The heqin treaties were a series of agreements between the Han court and the chanyu of the Xiongnu. They began after the siege of Baideng and ended with the Mayi ambush of 133 BC.[1] Each rested on the same terms: a princess for the chanyu, fixed yearly deliveries of floss, silk, wine and food, and a pact that made the two rulers brothers.[2][3]

The settlement after Baideng

When the Han army withdrew from Baideng, the emperor sent Liu Jing to conclude an agreement of heqin.[1] The raids went on, because Han commanders kept going over to the Xiongnu. The emperor therefore sent Liu Jing again, now with a princess, yearly deliveries of fixed amounts and a pact to be brothers.[2] Liu Jing is said to have advised sending the emperor’s own eldest daughter. The empress Lü refused to part with her, and a girl of the imperial house was sent in her place.[4] Bagatur then raided a little less.[2] Under the empress Lü he wrote her an insolent letter, and she wanted war.[2] Her generals reminded her that the founder himself had been caught at Pingcheng. She renewed the heqin instead.[2][5] The Han Shu quotes the letter. Bagatur proposed to the widowed empress that each of the two lonely rulers should exchange what he had for what he lacked.[6][7] She answered that she was old and sent two imperial chariots, and Bagatur apologised and sent a horse.[6][8] The offer of marriage may have aimed at the dowry, the exchange of gifts and the closer ties between the courts that a marriage brought.[9] A princess of the imperial house was sent in 192 BC.[10] In the spring of 182 BC the Xiongnu struck at Didao and plundered Ayang. In the first month of 181 they plundered Didao again and carried off two thousand people.[10]

Renewals under Wen

Emperor Wen took the heqin up again at his accession.[1] The year after a Xiongnu raid on the Han border, the chanyu wrote that his Right Worthy King had broken the pact between the two rulers. He had punished the king by sending him against the Yuezhi, and he wished the old agreement restored.[1] The Han ministers advised heqin rather than war.[1] Wen answered that the two rulers had sworn to be brothers. He said that the Xiongnu side had always broken the pact.[1] The chanyu’s envoy had brought a camel, two riding horses and two teams of four draught horses. Wen sent back an embroidered coat, a long embroidered jacket and a brocade robe, a comb, a belt and a clasp of gold, ten bolts of embroidery, thirty of brocade, and forty each of red satin and green silk.[1][9] The Han goods far exceeded the Xiongnu gifts. Some scholars regard the exchange as a gesture of friendship and hold that the Xiongnu lived on the yearly deliveries and the frontier markets.[11]

When Laoshang succeeded, Wen sent another princess. The eunuch Zhonghang Yue went with her as her tutor and went over to the chanyu on arrival.[1] In 162 BC Wen wrote again. Once the chanyu agreed, the emperor decreed that no Xiongnu enter the wall and no Han leave it. Whoever broke the agreement was to be put to death.[1] When Junchen came to the throne, Wen renewed it again.[1]

Some scholars hold that the Xiongnu imposed the frontier markets on the Han in Wen’s reign. In their view the markets were not first opened under Jing, as earlier historians believed.[12] Their evidence is a memorial of Jia Yi, who died in 169 BC, urging the court to grant the Xiongnu large markets on the frontier. They add a remark of Ban Gu that Wen opened border trade and raised the gifts to a thousand pieces of gold a year.[12]

Jing, Wu and the break at Mayi

Junchen’s Xiongnu broke the agreement early in his reign. Emperor Jing restored it, sent princesses and kept the markets open as before.[2] Emperor Wu confirmed it at his accession and supplied the Xiongnu generously.[2][13] In 133 BC the Han laid the ambush at Mayi. The Shiji says that the Xiongnu then broke off the heqin and raided the passes without number, though the markets stayed open.[1]

After the break

In 51 BC Huhanye came to the court at Ganquan. The court placed him above the kings and princes and announced him as a subject without his name.[6] In 33 BC he asked to become a son-in-law of the Han, and Emperor Yuan gave him the court lady Wang Qiang, called Zhaojun.[6] In the Han Shu Ban Gu judges the series a failure. The Xiongnu broke the agreements again and again, and heqin did no good.[6]

Interpretations of the payments

There are three interpretations of the yearly deliveries. The first takes them as tribute that China paid to a nomadic ruler for peace.[14] The second takes the deliveries as the Han side’s gifts, in the language of equals. The Shiji describes the Xiongnu side with the verb for presenting. It describes the Han side with the verbs for sending and for presenting, and it avoids the verb for bestowing, which the court used for the same goods once the Xiongnu came under Han superiority.[15] After 51 BC the goods were bestowed and no longer presented, and the chanyu left his son at the Han court as a hostage.[16] The third holds that the Xiongnu raided when they could not obtain grain and cloth by peaceful means. On this view the raids stopped when the Han supplied them through marriage, yearly deliveries and markets.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shiji, juan 110
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Shiji, juan 110; Han Shu, juan 94
  3. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 26, 116–117
  4. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 142
  5. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 302–305
  6. ^ a b c d e Han Shu, juan 94
  7. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 303
  8. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 305–306
  9. ^ a b Jagchid 1989, p. 27
  10. ^ a b Ögel 2015, p. 306
  11. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 27, 41
  12. ^ a b Sinor 1990, p. 124
  13. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 393
  14. ^ Khazanov 1994, p. 224, 254
  15. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 117–118
  16. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 118
  17. ^ Jagchid 1989, p. 24, 40

Sources

Literature

  • Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Büyük Hun İmparatorluğu Tarihi I (2015)
  • Sechin Jagchid; Van Jay Symons, Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall. Nomadic-Chinese Interaction through Two Millennia (1989)
  • Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (1994)

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Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Han–Xiongnu heqin treaties.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/han-xiongnu-heqin-treaties/

Last revised: 8 November 2026