‘Chapter 2: The So-Called Two-Hundred Years Interlude’ from the book titled The Huns by Hyun Jin Kim first published in 2016 by Routledge.
The second chapter of THE HUNS by Hyun Jin Kim first published in 2016 by Routledge is arguably the most important chapter of the book. It was widely believed by Hunnic-Turkic scholars that for two hundred years, from 170 to 370, almost nothing was known about the Northern Huns. Hyun Jin Kim refutes this belief. In this chapter, he explains why this claim is wrong and false.
The possible Yenisean-language claim by a few scholars is very problematic and not credible. This should be a topic of another blog in future.
In the previous chapter, we have seen how the once mighty Xiongnu Hun Empire in Inner Asia split into two halves, the Northern Xiongnu and the Southern Xiongnu. We have also observed how the Southern Xiongnu gravitated south to the Ordos region and eventually became the first non-Chinese ‘barbarian’ people to rule northern China. The political strife between various factions of the Southern Xiongu was also discussed and how in the end the whole of northern China was unified by the Tuoba Xianbei. The Northern Xiongnu for their part were driven out of Mongolia by their erstwhile subjects the Xianbei. Some 100,000 Xiongnu households were incorporated into the new Xianbei confederation, which incidentally simply meant the transfer of political authority from one group of elite to another within pretty much the same political community, rather than the extinction of the Xiongnu as a ‘people.’ After all, the Xianbei were a constituent part of the Xiongnu state/proto-state. The Xiongnu, as explained earlier, denoted primarily a political body and its governing elite rather than an ethnic or racial category, although it is clear that the ruling elite of the Xianbei were primarily Mongolic language speakers while the Xiongnu elite seem to have been more akin to Turkic and Yeniseian languages. By the mid second century ad, pockets of Xiongnu elite rule existed in the eastern steppes under Xianbei overlordship and tiny Xiongnu statelets were to be found in the Tarim basin. However, the main bulk of the Northern Xiongnu nation was thought to be ‘lost’ somewhere in the west by many historians.
Between the mid second century ad and the appearance of the Huns in Greco-Roman historical sources in the mid fourth century ad it was often thought that there is a gap of about two-hundred years during which we know next to nothing about the Huns. It was assumed by many that the Chinese had little to say about the Northern Xiongu during this time and it is, therefore, impossible to establish a firm connection between these Xiongnu and the later Huns. Fortunately, more recent research on Chinese sources has allowed us to establish a clearer picture of this ‘two-hundred years’ interlude.’ Were the Northern Xiongnu extinguished as a political entity? Did they simply vanish during these two-hundred years? Were they completely absorbed by other polities like the Xianbei? The answer is none of the above.
The Weilue (= Sanguozhi 30.863–864), a mid third century ad source, which we have already met before, gives us a clear indication that the Xiongnu still existed at the time as a political entity in the Altai region, just west of their original power centre in Mongolia, a hundred years after the mid second century ad which supposedly initiated the two-hundred years’ ‘gap’ in our sources. The Wei Shu (103.2290), the history of the Tuoba Xianbei state of Northern Wei in China, adds that towards the beginning of the fifth century to the northwest of the Rouran (then the ruling power in Mongolia) there were still in the vicinity of the Altai the remaining descendants of the Xiongnu. The Weilue also provides us with a clear sense of the geographical context in which these Xiongnu Huns were situated in the third century ad. The Weilue notes that the Zhetysu region (modern eastern Kazakhstan) directly to the southwest of the Altai (where the Xiongnu were located) was still occupied by the Wusun people, and the area to the west of this area and north of the Kangju people (centred around the city of Tashkent in what is now modern Uzbekistan) was the territory of the Turkic Dingling tribes. The Wusun and the Kangju are said to have neither expanded nor shrunk since Han times.
