In AD 52 the Northern chanyu of the Xiongnu sent horses and furs to the Han court and again asked for a marriage treaty.[1] The court replied on the advice of Ban Biao, an aide to the Minister over the Masses.[1] The reply praised the wish for friendship, sent silk and weapons and declined to send instruments.[1]
The request
The Southern chanyu Bi had submitted to the Han in AD 48.[1] The Northern chanyu sent an envoy to Wuwei in AD 51 to ask for a marriage treaty.[1] The court debated the request and reached no decision. The crown prince argued that the Southern chanyu had only just come over and that the north feared an attack. A treaty with the north, he said, might make the Southern chanyu doubtful and keep northern defectors from coming south. The emperor agreed and told the governor of Wuwei not to receive the envoy.[1]
In AD 52 the Northern Xiongnu sent another envoy to the court. He brought horses and furs, asked once more for a marriage treaty, and also asked for music. He further asked to lead the hu guests of the states of the Western Regions to the audience.[1] The emperor sent the matter to the three highest ministers for a decision on the proper reply.[1]
Ban Biao’s advice
Ban Biao first recalled the instruction of the emperor Xuan to the frontier officers. The Xiongnu were a great state and full of tricks, and the Han could win or lose by how well it read them.[1] The Northern chanyu, he said, had seen the Southern chanyu come over and feared for his realm. That was why he asked for a treaty so often, and why he drove cattle and horses far to trade with the Han and sent his famous kings with many gifts.[1]
Ban Biao read these offers as a show of strength by a weak state. The heavier the gifts, he wrote, the emptier the country, and the more often he asked for friendship, the greater his fear.[1] The Han was not yet in a position to help the Southern chanyu, so it should not break off with the north. A courtesy should not go unanswered. He proposed rewards roughly equal to the gifts, with a plain reminder of what had happened to Huhanye and Zhizhi.[1]
The reply
Ban Biao drafted the reply himself, and the emperor adopted it whole.[1] The draft praises the Northern chanyu’s wish for friendship. It tells him that the Southern chanyu had asked again and again for troops and commanders to sweep out the northern court. The Han had refused and had not yet granted it, the draft says, because of the Northern chanyu’s yearly tribute and his wish for friendship.[1] It also says that, as the Northern chanyu’s wars had emptied his state, he need not send horses and furs. A tribute that met the forms of courtesy was enough.[1]
The draft names the goods that the Han sent. To the chanyu went 500 bolts of mixed silk, a bow with its fittings and four sets of arrows. To the Left Guduhou and the Right Luli King, who had brought the horses, the Han gave 400 bolts of mixed silk each and a horse-cutting sword each.[1]
The chanyu had also asked for new instruments, because the zither and the other instruments that an earlier emperor gave to Huhanye were broken. The draft declines. His state was still unsettled and he was bent on war, it says, and good bows and sharp swords served him better than instruments.[1] On the request about the Western Regions, the draft says that for those states it made no difference whether they belonged to the Xiongnu or to the Han.[1]
Afterwards
In AD 53 the Han gave the Southern chanyu several tens of thousands of sheep.[1] In AD 55 the Northern chanyu again sent an envoy. The court answered with a sealed letter and coloured silks and did not send an envoy back.[1]
The histories do not say how many horses and furs the Northern envoy brought, so the proportion of the reply to the gifts cannot be tested.
References
Sources
- Hou Han Shu, juan 89
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Han Reply to the Northern Xiongnu (AD 52).” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/han-reply-to-the-northern-xiongnu-52/
Last revised: 7 November 2026
