The History of China - #28 - W. Han 6: The Sino-Xiongnu War

Episode Date: June 29, 2014

Tensions between the Han and Xiongnu Empires boil over into full-scale war after decades of humiliation at the hands of the northern horse-lords. When the traditional methods of neutralizing Xiongnu power fails, Emperor Wu must turn to a new generation of strategists to turn the Xiongnu's own strength against them: cavalry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thanks again very much, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 26, The Sino-Xiongnu War Last time, amid rising tensions between the neighboring Han and Xiongnu empires, Emperor Wu had dispatched his emissary, Zhang Qian, to penetrate the barbarian blockade of the western path out of China and find out what was beyond the edges of the known world. This episode, the decades of humiliation and centuries of bad blood between the two East Asian powers finally boils over into full-scale war, culminating with a reordering of the entire region.

As we've hit on again and again, the diplomatic relations between the Xiongnu and Han governments had been determined very early in the Han's lifespan, when its first emperor, Gaozu, was humiliatingly encircled and defeated at Baidang Plateau in Mongolia in 200 BCE. Gaozu had been forced to treat with Baotou Chanyu, effectively bribing his wife to let him go. In the degrading peace terms that followed, called He Qin, the Han Empire was forced to periodically offer tribute to the northern horse lords in the form of rice, silk, liquor, and women. This humiliation was compounded by the fact that in spite of the supposed marriage alliance between the two states, the following seven decades had witnessed frequent Xiongnu raids into Han territory, at one point coming within 150 kilometers of the capital city

itself. In spite of the appeasement offered, the richness of Chinese lands was often far too tempting to pass up for the fearsome but dirt poor Xiongnu. But all that was about to change with the coronation of Emperor Wu, the warlike, of Han. Though he had personally approved of the renewal of the Heqin alliance with Gunchen Chanyu, who was the late Baotou's grandson, in 140, following yet another barbarian raid along his northern border in 136 BCE, Wu called a conference of his top military advisors and resolved to end this problem once

and for all. Han had been able to recover and expand since the time of Gaozhou, both economically and militarily, and as already had been shown through Wu's early campaigns against his southern neighbor states, the imperial armies were once again strong enough to support full-scale warfare against external threats. Most importantly against the mounted archer warriors of the north, though, the Han Empire's supply of warhorses had grown plentiful, and they would be able to fight the barbarians on their own terms. It would turn out, however, that Wu's conference came just a little bit too early, since his grandmother, the powerful Grand Empress Dowager Do,

was still, somehow, clinging to both life and power. Thus, he found his plans temporarily stymied by her continued resistance. That would end the following year, however, and at last, Wu was able to end her Wu Wei nonsense and adopt a more aggressive posture against the brazen Xiongnu. They would draw from the highly successful strategies that had driven the Xiongnu from China for more than a generation, those of General Li Mu of Zhao during the Warring States period. Wu's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Hui, set forth his plan, and in 133 it was enacted. He had proposed that, like General Li of old, the best offense against the Xiongnu was a crushing defense. It was determined that a powerful and prosperous trader local to the

northern border regions would falsely declare his allegiance to the Xiongnu Chanyu and offer to kill the magistrate of the border town, Ma Yi, and open the city gates for the Xiongnu forces to enter and loot. All the while, of course, the Han army would have deployed some 300,000 hidden soldiers around the Ma Yi area. Once the Xiongnu were within the city walls looting and pillaging, the Han forces would enter behind them, close the gates, and exterminate the barbarians. From the outset, at least, the plan appeared to work flawlessly. The merchant-turned-double agent hung the head of an executed criminal outside of Ma Yi's city gate, making it seem as though it was the magistrate's.