By the fifth century, however, our Chinese sources indicate that this geographical situation had been radically altered. The Wei Shu (102.2268) indicates that a people called the Yueban Xiongnu were now occupying the territory of the Wusun and further makes the observation that these Yueban were a horde of the Chanyu of the Northern Xiongnu. It tells us that when the Northern Xiongnu were defeated by the Han imperial armies they fled westwards. The weak elements among them were left behind in the area north of the city of Qiuci (now in central Xinjiang). Afterwards, this weak group of Xiongnu is said to have subjected the land of the Wusun to form the new state of Yueban. The stronger group of Xiongnu/Huns are reported to have headed further west. The Wei Shu (102, 9b, 5–6 = Bei Shi 97, 14b, 7–8) shows that the remnants of the defeated Wusun were to be found in the fifth century ad in the Pamirs. Archaeology in addition to the written evidence shows that the main group of Huns/Xiongnu in the Altai region (i.e., the strong Xiongnu as opposed to the weak Xiongnu Yueban) had already started to absorb the Dingling Turkic tribes to their west, an area corresponding to modern northern/northeastern Kazakhstan, and the Irtysh and Middle Ob regions (western Siberia) in the third century ad.[1]
This corresponds exactly with the areas from which the Huns of Europe and the Huns of Central Asia would later start their trek to Europe and Sogdia respectively. The Wei Shu (102.2278–9) confirms that the Central Asian White Huns originated from the Altai region and moved into Central Asia ca. 360 ad,[2] at exactly the same time the European Huns were moving into Europe at the expense of the Alans and later the Goths.
The defeat suffered by the Xiongnu Huns at the hands of the Xianbei under their inspired leader Tian Shi-huai had not finished off the Northern Xiongnu. Far from it, our sources clearly show that the Xiongnu Huns survived in the Altai region and then later expanded into Central Asia. The Wei Shu specifically states that the fifth century rulers of Sogdia, that is the White Huns, were of Xiongnu origin (102.2270). It also calls the country wen-na-sha, pronounced Huna sha in Early Middle Chinese, i.e., king of the Huns.[3]
A fifth century Chinese geographical source called the Shi-san zhou ji by Gan Yin (preserved in the historical source Sung Shu 98), on the basis of information derived in all probability from Sogdian merchants, notes that the Alans of Europe and the Sogdians (whom the Chinese of the Tuoba Wei court recently learned had been conquered by the Xiongnu Huns three generations earlier) were under the control of different rulers. As Pulleyblank points out, the need to clarify this implies the common misapprehension among contemporaries that both peoples were ruled by the same ruler, which is quite understandable when we consider the fact that both peoples had been conquered within the space of some ten years by similar political groups both called Huns.[4] Therefore, the literary evidence now strongly supports the political (maybe even ethnic) identification of the European and Central Asian Huns with the Xiongnu of Mongolia.
However, while the Huns were languishing in relative obscurity in the Altai region, other peoples of Inner Asia were flourishing in the territories that the Huns would later absorb in their trek towards Europe, Persia and India in the fourth century ad. The political and cultural sophistication of these Inner Asian peoples whom the Huns absorbed into their empires further serves to emphasize the complexity and sophistication of the Xiongnu/Hun political model, which facilitated the absorption of such sophisticated political entities. It furthermore contradicts the erroneous picture of a ‘primitive’ Hunnic horde emerging from the ‘backward’ steppes. Inner Asia between the second and fourth centuries ad was far from primitive or backward. In fact, the area was arguably the centre of Eurasian civilizational exchange and trade.
