Wuhuan

According to the Hou Han Shu, the Wuhuan were originally the Donghu. When Bagatur destroyed the Donghu state in the early years of the Han, the remnant held the Wuhuan mountain and took its name from it.^[1]^[2] They paid tribute to the Xiongnu. Later they passed under Han protection and served the Han frontier as scouts and cavalry. Their history ends with Cao Cao’s victory over their last great chief, Tadun, at Liucheng.^[1]

Country and custom

The Wuhuan lived by mounted archery and hunting and moved in search of water and grazing, with no fixed place. Their houses were round felt tents with the door opening east toward the sun. They ate meat, drank milk and dressed in wool.^[1] They honoured the young and despised the old.^[1] In anger a man might kill his father or his brothers. He never harmed his mother, because, the text says, the mother has a kin group to avenge her, while father and brothers do not avenge one another.^[1]

They had no hereditary ruler. A man who was brave and could settle quarrels and lawsuits was raised to be a great man (大人). The office did not pass to his heirs. Each camp had its small leader, and hundreds or thousands of camps made one tribe. The great man called his people together by cutting a wooden tally. They had no writing. No one dared disobey the tally.^[1] A man took a girl first and sent cattle, horses and sheep as the bride-price after half a year or a hundred days. Then he went home with his wife and served her family for a year or two. After that, her family sent them off with rich gifts and furnished the household.^[1] Men made bows, saddles and weapons of metal. Women embroidered and wove wool. The land suited millet and the dongqiang plant, whose seed ripened in the tenth month.^[1] They honoured death in battle and saw the dead off at the burial with song and dance, as set out in Wuhuan Funeral Songs.^[1]

Subject to the Xiongnu

After Bagatur’s victory the Wuhuan were weak and alone and served the Xiongnu. Each year they sent oxen, horses, sheep and hides. If they were late, the Xiongnu took their wives and children.^[1]^[3] The tribute outlived the Former Han. In the Han Shu the Wuhuan are still paying hides and cloth in the years when Wang Mang ruled for the boy emperor Ping.^[4] A modern account dates the new Han rules that forbade the Xiongnu to receive Wuhuan deserters to AD 2.^[5]

The Han Shu tells what followed. The Han officer who protected the Wuhuan told them to stop paying. The chanyu’s envoys came as usual, with many Xiongnu men and women who wanted to trade. The Wuhuan refused, saying they kept to the emperor’s rules. The envoys hung their chiefs up by the feet. The chiefs’ brothers killed the envoys and their staff and took the women, cattle and horses. The chanyu sent the army of the Left Worthy King against the Wuhuan. They scattered into the hills and the border forts. The Xiongnu killed many and took away nearly a thousand women and children. They told the Wuhuan to bring horses, cattle, hides and cloth to ransom them. More than two thousand relatives came with goods. The Xiongnu took the goods and kept the captives.^[4]^[6]

Han frontier troops

In the reign of Wudi, Huo Qubing broke the Xiongnu lands of the left. The Han then moved the Wuhuan to the frontiers of five commanderies, Shanggu, Yuyang, Youbeiping, Liaoxi and Liaodong, so that they would watch the Xiongnu for the Han. Their chiefs came to court once a year. The Han set up the Protector of the Wuhuan (護烏桓校尉), an officer of the two-thousand-shi rank. He held the tally of office and was to keep them from dealing with the Xiongnu.^[1]

Under the emperor Zhao the Wuhuan grew stronger. They dug up the graves of the chanyus to repay the wrong done by Bagatur. The Xiongnu were furious. They struck east and broke the Wuhuan.^[1]^[7]^[3] The Han Shu has the debate at the Han court. The Grand General Huo Guang wished to intercept the Xiongnu. Zhao Chongguo, whom he asked, replied with three points. The Wuhuan had often raided the frontier. The Xiongnu attack was to the Han’s advantage. To fall on barbarians who were fighting each other would only provoke a raid. Huo Guang asked Fan Mingyou, who said it could be done. Huo Guang sent Fan Mingyou out of Liaodong with twenty thousand horse. He told him not to go out for nothing. If he missed the Xiongnu, he was to strike the Wuhuan.^[4] The Xiongnu had gone. Fan Mingyou struck the Wuhuan, who had just been beaten. He took six thousand heads and the heads of three kings and was made Marquis of Pingling.^[4] From then the Wuhuan raided You province again. Fan Mingyou beat them each time. Under Xuandi they gradually came in to the frontier and submitted.^[1]

