Xunyu
The Xunyu (; Old Chinese: (ZS) *"qʰun-lug", (Schuessler): *"hun-juk") is the name of an ancient nomadic tribe which invaded China during legendary times. They are traditionally identified with the Guifang, the Xianyun and the Xiongnu. Identification. Chinese annals contain a number of references to the "Xunyu". The earliest authors were Sima Qian (c. 145 or 135 BC – 86 BC), Ying Shao (AD 140-206), Wei Zhao (204-273), and Jin Zhuo (c. late 3rd or 4th century).They claimed that "Xunyu" or "Xianyun" were names that designated nomadic people who during the Han dynasty were called "Xiongnu" (匈奴). That  view was also held by the Tang dynasty commentator Sima Zhen (c. 8th century): Sima Zhen quoted Zhang Yan (張晏) as saying that “Chunwei, during the Yin era, fled to the northern borders.”; immediately after, Sima Zhen stated that Yue Chan (樂產) wrote in the now-lost Guadipu (括地譜) "Register of the Encompassing Lands" that: “Jie, (ruler of) the House of Xia lived an immoral life. Tang exiled him to Mingtiao, he died there three years later. His son Xunyu 獯粥 married his concubines and they wandered far away to the northern wilderness in search of pasture lands, and then  in the Middle Kingdom they were mentioned as Xiongnu 匈奴.”; Based on phonetical studies and comparisons of inscriptions on bronze and the structure of the characters, Wang Guowei (1877–1927) came to the conclusion that the tribal names Guifang (鬼方), Xunyu, Xianyu (鮮虞), Xianyun (獫狁), Rong, Di, and Hu in the old annals designated one and the same people, who later entered Chinese history under the name Xiongnu, The exact time period when the nomads' ethnonym had the Old Chinese phonetizations ancestral to standard Chinese "Xunyu" remains determined only vaguely. They were mentioned in legends involving legendary Zhou ruler Old Duke  Father Dan (): in the book Mencius (published c. 300 BCE) as 獯鬻 "Xunyu", and in Records of the Grand Historian (published c. 91 BC) as "Hunyu" 葷粥 or "Xunyu" 薰育. Using Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian and other sources, Vsevolod Taskin proposes that in the earlier pre-historic period (i.e. the time of the legendary Yellow Emperor) the Xiongnu were called "Hunyu"; and in the late pre-historic period (i.e. the time of the legendary Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun) they were called "Rong"; in the literate period starting with the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) they were  called "Guifang", in the Zhou period (1045–256 BC) they were called "Xianyun", and starting from the Qin period (221–206 BC) the Chinese annalists called them "Xiongnu". Even so, Paul R. Goldin (2011) reconstructs the Old Chinese pronunciations of 葷粥 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 薰育 as *"xur-luk", 獫狁 as "hram′-lun′", and 匈奴 as *"xoŋ-NA"; and comments all three names are "manifestly unrelated". He further states that sound changes made the names more superficially similar than they really had been, and prompted later commentators to conclude that those names must have referred to one same people in different epochs , even though people during the Warring States period would never have been thus misled.