During the second and third centuries ad, Central Asia was dominated by another formidable empire, that of the Kushans whose territory extended from the Tarim basin (to the south of the Altai region where the Xiongnu Huns were situated at this time) to northern India. This formidable empire was founded by the Five Da Yuezhi of Bactria (modern northern Afghanistan), who as we have seen in the previous chapter were originally a steppe people of Tocharian or Iranian extraction driven out of Xinjiang and Gansu by the Xiongnu Empire ca. 162 bc. The Chinese source Han Shu (61 4B) provides us with a brief account of their migration west. After their defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu, the Yuezhi apparently forced their way into the territory of the Sai (Saka)[5] in modern eastern Kazakhstan. The displaced Saka then poured into the Greco-Bactrian kingdom founded by Alexander the Great’s successors (Strabo 11.8.4) in modern Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The Saka were then driven further into Parthia, Sistan (= Sakastan in eastern Iran that is named after them) and even into Pakistan and India by the advancing Yuezhi. The last Yuezhi push against the Saka was the consequence of further Xiongnu Hun activity to the east. The Wusun, as vassals of the Xiongnu, managed to inflict yet another crippling defeat on the Yuezhi and the despondent Yuezhi were forced to move again this time into Bactria at the expense of the Saka.
The Yuezhi, when they settled in Bactria, were at first governed by five rulers. However, among these five ‘Yabghus’[6] (kings) the Lord of the Guishuang/Kushan tribe would eventually emerge as the supreme ruler. Under this Kushan dynasty, the Yuezhi state came to dominate most of southern Central Asia and parts of South Asia. This is not the place to relate the detailed history of the Kushans, but it is necessary to point out here very briefly the similarities between the Kushan and Xiongnu-Hunnic political practices. Many historians have dismissed the possibility of political sophistication of the Huns due to the (erroneous) belief that, even if the Huns were the Xiongnu, the two-hundred years between the mid second century ad and the fourth century ad would somehow have made it difficult for the Huns to replicate former Xiongnu imperial political models.
Such assumptions are odd to begin with, however, and when we observe the political systems of steppe peoples between the second and fourth centuries ad in Central Asia from which the Huns later emerged, those positions become simply untenable. The above-mentioned Kushans possessed political institutions that closely resemble the old Xiongnu and later Hunnic models. Like the Xiongnu, the Yuezhi possessed a political and ceremonial centre even when they were ruled by the five yabghus and not yet united under a single dynasty. We can also see the overlapping of military and civilian administration so typical of the Xiongnu system of government in the Kushan system. Kushan inscriptions show that officials called dandanayaka and mahadandanayaka performed both civil and military functions throughout India.
Even more strikingly we learn that among the Kushans collateral succession to the imperial throne and some form of joint rulership and association of sub-kings in the imperial administration were persistently practised right up to the end of their empire in the third century ad.[7] A very similar system of government is also found among the contemporary Sakas (also from Inner Asia) and the Pahlavas (Indo-Parthians) in India. Among the Saka rulers of Mathura in western India, a senior king was assisted in his duties by a junior king in a highly developed system of joint rule and this is made clear in the concept of dvairajya (double kingship) among them. Thus, as among the Xiongnu and later steppe empires, the Yuezhi/Kushans and even the Saka in India seem to have practised dualism/collective rule and possessed an elaborate hierarchy of sub-kings and officials. Interestingly, the Kushans like the Hephthalite and European Huns and also the Alans practised the widespread western steppe custom of artificial cranial deformation which would later be introduced into Europe by the Huns and Alans.[8]
The great Kushans were later defeated by the Sassanian Persians in the mid third century ad and Shapur I of Persia (r. 240–70 ad) turned the Kushan territories into a subsidiary of the wider Persian Empire. The Kushan remnants would survive as the so-called Kushanshahs under Sassanian overlordship until the Hunnic conquest in the fourth century ad. The Yuezhi Kushans, whom the White Huns under the Kidarite dynasty later absorbed (more on this later), were, however, far from unique. Other steppe polities situated even closer to the Xiongnu Hun power centre in the Altai also possessed matching political sophistication in those ‘two-hundred years.’