Ren Chun Chanyu bought the ruse, and personally led his army to seize and plunder the town. Ironically, though, the Han army's concealment turned out to be too... good. As he approached the border town, the Chanyu took note that the fields were full of cattle, but there were no herdsmen to be seen anywhere. Growing increasingly suspicious of this just a little bit too convenient state of affairs, he brought his forces to a halt before reaching the city and ordered them to investigate the curious lack of, well, anyone. Soon thereafter, a Han scout from a nearby outpost was captured and dragged before the Chanyu, where he confessed the entire plan. The Chanyu, realizing he had been duped and very nearly walked into his own grave,

immediately ordered his men to turn around and beat a swift retreat. Though the Han forces had been attempting to move into position around the Xiongnu, their sudden change of plan resulted in most of the Han army still being scattered across the area. With only one-tenth of his forces capable of striking at the withdrawing Xiongnu raiders, far too few to stop them long enough for the rest to make their way to the battle, the Han commander abandoned any hope of catching the horse lord and his men, leaving both to withdraw without bloodshed. But the tenuous de jure peace that had limited engagements between the two empires

was irrevocably broken. In retaliation for this apparent betrayal, the Chanyu ordered his men to step up both the frequency and ferocity of their border raids. This, in turn, hardened the remainder of the Han court against him, as they realized the policy of appeasement was no longer workable, and they aligned behind their hawkish Emperor Wu. The Ma Yi plan had relied on surprise for any hope of success, and Jinchen Chanyu wasn't one to walk into the same mousetrap twice. The defensive lure strategy gone out the window. It was also well known that traditional Chinese military tactics, which revolved around chariot and infantry formations, were untenable against the Xiongnu.

Every single time some commander or emperor had gotten the bright idea to send his conventional forces north of the Great Wall, the superior maneuverability of the Xiongnu horsemen had nullified any numerical advantage and resulted in crushing loss of life and treasure in humiliating defeat. So that clearly wasn't going to work any better this time, either. No. If Emperor Wu was going to face off against the northern threat, his armies would need to abandon the strategies of old, and instead use the Xiongnu's most powerful weapon against them,

a relentlessly offense-oriented cavalry to combat the Xiongnu's own. It had become clear, especially given the dismal failure at Ma Yi, that the esteemed elder generals of the Han were not going to be of much use in this new kind of warfare. They were far too set in their ways and too unwilling to embrace the changes necessary for victory. Instead, Wu required a new generation of young, flexible, and command-worthy military hopefuls, and to that end, he began pulling cadets from his own royal guard to groom for command. Most notable among the up-and-comers was Wei Qing, the youthful half-brother of one of Wu's concubines, and then serving as the emperor's chief of staff. In 129, Wei was given the opportunity to display his prowess and command when the Xiongnu army attacked the Xianggu prefecture in force. In response to this incursion, Emperor Wu had tasked his top four generals,

Liguang, Han Anguo, Gongshenghe, and Gongshengao, to lead separate columns against the attackers in a multi-pronged strike. However, Han Anguo, who was notably against the war with the Xiongnu from the start, fell from his carriage en route to his column and broke his leg, rendering him unable to lead his portion of the operation. In his stead, Wu appointed Wei Qing to lead the division of 10,000 men from Shanggu itself. The three elder generals proved their inability to effectively deal with the Xiongnu raiders. Both Li Guang and Gong Songao met with major losses in their deal with the Xiongnu raiders. Both Li Guang and Gong Song Ao met with major losses in their encounters with the enemy, while Gong Song He failed to even find or

engage with the enemy whatsoever. In marked contrast, Wei Qing led his force against the Xiongnu holy site called Longcheng by Sima Qian, which was in or near the city of Ulangkab in modern southern Inner Mongolia. In the process, Wei's force distinguished itself by killing some 700 Xiongnu warriors. This served as a critical morale victory for the Han, as it was in fact the first combat victory against the Xiongnu in the history of the dynasty. As a reward, Wei was promoted by Emperor Wu to high command and made the acting Marquis of Guan Nei.

