The Orkhon Valley lies either side of the Orkhon River, in north-central Mongolia. Between about 200 BCE and 100 CE, it was under the control of the Xiongnu Imperial Confederation.
This polity comprised several nomadic peoples from the Mongolian Steppe. By the 4th century BCE, the Xiongnu began raiding northern China,
[1]
where their mounted archery overwhelmed the heavily armed but relatively immobile Chinese infantry.
[2]
The nomads were held at bay by a combination of tribute in the form of metals, finished products, and agricultural products, and China’s numerical superiority.
[3]
[4]
[5]
Several Chinese victories against the Xiongnu in the 1st century BCE and factional conflict within the confederacy led to the confederacy’s breakup, and a new group of semi-nomadic peoples from the Northeast, the Xianbei, took control of the region.
[1]
At their height, the Xiongnu ruled over an area that included all of Mongolia, extending to the Ordos region in the south, and the boreal forests of Siberia in the north, for a total of about 4,000,000 squared kilometres.
[6]
Precise estimates could not be found for the empire’s population, but estimates suggest that nomads living to the north of China did not number more than 1,500,000,
[7]
and the best studied (but not the largest) settlement, Ivolga, likely had a population of between 2,500 and 3,000.
[8]
The empire was divided into three kingships: a central one, directly ruled by the paramount leader, and a "left" one and a "right" one, to the east and west, respectively, distributed among twenty-four regional leaders known as the "ten thousand horsemen".
[9]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 222)
[2]: (Marsh 2012, 500-501) Kevin Marsh. Xiongnu. Xiaobing Li ed. 2012. China at War: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara.
[3]: (Barfield 1993, 157)
[4]: (Ying-Shih 1986)
[5]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007, 133)
[6]: (Rogers 2012, 220-221)
[7]: (Kradin 2011, 77)
[8]: (Kradin 2011, 85)
[9]: (Rogers 2012, 220)
cn_eastern_han_dyn alliance with mn_hunnu_late | |
cn_western_han_dyn alliance with mn_hunnu_late |
Xianbei Confederation |
continuity |
Preceding: Xiongnu Imperial Confederation (mn_hunnu_emp) [continuity] |
confederated state |