Bi Chanyu

Bi was a grandson of Huhanye. He was passed over for the throne twice. Then he took his grandfather’s title. In the spring of AD 48, the chiefs of eight tribes of the southern border agreed to make him chanyu. In the winter he declared himself Huhanye Chanyu against the court in the north.^[1] The Han court accepted him. From then on there were two Xiongnu realms, one inside the frontier and one outside it.^[1] He held the title for nine years. In his first spring his brother beat the northern court in the field. When he died in AD 56, the Han sent troops to his funeral.^[1]

Before the throne

Bi was the son of the Wuzhuliu Chanyu. After Huhanye, his sons had followed one another on the throne. Under Bi’s uncle Yu, Bi held the post of Right Yujian Rizhu King. The southern border and the Wuhuan were under his command.^[1]

The break that became the split of 48 arose from Yu’s treatment of the next in line. Yu killed his own younger brother Yituzhiyashi, a son of Wang Zhaojun. Yituzhiyashi stood to become Left Worthy King. The Hou Han Shu names it as the post of the chanyu’s designated heir. Yu wished to pass the throne to his son.^[1] Bi said what this meant for him. If the succession went by brothers, the Right Guli King ought to have been set up. If it went by sons, Bi himself was the eldest son of the former chanyu and ought to be set up.^[1] The phrase ‘eldest son of the former chanyu’ can mean the eldest son of Wuzhuliu, whose mother was Huhanye’s most honoured consort. It can also mean the eldest of Huhanye’s grandsons. It is not clear which is meant.^[2] Bi came to the court assemblies less and less. The chanyu sent two Gudu Marquises to watch his troops.^[1]

Yu died in AD 46. Yu’s son Wudadihou took the throne and died. Wudadihou’s brother Punu followed. Bi was passed over a second time.^[1]^[3] Drought and locusts then stripped the Xiongnu country. Punu asked the Han for a marriage treaty. At the same time, in AD 47, Bi sent a Chinese named Guo Heng to the governor of Xihe with a map of the Xiongnu lands. Bi asked to be taken in.^[1] The two Gudu Marquises guessed this. They denounced Bi to the chanyu at the Dragon sacrifice. Bi’s brother, the Jianjiang King, was in the chanyu’s tent. He heard the denunciation and rode to warn Bi. Bi gathered forty or fifty thousand men of the eight tribes of his command. He waited for the marquises to come back. They learned of it and escaped on fast horses. The chanyu sent ten thousand horse against Bi. When he saw how strong Bi was, he turned back.^[1]

Eight tribes and a title, AD 48

In the spring of AD 48 the chiefs of the eight tribes agreed to make Bi chanyu. They gave him the title Huhanye, because his grandfather had once relied on the Han and found safety. They wished to take over his name.^[1] They came to the Wuyuan frontier. They asked to be a screen for the empire for ever. They offered to fight off the northern bandits. The emperor accepted on the advice of Geng Guo, Leader of the Gentlemen of the Five Offices. In the winter Bi declared himself Huhanye Chanyu.^[1]^[4]

The Han court was divided. The biography of Geng Guo in the Hou Han Shu reports that most of the officials said the empire was newly settled and empty. They said that the sincerity of the barbarians was hard to judge. Geng Guo alone answered that the Han should receive Bi as the emperor Xuan had received Huhanye. He said the Han should set Bi against the Xianbei in the east and the Xiongnu in the north. In this way the Han would rebuild the frontier commanderies.^[5] The acceptance may have served two ends at once. It made a strong defender of the northern frontier. It also kept the Xiongnu from uniting again.^[5]

The first years, AD 49 and 50

In the spring of AD 49, Bi sent his brother Mo, the Left Worthy King, north with more than ten thousand horse. Mo took the northern chanyu’s brother, the Yujian Left Worthy King, alive. He broke the northern chanyu’s own camp. He brought back more than ten thousand men in all, with seven thousand horses and ten thousand head of cattle and sheep. The northern chanyu was terrified. He gave ground for a thousand li.^[1] The chapter adds that the Han had earlier built war carts with towers, drawn by several oxen. The Han had set them on the frontier against the Xiongnu. Those who saw them recalled a prophecy. In its ninth generation the Han would push the northern barbarians back a thousand li. Now, it says, the land was indeed widened.^[1] A northern Yujian Gudu Marquis and a Right Gudu Marquis came over with more than thirty thousand people. Bi sent envoys to the court with the treasures of his country. He declared himself a subject. He asked for an envoy to supervise him, for the right to send a hostage son, and for the old agreement to be renewed.^[1]

In AD 50 the Han set up his court eighty li from the western frontier post of Wuyuan. The envoy told him to prostrate himself to receive the edict. Bi hesitated for a while. Then he prostrated himself and declared himself a subject. He asked through an interpreter that the envoy not humiliate him before his own men.^[1]^[6] The Han court then allowed him to settle in Yunzhong. He sent two camels and ten dappled horses.^[1]

