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Updated: June 14, 2025
The small states in Turkestan, however, regarded the overlordship of the distant China as preferable to that of Yarkand or the Hsiung-nu both of whom, being nearer, were able to bring their power more effectively into play. Accordingly many of the small states appealed for Chinese aid.
This they accomplished by basing the new script upon Mongol, which had been invented in 1269, by Baschpa, or 'Phagspa, a Tibetan lama, acting under the direction of Kublai Khan. Baschpa had based his script upon the written language of the Ouigours, who were descendants of the Hsiung-nu, or Huns.
The first active step taken was to try, in 133 B.C., to capture the head of the Hsiung-nu state, who was called a shan-yü but the shan-yü saw through the plan and escaped. There followed a period of continuous fighting until 119 B.C. The Chinese made countless attacks, without lasting success.
It was also of importance to break the power of the Hsiung-nu in the province of Kansu, and to separate them as far as possible from the Tibetans living in that region, to prevent any union between those two dangerous adversaries. A third point of importance was the safeguarding of caravan routes. The state, and especially the capital, had grown rich through Wen Ti's policy.
In the time of Wen Ti's successor a number of feudal kings formed an alliance against the emperor, and even invited the Hsiung-nu to join them. The Hsiung-nu did not do so, because they saw that the rising had no prospect of success, and it was quelled. After that the feudal princes were steadily deprived of rights.
The Mu-jung were driven to this step mainly because they had been continually attacked from southern Manchuria by another Hsien-pi tribe, the Yü-wen, the tribe most closely related to them. The Mu-jung made use of the period of their so-called subjection to organize their community in North China. South of the Toba were the nineteen tribes of the Hsiung-nu or Huns, as we are now calling them.
There were a number of shan-yü ruling contemporaneously as rivals, and one of them had to yield to the Chinese in 58 B.C.; in 51 he came as a vassal to the Chinese court. The collapse of the Hsiung-nu empire was complete. After 58 B.C. the Chinese were freed from all danger from that quarter and were able, for a time, to impose their authority in Central Asia. 5 Impoverishment. Cliques.
The national line of policy of the Hsiung-nu did not at all mean an end of hostilities and raids on Chinese territory, so that Kao Tsu declared himself ready to give the Hsiung-nu the foodstuffs and clothing materials they needed if they would make an end of their raids. A treaty to this effect was concluded, and sealed by the marriage of a Chinese princess with Mao Tun.
The hot climate, however, to which the Chinese soldiers were unused, was hard for them to endure. The Hsiung-nu, in spite of internal difficulties, had regained considerable influence in Turkestan during the reign of Wang Mang.
The only important element of trouble seems to have been furnished by the Hsien-pi tribes, who had joined with Wu-huan tribes and apparently also with vestiges of the Hsiung-nu in eastern Mongolia, and who made numerous raids over the frontier into the Wei empire. The state of Yen, in southern Manchuria, had already been destroyed by Wei in 238 thanks to Wei's good relations with Japan.
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