The Xiongnu

Most of what is written about the Xiongnu, also known as the Hsiung-nu, concerns whether the fierce nomadic horse warrior hordes are the same as the Huns who invaded the Roman Empire in the C5th CE. That tribe, led by the infamous Attila, reached the brink of creating a sustainable European empire and only failed because of Attila’s inability to articulate a strategic plan to bring this into effect. The Roman elite generally were able to out-think the so-called barbarians in the long term.

Yet this concentration on the possible Hunnic connection underplays the enormous achievements of the Xiongnu people in East Asia. Emerging from Mongolia, the Xiongnu could muster as may as 300,000 troops in their rapid raids into northern China which, if it is true, makes them far more numerous than successors such as the Mongols or the Khitan Liao. It was the fierceness of these raids that inspired the petty kings of north China to begin to build those portions of wall which subsequently became linked together and are now known as the Great Wall of China. The nomads, on their agile ponies (much smaller than what we think of as horses today), were able to wreak havoc among the Chinese armies which lacked horses and relied on chariots for their principal mounted arm. Chinese leaders were obliged to offer substantial tributes to prevent the Xiongnu wrecking their cities and agriculture.

Chinese tactics also included seeking to tame the Xiongnu by marrying Chinese princesses (Han Chinese, after the victory of that kingdom unified early China) to Xiongnu princes but this failed to stem the flow of raids .Environmental factors as well as the social pressure placed on young warriors to demonstrate their prowess by taking foreign heads combined to ensure new raids continually occurred. Eventually, the Chinese Emperor Wu Ti (reigned c.140-86 BCE) created a large-scale strategy to bound the Xiongnu in their territories. The Emperor sent Chinese armies into Turkestan, East Manchuria and northern Korea to obtain allies who had also suffered from Xiongnu depredations while at the same time expanding Chinese territory and encircling the Xiongnu, This strategy was broadly successful or, at least, coincided with a period of Chinese strength and nomad weakness. Some of the Xiongnu were taken into Chinese service as border patrols and became partly sinicised as a result – Chinese rulers routinely believed that exposure to ‘superior’ Chinese culture would be enough to civilize (or emasculate) any nomad or other barbarian. There were some sporadic attempts to establish resurgent Xiongnu states after this date but these achieved only short-term success, generally only as long as a dominant and powerful general managed to retain control.

In 51 BCE, the Xiongnu horde had divided into Eastern and Western portions and the latter moved further west. Their fate is not properly established: the arguments about whether they should be identified with the Huns can be fierce.