That summer, the northern Yujian Left Worthy King, whom Mo had captured, left Bi. His people and five of the southern Gudu Marquises went with him, more than thirty thousand in all. They went back to a place three hundred li from the northern court. There they set the Left Worthy King up as chanyu. A month later they fought each other. The five marquises all died, and the Left Worthy King killed himself. The marquises’ sons each kept their troops and held to themselves.^[1] In the autumn Bi sent a son to the court as a hostage. The Han answered with a cap and sash, a gold seal, a covered carriage, a sword and a bow, and ten thousand bolts of brocade and cloth. From Hedong it sent twenty-five thousand hu of dried rice and thirty-six thousand head of cattle and sheep to feed the Southern Xiongnu.^[1]^[7] Huhanye had received thirty-four thousand hu of grain in 51 BC. His gifts of silk and floss rose from 8,000 bolts and 6,000 catties on his first visit to 30,000 bolts and 30,000 catties in 1 BC.^[8] One modern account sets Bi’s 10,000 bolts and 10,000 catties against the last of these figures and sees in them a sign that Bi was the weaker ruler. It explains the 36,000 head of cattle and sheep by the herds he had left behind in his flight.^[9] In the winter the sons of the five marquises came back to the south with three thousand men. The northern chanyu sent horsemen after them and took them all. Bi’s troops met them in the field and did not do well. The Han then had him move to Meiji in Xihe.^[1]

Dealings with the north, AD 51 to 53

In AD 51 the northern chanyu sent an envoy to Wuwei to ask for a marriage treaty. The Han court argued and could not decide. The crown prince said that the Southern Chanyu was newly attached to the Han. He said that the northern barbarians were afraid of being attacked. If the Han dealt with the north before it could send an army, the southern chanyu might come to have two hearts. The northern barbarians now coming over would then stop coming. The emperor agreed. He told the governor of Wuwei not to receive the envoy.^[1]

In AD 52 the northern court sent an envoy again, with horses and furs. It asked for the marriage treaty and for music. The envoy also asked to bring the hu guests of the western states with him to the audience.^[1] These guests may have been Sogdian merchants. That would date the first contact between the Sogdians and the steppe to the Xiongnu, though a Sogdian colony inside the Xiongnu realm cannot be shown.^[10] The official Ban Biao advised the Han to answer with gifts about equal to what had been brought. He also advised them to remind the northern chanyu of what had happened to Huhanye and to Zhizhi.^[1] The reply drafted for the emperor sets out Bi’s case as the Han saw it. Bi regarded himself as Huhanye’s legitimate eldest heir, next in order to be set up. He believed he had been robbed of his place and mistrusted. Again and again he had asked for troops and commanders to go back and sweep out the northern court. The Han had not yet agreed to the northern request, the draft says. It wished to bring the chanyu’s loyalty to completion.^[1] The emperor took the whole of Ban Biao’s advice. In AD 53 he gave Bi several tens of thousands of sheep.^[1]

Death

Bi died after reigning nine years. Duan Chen, the Leader of Court Gentlemen, went with troops to the funeral. He offered wine and grain. He left troops to guard the court.^[1] His brother Mo, the Left Worthy King, was set up. The emperor sent an envoy with a sealed letter, a seal and ribbon, a cap and head-cloth, red robes, a boy’s knife and belt, and four thousand bolts of silk. Mo was to give these to the kings and the Gudu Marquises. The Hou Han Shu says that this became the rule for the funerals of later chanyus.^[1]

Mo reigned a year. His brother Han reigned two years. In AD 59 the throne came back to Bi’s own line, in his son Shi.^[1]

Name and title

比ChineseHou Han Shu 89
醢落尸逐鞮單于ChineseHou Han Shu 89
呼韓邪單于ChineseHou Han Shu 89

Bi is the only name the Hou Han Shu gives him. The chapter introduces him as the Hailuo Shizhudi Chanyu Bi. After AD 48 it calls him the Southern Chanyu. The title Huhanye appears only at the proclamation.^[1] The chapter writes the chanyu’s surname as Xuliandi, a different form from the Luandi of the Han Shu.^[1]

Assessment

The chapter’s closing judgement says that the Xiongnu quarrelled over the succession. The Rizhu King came over, wishing to renew the friendship of Huhanye. The Han accepted him. After this, the Xiongnu were broken in two. For the first time there were a southern and a northern court.^[1] The same fact can be seen from the other side. The southern realm was brought increasingly under Chinese control and used against its own kin.^[11] The sources do not say what Bi expected from the Han beyond protection against the north.

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 ac ad ae Hou Han Shu, juan 89
^ 内田吟風 1933, p. 108
^ Ögel 2015, p. 233–235
^ Ögel 2015, p. 234–235
^ a b 内田吟風 1933, p. 110
^ Jagchid 1989, p. 66
^ Jagchid 1989, p. 169–170
^ Han Shu, juan 94
^ Jagchid 1989, p. 119–120, 169–170
^ Mori 1983, p. 347
^ Golden 1992, p. 63

Sources

Hou Han Shu, juan 89

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Uchida Ginpū 内田吟風, 後漢光武帝の對南匈奴策に就て下篇：匈奴の分裂と光武帝の南匈奴統御 (1933)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Büyük Hun İmparatorluğu Tarihi II (2015)
Sechin Jagchid; Van Jay Symons, Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall. Nomadic-Chinese Interaction through Two Millennia (1989)
Masao Mori (護雅夫), Soğdluların Orta-Asya'daki Faaliyetleri (1983)