The Rise of the Xiongnu: How a Father’s Betrayal Forged an Empire

The story of Modu Chanyu and the ancient world's largest empire

The prince mounted his horse and rode out on his hunt across the expansive Steppes. The king, his father, had joined him. A band of devoted followers trailed the prince as he found a stag.

As customary, he let his father do the honors and pursue the beast. The unsuspecting monarch chased the deer, isolating himself from the rest of the hunting party.

The prince took an arrow from his quiver. He pulled his bow and focused on his target. The arrow wasn't your normal arrow.

A special whistling arrow instructed his soldiers to fire in the same direction. If they didn’t, the penalty was death. Just as the king was about to shoot the deer, he heard an arrow whistling. Before he knew what was going on, the sky darkened with arrows.

The king was dead.

The prince established the largest empire in ancient history, surpassing the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Alexander's Macedonian Empire, and the Han Chinese Empire. His administration was a template for subsequent generations of powerful rulers, including Chinggis Khan and Atilla.

But history has forgotten him.

We know him as Modu Chanyu or Modun.

He built the formidable Xiongnu Empire, which laid the framework for future Steppe Empires.

Last month, we discussed the White Huns and their meteoric rise. In this newsletter, we are tracing the origins of their ancestors, the Xiongnu, the first great superpower to emerge from the Eurasian Steppes.

Let’s dive in and discuss their origins.

Origins of the Xiongnu

The political situation in China and its northern borders before the rise of the Xiongnu, during Qin era. Source: Wikimedia

The Xiongnu left no written records about their rule. Our knowledge of them comes from the writings of ancient China’s grand historian, Sima Qian.

In his monumental work, Shiji, the scholar says before the third century BC, the Xiongnu were known by names such as Chunwei, Xunyu, Shanrong, and Xianyun. These adversaries of China were dubbed the Rongdi, which translates to “western and northern ‘barbarians.” Sima Qian mentions a group called Quanrong, who captured the Western Zhou dynasty around 770 BC, forcing the Chinese to flee east.

The Quanrong could have been the ancestors of the Xiongnu.

Sima Qian’s account is the only source of the Xiongnu, but we must treat specific details cautiously. Modern scholars have doubted Sima Qian’s claims of the Xiongnu’s origins because he unlikely knew about events centuries ago.

Yet, it's not unimaginable that the “barbarian” tribes, who played an essential role in ancient China before the rise of the Xiongnu, may have had a strong connection with them.

In 221 BC, the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, fought and banished these tribes from their homeland in the Ordos region of modern-day Mongolia and Northern China. Huangdi is famous for commissioning the Great Wall of China (though what you see today dates from the 14th-century Ming dynasty era) to keep out these warlike tribes.

Countless Chinese citizens died during the wall’s construction. Qin general Meng Tian was in charge of defending the Qin borders from the barbarians collectively called “Hu.”

Meng Tian’s formidable army kept the northern invaders at bay. After the death of Qin Shi Huangdi, the Qin state fell quickly because of a rebellion, and China slid into anarchy. This provided breathing space for the tribes.

Sima Qian then mentions Touman, the first known Xiongnu Chanyu, who reclaims their homeland in the Ordos region of present-day Mongolia.

The Chanyu (spelled Shanyu) was the Xiongnu’s equivalent of an emperor. Before Touman, the Xiongnu were not a significant force in the steppes. Competing ethnic groups hemmed them on both sides: the proto-Mongol Donghu to the east and the Indo-European Yuezhi to the west. Contrary to popular belief, the chief rivals of steppe confederacies like the Xiongnu were not the Chinese but other steppe tribes.

From underdogs fighting for survival, the Xiongnu became the largest empire in the ancient world in three decades. The architect of this success was Modu, Touman’s successor and the most well-known Xiongnu ruler. He was the first great Steppe conqueror and inspired mighty empires such as the Huns, Göktürks, and Mongols.

Modu was born into a turbulent world of near-constant conflict. Based on how it was written in early Chinese, his name may have been something other than Modu.

Baghatur, meaning “hero” in Mongolian, was likely his real name. Baghatur was later used as an honorific meaning brave, and variants of it can be found in many languages, including Bátor (Hungarian), Bahadur (Hindi), Bahador (Persian), Bahadır (Turkish), and Bogatyr (Russian).

How did Modu’s name become synonymous with bravery?