page_title: History of the Han dynasty
section_title: Xiongnu and Heqin
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Han dynasty / Reign of Gaozu / Xiongnu and Heqin
caption_attribution_description: English: An iron ji and iron knife from the Chinese Han Dynasty
context_page_description: The Han dynasty, founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, was the second imperial dynasty of China. It followed the Qin dynasty, which had unified the Warring States of China by conquest. Interrupted briefly by the Xin dynasty of Wang Mang, the Han dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han and the Eastern Han. These appellations are derived from the locations of the capital cities Chang'an and Luoyang, respectively. The third and final capital of the dynasty was Xuchang, where the court moved in 196 CE during a period of political turmoil and civil war.
  The Han dynasty ruled in an era of Chinese cultural consolidation, political experimentation, relative economic prosperity and maturity, and great technological advances. There was unprecedented territorial expansion and exploration initiated by struggles with non-Chinese peoples, especially the nomadic Xiongnu of the Eurasian Steppe. The Han emperors were initially forced to acknowledge the rival Xiongnu Chanyus as their equals, yet in reality the Han was an inferior partner in a tributary and royal marriage alliance known as heqin.
context_section_description: The Qin general Meng Tian had forced Toumen, the Chanyu of the Xiongnu, out of the Ordos Desert in 215 BCE, but Toumen's son and successor Modu Chanyu built the Xiongnu into a powerful empire by subjugating many other tribes. By the time of Modu's death in 174 BCE, the Xiongnu domains stretched from what is now northeast China and Mongolia to the Altai and Tian Shan mountain ranges in Central Asia. The Chinese feared incursions by the Xiongnu under the guise of trade and were concerned that Han-manufactured iron weapons would fall into Xiongnu hands. Gaozu thus enacted a trade embargo against the Xiongnu. To compensate the Chinese border merchants of the northern kingdoms of Dai and Yan for lost trade, he made them government officials with handsome salaries. Outraged by this embargo, Modu Chanyu planned to attack Han. When the Xiongnu invaded Taiyuan in 200 BCE and were aided by the defector King Xin of Hán (韓/韩, not to be confused with the ruling Hàn 漢 dynasty, or the general Han Xin), Gaozu personally led his forces through the snow to Pingcheng (near modern Datong, Shanxi). In the ensuing Battle of Baideng, Gaozu's forces were heavily surrounded for seven days; running short of supplies, he was forced to flee.
  After this defeat, the court adviser Liu Jing (劉敬, originally named Lou Jing [婁敬]) convinced the emperor to create a peace treaty and marriage alliance with the Xiongnu Chanyu called the heqin agreement. By this arrangement established in 198 BCE, the Han hoped to modify the Xiongnu's nomadic values with Han luxury goods given as tribute (silks, wine, foodstuffs, etc.) and to make Modu's half-Chinese successor a subordinate to grandfather Gaozu. The exact amounts of annual tribute as promised by Emperor Gaozu given to the Xiongnu in the 2nd century BCE shortly after the defeat are unknown. In 89 BCE, however, Hulugu Chanyu (狐鹿姑) (r. 95–85 BCE) requested a renewal of the heqin agreement with the increased amount of annual tribute at 400,000 L (11,350 U.S. bu) of wine, 100,000 L (2,840 U.S. bu) of grain, and 10,000 bales of silk; thus previous amounts would have been less than these figures.
  Although the treaty acknowledged both huangdi and chanyu as equals, Han was in fact the inferior partner since it was forced to pay tribute to appease the militarily powerful Xiongnu. Emperor Gaozu was initially set to give his only daughter to Modu, but under the opposition of Empress Lü, Emperor Gaozu made a female relative princess and married her to Modu. Until the 130s BCE, the offering of princess brides and tributary items scarcely satisfied the Xiongnu, who often raided Han's northern frontiers and violated the 162 BCE treaty that established the Great Wall as the border between Han and Xiongnu.
caption: An iron chicken sickle and an iron dagger from the Han dynasty
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