Northern Xiongnu: A Visual History

The Northern Xiongnu were the branch that remained independent on the Mongolian steppe after the Xiongnu split of 48 AD, when the southern chanyu Bi submitted to the Eastern Han. Weakened by drought, locusts, revolts of subject peoples and constant war with the Han, southern Xiongnu, Xianbei and Dingling, they were crushed by the Han general Dou Xian at Ikh Bayan in 89 and finally driven from the Orkhon in 91. Remnants moved to the Ili valley and were last recorded near the Altai around 155; a possible link to the later Huns is much debated.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Northern Xiongnu. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Northern Xiongnu territory

Timeline of the Northern Xiongnu

1. 48
   Xiongnu splitSouthern tribes submit to Han.
2. 73
   Han offensive; Ban Chao in the Tarim
3. 87
   Xianbei kill the northern chanyu
4. 89
   Ikh BayanDou Xian's victory.
5. 91
   Chanyu flees west
6. 126
   Northern remnants fight the Han in the Tarim
7. 155
   Last record of the northern Xiongnu

The split of 48

A dispute over succession divided the Xiongnu; the southern tribes under Bi, grandson of Huhanye, moved to the Ordos as Han clients while Punu held the north. The Han now had allies against the northerners and could use southern Xiongnu cavalry in every campaign.

Attrition

The northerners raided Han territory and fought for control of the Tarim oases, where Ban Chao gradually pushed them out after 73. Drought and locusts in the 80s brought famine; the Xianbei attacked from the east, killing a chanyu in 87; tens of thousands of northern tribesmen surrendered to the Han. In 89 Dou Xian's combined Han and southern Xiongnu army routed the northern chanyu at Ikh Bayan and carved a victory inscription on the mountain, rediscovered in 2017.

Disappearance

Han forces struck again in 90 and 91, when the chanyu fled west and vanished. A remnant confederation established itself in the Ili valley and Dzungaria, fighting the Han over the Tarim into the 120s and 130s; the last mention is around 155, when the Xianbei under Tanshihuai took the remaining pastures. Some historians trace the Huns of the fourth century to these westward-moving Xiongnu, though the evidence is thin.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Xiongnu Empire (209 BC to 93)
• Eastern Han dynasty (25 to 220)
• Xianbei state (93 to 234)
• Western Xiongnu (56 BC to 36 BC)
• Huns (370 to 469)
• Hunnic Empire (370 to 469)
• Kushan Empire (30 to 375)

Wars of the same era and region

• Three Kingdoms period (184 to 280)

8 surprising things about the Northern Xiongnu

1. Dou Xian's 89 AD victory inscription by the historian Ban Gu was found on a cliff in Mongolia in 2017, matching the text preserved in Chinese histories.
2. Ban Chao's campaigns in the Tarim were partly a war against the northern Xiongnu, whose garrisons he expelled from oasis after oasis.
3. The Han offered a bounty for the northern chanyu's head that was never claimed; he was never found.
4. The northern Xiongnu ate their horses' flesh during the famines of the 80s, according to Chinese sources.
5. The 'Xiongnu equals Huns' theory was proposed by the French scholar Deguignes in 1756 and is still contested.
6. Around 100,000 northern Xiongnu households reportedly joined the Xianbei after 91.
7. The southern Xiongnu, their rivals, later founded the Han Zhao state that destroyed the Jin.
8. The northern Xiongnu's last strongholds were the Barkol and Ili valleys of modern Xinjiang and Kazakhstan.

Sources

• Xiongnu Wikipedia
• Xiongnu Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Battle of Ikh Bayan Wikipedia
• Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies (2002) Cambridge University Press

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