The Wuhuan had their revenge on the Xiongnu later. In 71 BC the Dingling, the Wuhuan and the Wusun attacked them together.^[8] The Han Shu places it after the Han and the Wusun had struck the Xiongnu hard. The chanyu led ten thousand horse against the Wusun and was caught in a snowfall a zhang deep. Few came back. Then the Dingling attacked from the north. The Wuhuan came in from the east, and the Wusun struck from the west. The three killed tens of thousands of men and as many horses. Starvation took three in ten of the people and half the herds. The peoples subject to the Xiongnu fell away.^[4] In the year before Huhanye was raised, the Wuhuan struck the Guxi King on the Xiongnu’s eastern border and took many people. The chanyu was angry. The king, afraid, joined Wuchanmu and the nobles of the left lands in setting up Huhanye as chanyu.^[4]

Wang Mang and the Later Han

When Wang Mang prepared a war on the Xiongnu, he put Yan You in command of Wuhuan and Dingling troops at Dai. He held their wives and children as hostages in the commanderies. The Wuhuan did not like the climate and feared an endless garrison. They asked again and again to leave. Wang Mang refused. They deserted and plundered. The commanderies killed the hostages, and the Wuhuan hated Wang Mang from then on. The Xiongnu lured their leaders with offices and held the rest in loose dependence.^[1]

At the start of Guangwu’s reign the Wuhuan and the Xiongnu raided together. The country east of Dai suffered most. The Wuhuan camped near the frontier, left their tents at dawn and stood before the city walls at dusk. The Wuhuan of the White Mountain outside Shanggu were the strongest and the richest. Ma Yuan went out with three thousand horse to strike them. They fled, and he cut down a hundred. The Wuhuan came back and attacked his rear. He rode day and night to the frontier. More than a thousand of his horses died on the way.^[1]

In AD 46 the Xiongnu fell into disorder. The Wuhuan took advantage of their weakness and beat them. The Xiongnu moved several thousand li north, and the land south of the desert stood empty. The emperor sent the Wuhuan gifts of silk.^[1] Three years later, in AD 49, the Liaoxi chief Hao Dan and 922 others came to court with their people.^[1] They brought slaves, cattle, horses, bows and tiger, leopard and sable skins. The emperor gave a great feast. Eighty-one of their chiefs were made marquises, kings and lords. They were settled inside the frontier along the border commanderies and fed and clothed by the Han. They were to bring in their kinsmen and to scout and fight against the Xiongnu and the Xianbei.^[1] Ban Biao told the court that the Wuhuan were crafty and given to robbery and would raid again if left without a commander. The Protector of the Wuhuan was set up again at Ningcheng in Shanggu, with a camp. He also took charge of the Xianbei. Hostages received gifts. Markets were held at fixed times each year.^[1]

The Hou Han Shu names the Wuhuan in connection with the split of AD 48 only as part of one man’s command. The future Southern Chanyu Bi, then Right Yujian Rizhu King under his uncle, commanded the southern border and the Wuhuan. The eight divisions of the south made him chanyu.^[9] In AD 76 the Southern Chanyu sent light cavalry with the frontier commanderies and Wuhuan troops against the Northern Xiongnu. He took several hundred heads.^[9] When the Southern Chanyu asked for leave to destroy the north, he pointed to the late emperor, who had set the Wuhuan and the Xianbei on the Northern Barbarians and had had their chanyu beheaded.^[9] In AD 94 Ren Shang, the Protector of the Wuhuan, led eight thousand horse of the Xianbei chief Su Bakui and the Wuhuan chief Wuke against Fenghou, whom the newly surrendered northerners had made chanyu. He beat him at Manyi valley.^[9] These belong to the Han campaigns against the Northern Xiongnu.