Things were certainly looking up for Wei Qing, and the trend continued the next year when his half-sister, consort Wei Zhifu, gave birth to Emperor Wu's first son, Prince Liu Zhu, and was declared Empress soon thereafter. Wei Qing was now not only a military hero, but a trusted member of the imperial extended family. That same year, he was given command of 30,000 to 40,000 cavalrymen from Yanmen Prefecture. In 127 BCE, he led his mounted force through Gao Que, which is modern Urat rear banner of Inner Mongolia. And by the way, a banner in this instance is the local term of a county-level division. From there, he would turn south to the fertile Ordos Loop in Gansu, which was then called

Longxi, to outflank and surround the already engaged forces of Xiongnu princes Luo Fan and Bai Ying. The maneuver was a dramatic success, and Weiing's mounted forces killed more than twenty three hundred shen new in battle and captured more than three thousand others as well as securing reportedly more than a million head of cattle both the shiji and the book of han tell of the battle being so utterly one-sided that the han forces returned, with all warriors intact, end quote. The two Xiongnu tribes occupying the area were forced to pull back against the Han onslaught and ceded the territory outright. The Ordos Loop had been a critical element for the Xiongnu economy, as it was both the site of many of their trading posts and markets, as well as one of the few pieces of territory they controlled that could be extensively farmed.

Without Ordos, the Xiongnu economic and military machine was thrown into chaos. Following up on this key victory, the Han constructed the fortress city of Shuo Fang within the Ordos as a key stronghold from which to launch further campaigns against the Xiongnu Empire, both offensively and defensively. Once again the pivotal element in a resounding Han victory, Wei Qing was declared the Marquis of Changping as reward. Such a devastating defeat sent the Xiongnu Khanate reeling, and this was only compounded the following year in the winter of 126 BCE when Gunchun Chanyu died at the age of only 35.

He was succeeded by his younger brother, Yeizai, as the Xiongnu monarch, but it would be some three years before the empire had recovered enough to strike out again. This would come in late 124 under the command of the right-worthy prince of Xiongnu. Before getting into the campaign, I feel I ought to explain that title and its significance. The position was one of two within the Xiongnu hierarchy, and is rendered in Chinese as 屠器王, meaning word-for-word slaughter sage king, though it is generally accepted that such a rendering is a sinicization of the Turkic 特金 or 特金, meaning prince. The two princes served directly under the Chanyu as commanders-in-chief of the two wings of the empire, alongside the Chanyu's central domain.

The worthy prince of the left, or east, was of the Chanyu's own clan, second in command of the armed forces and the heir apparent of the Xiongnu empire. As such, prior to his brother's death, the position had been held by the now Chanyu, Ichize. Upon the death of the reigning Chanyu, the prince of the east would ascend to the throne, and all other family members would move up one step. On the other hand, the worthy prince of the right, or west, was not of the imperial clan, and thus not eligible for the throne at all. Instead, he filled the function of prime minister and supreme justice. Both princes, though ultimately subject to the Chanyu, were highly autonomous and capable of waging war on their own accord, without the central throne's approval or oversight.

So, the worthy prince of the west slash Xiongnu Prime Minister began harassing the newly constructed city of Shuo Fang in 124 and threatening the Han capital, Chang'an. This prompted Marquis Wei Qing to forcefully respond. From his seat in Gaochui, he launched a long-distance strike at the Xiongnu prince and led 30,000 soldiers on a night assault against the prince's main camp. The Han's swift attack took the Xiongnu completely by surprise, and sent the Prince of the West fleeing for his life with only his favored concubine in tow. Some 15,000 Xiongnu warriors were captured or killed in the assault, including dozens

of nobles, and once again enormous herds of cattle as prizes. This is quite possibly the single greatest victory over the Xiongnu in the course of the war. With the Xiongnu Prince of the West utterly routed and the bulk of his forces now captured, the threat of invasion from the West or against Chang'an was now permanently removed. In recognition for his success, Wei Qing was given the title Da Jiangjun, which most closely means Generalissimo of the Han armies, and his sons and seven of his subordinate generals declared Marquise. It was the following year that the second legendary tactician of the Sino-Xiongnu War

