Fuzhulei came to the throne because the two women of his father’s household each gave way to the other’s son. When Huhanye lay dying, he wished to leave the realm to Qiemoche, the son of the Zhuanqu Yanzhi. She herself argued that the boy was too young. She proposed Diaotaomogao, the eldest son of her sister the Great Yanzhi.[1] Diaotaomogao became chanyu in 31 BC under the style Fuzhulei Ruodi.[1] He ruled ten years. He held to the peace his father had made. He took his father’s widow, Wang Zhaojun, as his wife.[1]

Accession

Huhanye had favoured two daughters of the Huyan King. The Huyan King was the elder brother of the Left Yizhizi King. The elder daughter, the Zhuanqu Yanzhi, was the honoured one. Her sons were Qiemoche and Nangzhiyasi. The younger daughter, the Great Yanzhi, bore four sons: Diaotaomogao, Qiemixu, and two younger than Nangzhiyasi, Xian and Le.[1][2] Huhanye loved Qiemoche. He meant to set him up as chanyu.[1]

Qiemoche’s mother, the Zhuanqu Yanzhi, stopped Huhanye. She said that the realm had been in disorder for more than ten years and hung by a hair. Han help had made it safe again. The people were still weary of fighting. Qiemoche was young, and the people were not yet attached to him. She and the Great Yanzhi were one family and shared their sons, so it would be better to set up Diaotaomogao.[1] The Great Yanzhi refused on behalf of her own son. Qiemoche was young, she said, but the great ministers jointly held the state. To pass over the honoured son for the lesser would bring disorder in later generations.[1] In the end the chanyu followed the Zhuanqu Yanzhi’s plan. He set up Diaotaomogao. He bound him to pass the realm to his younger brother.[1][3] Huhanye had ruled twenty-eight years. The Han Shu dates his death to the second year of Jianshi, 31 BC.[1]

Modern accounts interpret the charge to pass the realm to the younger brother in two ways. Some scholars take it to mean Qiemoche alone, since the exchange between the two consorts turned on him. Others take it to mean all Huhanye’s sons in turn. They point out that they in fact came to the throne one after another in the order of their ages, from Diaotaomogao through Qiemixu and Qiemoche to Nangzhiyasi.[4]

The first appointments

The new chanyu sent a son, the Right Zhiluer King Xixie Tunuhou, to serve at the Han court. He made his brother Qiemixu Left Worthy King, Qiemoche Left Guli King and Nangzhiyasi Right Worthy King.[1][5] The Hou Han Shu says that the Left Worthy King is the chanyu’s designated heir. Qiemixu was the brother who followed him on the throne.[6]

Wang Zhaojun

The emperor Yuan had given Wang Zhaojun to Huhanye in 33 BC. According to the Han Shu, she had borne him one son.[1] The Hou Han Shu says two.[6] After Huhanye’s death, the Han Shu records the next step in one clause: Fuzhulei took her as his wife again. She bore him two daughters. The elder, Yun, became the Xubu Juci. The younger became the Dangyu Juci.[1][7] One modern account calls the marriage a levirate.[8] A commentator takes the Xubu and Dangyu as the clans into which the daughters of the chanyus married.[9]

The Hou Han Shu tells the other side of it. When Huhanye died, the son of his earlier consort took the throne. He wished to marry her. Zhaojun wrote to the Han court asking to go home. The emperor Cheng ordered her to follow the custom of the hu. She became the consort of the new chanyu.[6]

The defector of 28 BC

In the first month of the first year of Hepping, 28 BC, the chanyu sent the Right Gaolin King Yixiemoyan and others to the Han court. They were to present tribute and greet the New Year. When the audience was over, the Han sent an escort with them as far as Puban.[1] Yixiemoyan then offered to go over to the Han. The precedent was to receive such a man. The matter went to the court.[1]

The counsellor Gu Yong and the court gentleman Du Qin advised against it. They said that since the Han began, the Xiongnu had often plagued the frontier. For this reason a reward of gold and rank had been set for those who came over. Now, they said, the chanyu bent his body and called himself a subject. He stood as a northern fence and sent his envoys with no second thought. The Han should therefore treat him differently from before. To take the chanyu’s tribute and pledge and then also receive his runaway subject would be to gain one man and lose the heart of a whole country. The king might even be the new chanyu’s own envoy, sent to feign surrender and read the omens. He might also be a spy set to provoke a quarrel. It would be better not to accept. They should show the Xiongnu a good faith as plain as sun and moon.[1]

The emperor followed their advice. He sent the Leader of Court Gentlemen, Wang Shun, to ask the man what he meant. Yixiemoyan said that he had been ill and had spoken madly. He was sent away. Back in the north he kept his old rank. He was not allowed to meet the Han envoy.[1]

The audience of 25 BC

The next year the chanyu wrote asking to attend at court in the first month of the fourth year of Hepping. He came.[1] The Han added to the usual gifts twenty thousand bolts of brocade and silk and twenty thousand catties of floss. The rest was as at his father’s audience of Jingning, 33 BC.[1]

Death and the brothers

Fuzhulei died in the first year of Hongjia, 20 BC, after ten years on the throne. His younger brother Qiemixu took the throne as the Souxie Ruodi Chanyu.[1] The brothers followed one another. After eight years Qiemixu died. Qiemoche took the throne as the Juya Ruodi Chanyu. After four more years Nangzhiyasi followed as the Wuzhuliu Ruodi Chanyu.[1]

Yun, the daughter Fuzhulei had by Zhaojun, was married to the Right Gudu Marquis Xubu Dang. He stood among the chief ministers. When Wuzhuliu died in AD 13, Xubu Dang passed over the next brother, Yu. He set up Xian, Yun’s uncle. The Han Shu says that Yun had always wanted peace with China. It adds that she was on good terms with Xian.[1]

The style

The Han Shu calls him Diaotaomogao before he took the throne and Fuzhulei Ruodi once he had it.[1] It explains the last word at the accession of the chanyu Huduershi. The Xiongnu say ruodi for the Han epithet xiao. Huhanye had drawn close to the Han and had seen that they gave their emperors the epithet xiao. He admired it, and so all the chanyus took ruodi.[1]

Assessment

The Han Shu tells of no campaign in this reign. What it does record forms one pattern: a succession settled inside the household under Han protection, a Han woman kept at the Xiongnu court by marriage to the new chanyu, and the Han refusal to take advantage of a chanyu’s man.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Han Shu, juan 94
  2. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 182
  3. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 182–183
  4. ^ 内田吟風 1933, p. 105
  5. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 183–184
  6. ^ a b c Hou Han Shu, juan 89
  7. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 184
  8. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 184, 209
  9. ^ Ögel 2015, p. 185

Sources

Literature

  • 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)

Related

What links here2

Institutions and Titles
Women among the Turkic Peoples · Worthy Kings of the Left and Right

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Fuzhulei Chanyu.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/fuzhulei-chanyu/

Last revised: 8 November 2026