The Wuhuan did not always serve. In 109 the Southern Xiongnu rose against the Han. A Wuhuan chief rose with the Southern Chanyu.^[10] The revolt was put down quickly.^[11] Under An Di Wuhe, a Wuhuan chief of Yanmen, with the Xianbei chief Qiulun and a Southern Xiongnu marquis, brought seven thousand horse against Wuyuan. They beat the Han army at Gaoqu valley. The Han sent He Xi and Liang Jin, who broke them. Wuhe asked for terms.^[1] Under Shun they cut the road at Yunzhong and seized more than a thousand carts of merchants. A Han general who went after them was besieged at Lanchi.^[1]

Tadun

At the start of Ling’s reign the Wuhuan had four chiefs who called themselves kings. Nanlou in Shanggu had more than nine thousand camps, Qiuliju in Liaoxi more than five thousand, Su Puyan in Liaodong more than a thousand, and Wuyan in Youbeiping more than eight hundred.^[1] Zhang Chun, a former governor of Zhongshan, joined Qiuliju’s people and called himself the Mitian Anding King, commander of the Wuhuan of the commanderies. He plundered four provinces until Liu Yu, appointed governor of You province, offered a reward for his head. The north was quiet.^[1]

When Qiuliju died, his son Louban was young. His nephew Tadun, who had a gift for war, took over and commanded the three commanderies. Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan were fighting each other. Tadun sent to Yuan Shao to ask for a treaty of friendship and helped him defeat Gongsun Zan. Yuan Shao sent the seals of chanyu to Tadun, Nanlou, Su Puyan and Wuyan by a forged imperial order.^[1]^[12] Later Nanlou and Su Puyan raised Louban to chanyu and Tadun to king. Tadun still made the plans.^[1] When Yuan Shao’s son Shang was beaten, he fled to Tadun. More than a hundred thousand households of officials and people from You and Ji had also fled to the Wuhuan. Cao Cao went out against the Wuhuan himself. He broke Tadun at Liucheng and beheaded him. More than two hundred thousand were killed or taken. Yuan Shang, Louban and Wuyan fled to Liaodong, where Gongsun Kang killed them and sent the heads. The remaining ten thousand camps were moved to China.^[1] The Sanguozhi puts the campaign against Tadun in the eleventh year of Jian’an, AD 206.^[13]

Language and origin

The Hou Han Shu makes the Wuhuan and the Xianbei two branches of the Donghu. It says that the Xianbei spoke and lived like the Wuhuan, with a difference in the customs of marriage.^[1] It records no word of Wuhuan speech.^[1] The classification of the Wuhuan as Mongolic rests on their descent from the Donghu and on the Xianbei words. As the Xiongnu weakened, the Xianbei came to count for more than the Wuhuan. The Han bought the Xianbei’s services against them.^[14] One proposal takes the name Avar to be an early Chinese writing of Wuhuan, which would tie the Avars to the Donghu. It is unproven, because it is not clear that the Apar of the Orkhon inscriptions and the Avars are one people.^[15] A second proposal also identifies Wuhuan as an early Chinese writing of Avar. It regards the Wuhuan as speakers of a Mongolic language and joins them with the Hephthalites, whose speech the Liang Shu makes the same as that of the Tuyuhun, a Mongolic dialect in this proposal.^[16] Another view separates the Turkic and the Mongol peoples as two peoples with two histories. It calls the Xianbei and the Wuhuan Proto-Mongols, with no link to the Mongols of today, and holds that their pressure on the Turks lasted until the Göktürk state was founded.^[17]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab Hou Han Shu, juan 90
^ Ögel 2015, p. 178,182
^ a b Ögel 2015, p. 181–182
^ a b c d e f Han Shu, juan 94
^ Sinor 1990, p. 126
^ Ögel 2015, p. 193–194
^ Ögel 2015, p. 117–118
^ Golden 1992, p. 62
^ a b c d Hou Han Shu, juan 89
^ Hou Han Shu, juan 47
^ Golden 1992, p. 63
^ Kurakichi 1926, p. 13–14
^ Sanguozhi, juan 30
^ Golden 1992, p. 70
^ Golden 1992, p. 76
^ Pulleyblank 1962, p. 242,259–260
^ Ögel 2015, p. 351–352