entered the fray. Huo Qubing was the nephew of Wei Qian and Empress Wei Zhefu, and had been marked for military greatness since his early teens, having caught the eye of Emperor Wu and made his personal assistant. In 123 BCE, Wu appointed the 18-year-old Huo as captain and sent him to Dingxiang under the command of his uncle, Generalissimo Wei Qing. Captain Huo distinguished himself in the inconclusive Dingxiang Campaign by leading his 800 men against the Xiongnu, killing some 2,000 and capturing numerous nobles, including the Chanyu's grandfather. All of this while the other divisions of the Han army, most notably the vanguard force,

were either defeated or defected, with the exception of Wei Qian's personal force, which did offset such embarrassments by killing or capturing more than 10,000 Xiongnu. In spite of the middling performance of the army as a whole, Captain Huo Qubing's undeniable victory against a far larger enemy force earned him a promotion to general and the title of Marquis. In 121, Emperor Wu twice deployed General Huo into the hexi corridor of gansu which is the most important route westward toward the tarim basin and along the northern edge of the tibetan plateau dotted as it was on the far side of the Hexi that the explorer Zhang Qian had been captured last episode. But Emperor Wu thought it long past time to rectify that occupation.

Thus, in the spring, General Huo led 10,000 cavalry on a lightning strike through the corridor, moving through five regions of the long, narrow passage in a mere six days, covering 1,000 li, or 500 kilometers, over Mount Yanzhi, and killing more than 9,000 enemy warriors. This victory was culminated by Huo Qubing's capture of a holy golden statue of the Xiongnu. That same summer, Huo was again dispatched to Hexi, following a Xiongnu counteroffensive into the Dai Prefecture and Yanmen. While the elder general, Li Guang, attempted to hold off the invasion with little apparent success, Huo set off with another 10,000 cavalry for the westernmost area of Hexi, still under the control of the Xiongnu. Though he was supposed to have been supported by Gong

Sun Ao's forces, Gong Sun got lost on the way and never did manage to show up. Nevertheless, General Huo's cavalry pressed on, more than 1,000 kilometers westward with no relief force, and captured the entirety of the Qilian Mountains and the Lop Nur Salt Lake on the western edge of the Hexi Corridor. This effectively cut the Xiongnu off from their Qiang allies to the south, and in the process, killed more than 30,000 enemy soldiers. The loss of Hexi meant more than just the loss of valuable grazing area to the Xiongnu Empire. It proved to be an enormous blow to the steppe warriors' morale. They reportedly commemorated the crushing defeat with a poem translated as, quote, Losing our Chilian mountains made our cattle wither.

Losing our Yanjia mountains made our women colorless. End quote. The Chanyu was, understandably, furious at his western princes of Huanxi and Xiutu for their abject failure, and declared that he wanted their heads. The prince of Huanxi, rather liking his head where it was, thanks very much, sent messengers to Han officials in the fall of 121 to negotiate his surrender. He attempted to convince his fellow western commander, the prince of Xiuzhu, to do the same, but ultimately was unable.

Knowing that the Han would not accept his terms of surrender if the Xiuzhu principality remained hostile, he ordered its recalcitrant prince killed and took up command of its armies, ordering them to surrender as well. Soon thereafter, the prince of Huanxie met with General Huo Chubing, who had been dispatched to personally accept the Xiongnu's surrender. But the Xiu Tu army began to riot and declared that they would do no such thing. When the prince of Huanxie proved unable to calm his men down, General Huo took matters into his own hands by ordering his soldiers to forcibly put down more than 8,000 Xiongnu warriors who refused to disarm, and thus

quelling the riot. The Huanxie tribe and whatever remnant remained of the decimated Xiotu were resettled in the central plain of the Yellow River Valley, safely out of the vindictive Ichi-Se-Chan-Yu's grasp. With the western quarter at last wrested from Xiongnu control, the northern Silk Road, which had been scouted and recorded by Jiang Qian, was finally opened to China. In addition to the considerable wealth this would bring to the Han Empire, it also provided the Han with a critical new supply of horse breeds from Central Asia, most notably the Frangana breed from the Ionian or Da Yuan Kingdom and probable ancestor of the modern Akhal-Teke horses, famous for their hardiness and endurance.

