For more than two centuries, from 133 BC to 89 AD, the farming empire of the Han dynasty fought the horse-riding nomads of the Xiongnu confederacy for control of China's northern frontier and the routes into Central Asia. Clashes began earlier and lingered later, but the main wars opened under Emperor Wu and ended with the breaking of the northern Xiongnu. The struggle drove Han power deep into the Tarim Basin and left the Xiongnu divided and dispersed.
An uneasy peace
Chinese states had long built walls against northern raiders, and in 215 BC the Qin dynasty general Meng Tian drove the Xiongnu out of the Ordos region on the northern frontier. When Qin collapsed, the Xiongnu, now united under Modu Chanyu, moved back. The first Han emperor, Gaozu, marched against them in 200 BC but was surrounded near Pingcheng and escaped only after seven days. In 198 BC the Han began a policy of marriage alliances, yet raids on the border continued for decades.
Emperor Wu goes on the offensive
Emperor Wu, with a full treasury and a court increasingly in favour of war, abandoned appeasement. In 133 BC a huge Han army tried to ambush the chanyu near Mayi; he sensed the trap and escaped, and open war followed. Between 127 and 119 BC the generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing led a series of great cavalry expeditions. Wei Qing retook the Ordos in 127 BC, and the Han resettled about 100,000 people there. In 121 BC Huo Qubing swept through the Hexi Corridor, and the Hunye King surrendered with tens of thousands of followers, giving the Han a corridor west towards Dunhuang, guarded by an extended line of walls.
In 119 BC the two generals led perhaps 100,000 cavalry, backed by large numbers of infantry, across the Gobi Desert in the campaign known as the battle of Mobei. The chanyu was driven to flight northwards, and Huo Qubing pursued the enemy as far as Lake Baikal. The victory was costly: Han losses were put at 20,000 to 30,000 men and around 100,000 horses, against 80,000 to 90,000 Xiongnu.
Struggle for the Western Regions
The rivals then competed for the oasis city-states of the Tarim Basin, which the Xiongnu relied on for revenue. The envoy Zhang Qian travelled west seeking allies, and Han armies forced several states, including Dayuan in Ferghana, into submission between 108 and 101 BC. In 60 BC the Han set up a protectorate in the region.
Division of the Xiongnu
Defeats, raids by neighbouring peoples and disputes over the succession broke Xiongnu unity. After civil war began in 57 BC, the rival chanyu Huhanye submitted to the Han in 53 BC, and in 36 BC Han officers, acting on a forged decree, killed his rival Zhizhi at his capital near present-day Taraz in Kazakhstan. Relations worsened again under the usurper Wang Mang in the early first century AD, and the Xiongnu regained ground in the west. In 48 AD the confederacy split for good into a Southern Xiongnu, which became a Han vassal, and a hostile Northern Xiongnu.
The final campaigns
Under the Eastern Han, generals such as Dou Gu and Ban Chao restored Chinese control over the Tarim Basin from the 70s AD. In 89 AD Dou Xian led an expedition that routed the Northern Xiongnu and received the surrender of a great many of their tribes; he recorded the victory in an inscription on Mount Yanran, rediscovered in central Mongolia in 2017. Further defeats in 90 and 91 AD, including a battle in the Altai Mountains, drove the remaining Northern Xiongnu west. The Southern Xiongnu stayed inside the empire as semi-independent tributaries.
On our maps
Our 200 and 100 BCE maps show the Han and the Xiongnu side by side, and the 100 map shows the Han after the northern confederacy's collapse.
From the atlas
Han–Xiongnu wars in time and on the map
Han–Xiongnu wars lasted from 139 BCE to 89 CE. Borders of Time has 2 world maps from those years: 100 BCE and 1 BCE. The nearest maps from before and after are 200 BCE and 100 CE; compare them side by side.
Living through it, among others on this site: Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), Mithridates VI (134–63 BCE), Herod the Great (74–4 BCE), Vespasian (9–79 CE), Seneca the Younger (4 BCE–65 CE), Cicero (106–43 BCE), Paul the Apostle (5–66 CE), Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), Sulla (138–78 BCE) and Pompey (106–48 BCE).
Other events of the same years: Third Servile War (73–71 BCE), Gallic Wars (58–51 BCE), Battle of Carrhae (53 BCE), Battle of Alesia (52 BCE), Battle of Pharsalus (48 BCE), Assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BCE), Battle of Philippi (42 BCE), Battle of Actium (31 BCE), Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE) and Roman conquest of Britain (43–84 CE).
Next to it in time on this site: before, Battle of Pydna (168 BCE) and Siege of Carthage (149–146 BCE) (149–146 BCE); after, Boudican revolt (60–61 CE) and Great Fire of Rome (64 CE).
Quick answers
- When did the Han–Xiongnu wars happen?
- It began in 139 BCE and ended in 89 CE, lasting about 230 years.
- Where did the Han–Xiongnu wars take place?
- Mainland China, Mongolia, Siberia and Central Asia.
- How did the map change?
- Compare the atlas’s maps of 200 BCE and 100 CE side by side.