The Kangju state of northern Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan was an equally well-organised state entity that became a power to be reckoned with in the first century ad. Their power was such that they managed to subjugate the warlike Yancai (later the Alans) in western Kazakhstan and keep them in that state of subservience until at least the second century ad.[9] These Kangju were ruled by a yabgu like the Yuezhi Kushans with whom they were dynastically linked by marriage. They also possessed a system of five ‘lesser kings,’ indicating that they too had very similar political institutions to their southern and eastern neighbours. Just like the Xiongnu/Huns to the east, the Kangju would impose their own ruling elite upon the conquered Alans. Signs of Kangju-Xiongnu contacts can also be seen archaeologically in the discovery of a Xiongnu (Hunnic) style silver belt plaque at Kultobe in Kazakhstan, a site identified as belonging to the Kangju.[10] Many of the sophisticated inhabitants of the Kangju were also actually urban dwellers and only partially pastoralist.
The Wusun, the direct neighbours of the Huns to the southwest in the Ili basin, whose territory the Xiongnu/Huns would later absorb in their expansion west and south in the fourth century ad, also show signs of highly developed political institutions that are reminiscent of the Xiongnu Hun models. Among the Wusun, there was a hereditary monarch who was assisted in his duties by a council of elders, a body of aristocrats that could function as a restraint on the powers of the sovereign. There was likewise a fairly complex administrative apparatus consisting of 16 graded officials, who were recruited from the ruling nobility. The officials and nobles of the realm collected taxes/tribute from subordinate tribes and supplemented their income via war booty and profits from trading activities (much the same as the Hunnic elite later in Europe). The Kunmo, the Wusun Great king and his two sons, the rulers of the left and right do-mains (in exactly the same way as the Xiongnu), with each wing-ruler commanding a personal force of 10,000 horsemen, ruled over a sophisticated political entity. Both the Kangju and the Wusun were absorbed by the Huns before the Huns advanced on the Alans and Goths in Europe and the Persians and Kushanshahs in eastern Iran and Afghanistan.
It is, therefore, no longer possible to argue that during the ‘two-hundred years interlude’ the Huns lacked political organization, since they were stuck in a politically ‘backward’ region. The observation of the political organization of surrounding peoples who were later conquered by the Huns before their entry into Europe reveals that political organization on a par with the earlier described Xiongnu model in Mongolia and Turkestan existed all throughout the two-hundred years in Inner Asia. These states of Inner Asia did not lack political organization and neither did the Huns who emerged from this region.
In the first and second centuries ad, the Xiongnu Huns were in desperate straits. They were for all intents and purposes surrounded by hostile powers around their core base in the Altai region. To the west and south, the Dingling, Kangju and Wusun exerted pressure. To the east, the powerful Xianbei and the Han Empire were driving them out completely from their eastern territories. However, respite came to them after the third century ad when each of these menaces disappeared in quick succession. To the east, the Han Empire descended into civil war, split into three kingdoms and could no longer exert any influence west. The Xianbei who had earlier inflicted monumental defeats on the Huns during the second century ad were fragmented into feuding tribes. To the west and southwest, the Kangju and Kushan Empires were slowly dissolving. It is this favourable geopolitical situation that allowed the Xiongnu to expand into Central Asia and Europe. Archaeological evidence from the Ural region seems to point to the expansion of the Huns into that area by the early fourth century ad at the latest.[11] This suggests that all the states and tribes between the Altai and the Urals had succumbed to Hunnic conquest by the early fourth century. In the next chapter, we will discuss the conquest of Central Asia, Persia and India by the Huns.
NOTES:
[1] Erdy (1995), 45.
[2] La Vaissière (2005), 21.
[3] See Pulleyblank (2000b), 91–2.
[4] Pulleyblank (2000b), 94.
[5] For discussion on this identification, see Benjamin (2007), 97–100, and Hill (2009), 537.
[6] On the five Yabghus, see Grenet (2006).
[7] Narain (1990), 167.
[8] Czegledy (1983), 91; Sinor (1990a), 202–3; Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 210–12; Narain (1990), 172–3.
[9] Zadneprovskiy (1994), 463, 466–7; Alemany (2000), 398; Kyzlasov (1996), 316.
[10] See Grenet et al. (2007), 1019.
[11] Erdy (1995), 22.
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