The Hexi Corridor would be fortified by Emperor Wu over the following decade, amid the continual threat of Xiongnu, Qiang, and other allied city-states. The region would ultimately be divided up into five prefectures. The ancient walled fortifications of Qin extended westwards along its northern border and colonized with some 700,000 Han soldier-settlers. With this massive loss of territory, economic wealth, and manpower, the Xiongnu Empire had lost not only its strategic momentum, but had been thoroughly knocked onto its backside by the Han. Yi Qi's Sechanyu, realizing the precariousness of his

own position, finally heeded the advice of his ministers and retreated north of the Gobi Desert, which makes up virtually the entire border between modern Mongolia and the Chinese Inner Mongolian territory. The Chanyu hoped that the inhospitable Gobi would serve as a natural 800-kilometer-wide barrier against further Han incursion, but Emperor Wu was far from finished with the Xiongnu. In January of 119 BCE, he organized a massive expeditionary force to end the northern threat once and for all, called the Battle of Mobei, or the Battle of the Northern Desert. The Han army was deployed into two separate columns, each consisting of 50,000 cavalry and more than 100,000 infantry,

and led by Generalissimo Wei Qing and General Huo Chubing, respectively. The initial plan called for Huo Chubing to attack and engage the Chanyu's forces directly, while Wei Qing's army would attack the worthy prince of the east's army and prevent him from coming to the Chanyu's aid. But information from a Xiongnu prisoner of war suggested that the Chanyu's main force was in fact deployed to the east at Dai Prefecture, although this would turn out to be misinformation. Emperor Wu, who had been distancing himself with Wei Qing and giving the younger Huo more attention and favor, ordered the two columns to switch routes in hopes of letting Huo,

who was preferentially assigned the most elite troopers, engage the Chanyu. The Eastern Theater, under Huo Chubing's command, went off without a hitch. Though he was surprised that he was engaging with the worthy prince's armies rather than the Chanyu's, General Huo nevertheless pressed the attack and defeated the outnumbered and well-overmatched prince's armies. The Xiongnu were quickly encircled and annihilated by the elite Han cavalry, and more than 70,000 were killed, along with the capture of three Xiongnu lords and 83 nobles. General Huo's forces suffered a 20% casualty rate, but they were able to quickly resupply from local captures. To symbolize the historic Han victory, Huo conducted a series of rituals upon his arrival

at the holy Mongolian Kantiyi Mountains, before pursuing the fleeing Xiongnu remnant northwest as far as Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, scattering or annihilating the rest of the clan in the process. In spite of Emperor Wu's expectation that the western theater overseen by Wei Qing be little more than a diversion, due to the misinformation under which he enacted his battle plan, it proved to be the far more dramatic half of the operation. Not only was Wei Qing's force relatively weaker than Huo's, consisting primarily of the leftovers of Huo's preferential picks, but he was staffed with five elder generals, all of whom demanded what they felt was their

rightful shot at glory. The western expedition set out as planned from Dingxiang, and marched for about 1,000 kilometers through the Gobi, expecting light resistance. However, the Chanyu's personal army of 80,000 cavalry had been waiting in ambush. Exhausted from the grueling journey through the desert, and as such stretched out, the Han expedition was outnumbered by the Xiongnu, who attacked at once with a 10,000-strong vanguard charge. Wei Qing, recognizing the mortal danger he and his army suddenly found themselves, took immediate action.

