HUNS: The Huns vs Eastern Hu Nomads

 
The 'Donghu' nomads are an interesting group of people and they joined the Hunnic / Jiehu forces sacking northern China in 4th century, similar to the Visigoths in sacking Roman Empire. The word 'dong' means east in Chinese, and this group of people are referred to as proto-Tunguzic. Donghu (or Tung Hu, the Eastern Hu) would be a proto-Tunguz group mentioned in Chinese histories as existing as early as the fourth century B.C. (In the paragraph on the 'Zigzags With Rong & Di' nomads, we have on record the Donghu nomads in 7th century BC.) The ancestors of Xianbei and Wuhuan people were originally located much to the center of Mongolia and northern China. They lived to the east of the Huns.
 
The Huns and the Eastern Hu nomads are not friends. Hunnic king, Modu (often wrongly pronounced as Maodun in Mandarin), first defeated the Eastern Hu nomads and then attacked the Han Dynasty, once encircling the army led by Han's first emperor Liu Pang. In later times, the Eastern Hu nomads and the Qiang nomads had acted as the mercenaries of Han Chinese emperors in fighting the Huns. More history about Donghu would be described at Xianbei & Wuhuan.
 
The Donghu nomads and the Yueh-chih [Yüeh-chih or Yuezhi] people were said to be stronger than the Huns according to Ban Gu. The Huns retreated to the north of the Yellow River and did not return till Qin's General Meng Tian were ordered to be killed by Qin's second emperor. The Huns, weaker than Yuezhi or Donghu, were required to send in their prince to the Yueh-chih (Yuezhi) as hostage. Modu (Modok), who escaped from Yueh-chih (Yuezhi) alive, later in 209 BC (?), killed his father and his elder brother and proclaimed himself 'chanyu', a word meaning the grand expanse of the universe, similar to Chinese 'Tian Zi' [Son of the Heaven]. (The term 'chanyu' was often mis-pronounced and mis-typed as 'shan-yu' wherein 'shan' denotes a Chinese surname usually.) Before the Huns attacked southward and southwestward, they had conquered 5 states to the north, including Hunyu, Qushi (Quyi), Gekun, Xinkuang, and 'Dingling'. Dingling would be part of later Gaoche people. Dingling was said to have dwelled in a place to the north of later Kangju people. With tribes and clans subjugated, Modok boasted of an army of 300,000. When the Donghu nomads accused the first Hunnic Chanyu Modu of patricide, they were driven away by the Huns. Later, Han Emperor Wudi (reign 140-87 BC) later relocated the Donghu nomads to today's Liaoning Province for segregation from the Huns.
 
By the first century AD, two major subdivisions of the Donghu had developed: the Xianbei in the north and the Wuhuan in the south, by names of the two mountains. This also exemplifies the kind of mobility of nomadic peoples across the whole northern plains of Euroasian continent. The early Eastern Xianbei people were composed of three tribes of Yuwen, Duan and Murong as well as closely allied with the Koguryo people in the areas of today's Manchurian-Korean border. An alternative school of thought stated that Xianbei people were comprised of the Chinese coolie who fled from Qin Emperor Shihuangdi's order to build the Great Wall at the northern borders.
 
The nomads somewhat likened their status to each other. While they were pillaging in northern China, they constantly called themselves as well as their nomadic adversaries by the usual Chinese derogatory terminology of "barbarians". They constantly expressed doubts about themselves as well as their competitors becoming an orthodox emperor ruling northern China. While the so-called Tungunzic Donghu nomads might not be of the same family as the Huns, they did show some kind of identification with each other. Hunnic Duke Liu Xuan, in discussions with the emperor Liu Yüan of Hunnic Han (AD 304-329) about attacking the Xianbei nomads on behalf of Chinese emperor, said, "The Xianbei and Wuhuan nomads are in fact of same kind as us, why should we attack them on behalf of the Chinese?"
 
At times of Qin Empire, the Huns were called "Hu", and general Meng Tian is famous for fighting the Huns to the extent that the "Hu nomads dared not to graze their horses southward." In order to distinguish between the Huns from the Hu nomads in northern and northeastern China, Chinese used the words "Donghu" to denote the eastern Hu nomads.

Modu's Hun Empire and Early Han Dynasty NEXT