xiongnu remained loyal Han vassals until the upheavals of Wang Mang's reign.

12. 48
    Confederation splits into Southern (pro-Han) and Northern Xiongnu

    During the chaos of Wang Mang's reign the Xiongnu under Huduershi regained the Western Regions and stopped paying tribute. But Huduershi broke the custom of passing power to brothers and named his son Punu as heir, angering Bi, the Rizhu King of the Right, who as eldest son of an earlier chanyu had a stronger claim. In 48 CE eight southern tribes with 40,000 to 50,000 fighters broke away and made Bi their chanyu. The Southern Xiongnu soon became Han allies settled along the frontier, while Punu's Northern Xiongnu kept the steppe around the Orkhon.

13. 89
    Dou Xian's Han army chases the Northern Chanyu into the Altai

    By the 80s CE the Northern Xiongnu were weakened by famines and locust plagues, and in 87 the rising Xianbei killed their chanyu Youliu. The Han court seized the chance: in 89 the general Dou Xian, brother of the empress dowager, led three columns, including the main army of the Southern Xiongnu, deep into Mongolia. They chased the Northern Chanyu into the Altai Mountains, killing 13,000 and accepting the surrender of some 200,000 people from 81 tribes. Dou Xian carved a victory inscription on Mount Yanran, rediscovered by Mongolian and Chinese scholars in recent years, and the Northern state was broken.

14. 91
    Northern Chanyu defeated in the Altai Mountains and flees west

    After the defeat of 89 CE the Northern Chanyu tried to negotiate, but the Southern Xiongnu wanted their rivals destroyed, and Han attacks continued. In February 91 Dou Xian's generals Geng Kui and Ren Shang struck again, defeating the Northern Chanyu in the Altai Mountains, capturing his mother and killing about 5,000 of his men. The chanyu fled west and was never heard of again, and a successor chosen near Lake Barkol was killed in 93. Most of the Northern Xiongnu were absorbed by the Xianbei, who now took over the Mongolian steppe.

Periods and reigns

• Modu 209–174 BCE
• Laoshang 174–161 BCE
• Junchen 161–126 BCE
• Yizhixie 126–114 BCE
• Wuwei to Hulugu 114–85 BCE
• Huyandi 85–68 BCE
• Xulüquanqu and Woyanqudi 68–58 BCE
• Huhanye (rival Zhizhi to 36 BCE) 58–31 BCE
• Fuzhulei to Wuzhuliu 31 BCE – 13 CE
• Wulei 13–18
• Huduershidaogao (Yu) 18–46
• Northern chanyus (Punu, Youliu) 46–87
• The last Northern Chanyu 88–91

Rulers

• Touman d. 209 BCE

  First chanyu known by name

• Modu Chanyu 209 – 174 BCE

  Founder of the steppe empire; trapped the Han founder at Baideng

• Laoshang Chanyu 174 – 161 BCE

  Drove the Yuezhi west

• Huhanye Chanyu 58 – 31 BCE

  Submitted to the Han during a civil war

Realms on the map

• Xiongnu 208 BCE – 153 CE
• Southern Xiongnu 51–105

Chapters

• The world in 200 BCE: Rome and Han Rise
• The world in 100 BCE: The Silk Road Opens
• The world in 1 BCE: The Augustan World