He ordered his heavily armored chariots to form a defensive ring around his army, creating a mobile fortress against the repeated Xiongnu cavalry's charges. Within the chariot fortress, his archers and crossbowmen were able to pick off the attacking horsemen from relative safety. Meanwhile, General Wei had deployed 5,000 cavalry of his own to reinforce the array of chariots and ride down any Xiongnu that managed to penetrate the defensive ring. Time and again, the Chanyu's cavalry crashed against the Han defensive lines, which peppered them with arrows and crossboltsts until worn down and numerically depl shift the battle in his favor had arrived.

Through the blowing sand and dust, he ordered his main force of cavalry on a risky maneuver to make their way through the blinding storm, further compounded by nightfall, and attempt to encircle the Xiongnu army on both flanks. Remarkably, both strike forces found their way into position and were able to take the Xiongnu camp completely by surprise, killing more than 19,000 horsemen in the melee. Seeing that his cause was lost, the Chanyu managed to flee with only a few hundred of his loyal retainers. The remnant of the Chanyu's army broke and fled north, pursued for more than 200 kilometers kilometers to the kangai mountains where they took refuge in the fortress commanded by hsiung nu commander chou hsin in the orkhon valley of central mongolia

there wei ching laid siege to the fortress for a day while his forces resupplied and regrouped before burning the structure to the ground along with everyone inside. Victorious, they returned to Han in triumph. Ichiza Chanyu, for his part, went missing for some ten days following his army's utter defeat. His clan, naturally assuming that he too must have been killed by the Han invasion force, went ahead and installed a new leader as Chanyu, before Ichiza finally showed up, still very much alive, and demanded that this pretender be removed. Though victorious, the campaign against the Xiongnu Empire entailed massive costs to Han. More than 80% of the Chinese horses were lost over the course of the expedition,

due not only to the battle, but also the harshness of the Gobi Crossing and the Xiongnu contaminating the water supplies with dead cattle, causing sickness and plague. The mounting costs of the Sino-Xiongnu War forced Emperor Wu's government to dramatically raise taxes on its population, and as a result, the Chinese population would actually shrink over the course of the conflict through a combination of battlefield deaths, but even more so due to famine within the general populace due to the excessive taxation to fund the ongoing military operations. Sun Tzu wasn't kidding when he wrote that the only good war was a short war. In spite of the Chinese suffering, it was in fact the Xiongnu clans which took the far

more lethal blow over the course of the conflict. They had lost an enormous chunk of their population in battle, as well as millions upon millions of their cattle upon which their entire lifestyle depended and with a large proportion of their remaining cattle suffering miscarriages due to the stresses of war further they had lost control of the more fertile regions south of the gobi and by one nineteen b c e found themselves relegated to the cold barren tundra of Siberia, north of the desert. Mutually exhausted by the strain of the more than decade of conflict, the Han and Xiongnu empires came to a ceasefire agreement, as both states sought to buy time to recuperate from the extended hardships their war had wrought. Nevertheless, lasting terms of peace could not be reached, as the Han would accept nothing

less than tributary status from the Xiongnu clans which went well beyond the pale for the chan yu the tense truce would remain in effect for seven years before the hsiung nu would once again open hostilities by raiding south of the gobi but the damage had been done though both had been badly hurt by the conflict, the Han Empire would recover and rearm stronger than ever. But the once-mighty Xiongnu would continue to wither away from its mortal blow, and in the coming decades, more and more blocks of the Central Asian Confederation would peel off in de facto independence and typically ill-advised hostility toward the Han, resulting in wars of conquest against the Western states to bring them to heel. Though this glorified mop-up would last another century and a half, the outcome of the Battle of Mobei sealed the fate of the Xiongnu Empire.

It was irrevocably broken, and would be absorbed piecemeal into the expanding Han. Next time, the later reign and further conquests of Emperor Wu of Han, including his gradual descent into paranoia, superstition, vilicide, and madness. Thank you for listening. Today's podcast is brought to you in part by audible.com. By using the web address audibletrial.com slash china, you can receive a free audiobook download along with a free 30-day trial of the service. With over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player, Audible is the nation's leading seller and producer of spoken audio content.