The Great Wall of China originated as a series of mostly symbolic defenses against aggressive coalitions of Central and Inner Asian tribes, which became known to the Chinese as Xiongnu. Like the ancient Greek collective name Scythia, the Chinese name Xiongnu implied a single ethnic group, yet both blanket terms embraced many ethnic identities with similar migratory horse-archer lifestyles, including Saka-Scythian-Sarmatian, Mongolian, Turkic, Altaian, Tocharian, Uralic, and Iranian peoples in what is now Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Altai/southern Siberia, Xinjiang, and Mongolia. The Xiongnu fought wars against the other nomadic tribes between the Tien Shan and Altai mountains, the region described in epic poems by the early Greek traveler Aristeas in the seventh century BC. The Chinese referred to some of these peoples as the Wu Sun (“Grandchildren of the Raven,” thought to be the Issedo-nians); the Sai (Saka); the Dingling (described as “red-haired, blue-eyed giants,” perhaps related to the Altai, Tuva, Pazyryk, Kyrgyz cultures); and the Yuezhi (described as fair and speaking an Indo-European tongue; perhaps related to the Tocharians driven west by the Xiongnu).18
From the fourth to the first century BC, a powerful confederation of nomadic tribes united as the Xiongnu Empire, which stretched from Kazakhstan and Kyrgysztan to Xinjiang and Manchuria. The Xiongnu, with their immense cavalries of as many as 300,000 mounted archers, held the advantage in this period and exerted relentless pressure on
China’s western and northern frontiers. The long wars between the Xiongnu Empire and the Han Dynasty (133 BC to AD 89) entailed ferocious battles, delicate negotiations, intrigues, and ephemeral alliances. To mollify the Xiongnu, Chinese rulers sent lavish gifts as tribute, and nubile women were exchanged in “marriage treaties.”19
After a time, the Chinese began to imitate the nomads they battled (and married), assimilating the successful triad of archery, horses, and trousers. As early as the fourth century BC, the military advantage of trousers was recognized by the Chinese king Wuling of the Zhao State (while the Greeks remained hostile to barbarian trousers; see chapter 12). The nomads’ tattooing practices leaked into borderlands of western China (chapter 6), and even personal names in China were dramatically influenced by steppe culture.
The Chinese were eager to obtain warhorses to compete with the mounted nomads. In 138 BC, the Han emperor Wu’s army was struggling to repel hordes of nomad archers on hardy Mongolian ponies. In 130 BC, Wu sent his agent Zhang Qian on a mission to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi in the Great Wilderness of the west. Zhang Qian traveled more than two thousand miles over deserts and mountains. On the way, he was held captive by the Xiongnu for ten years. During this time he married a Xiongnu woman and they had a son (recalling the earlier captivity of Cai Yan, above). Zhang Qian and his family managed to escape and at last reached the Ferghana Valley (Da-yuan). There Zhang Qian marveled at the golden Turkoman (Akhal Teke) horses, the tall, powerful desert steeds ridden by the Scythians and Amazons who traded with the Ferghana tribes (chapter 11).
Thirteen years later Zhang Qian returned to China with his Xiongnu wife and son and related information about Anxi (Persia/Parthia), Tiaozhi (Arabia), Tianzhu (India), and Da Qin (Roman Syria). He also gave thrilling descriptions of the “Celestial horses” that could save Wu’s army. In 115 BC, in the vain hope of gaining some of those sublime steeds, the emperor sent Zhang Qian to another tribe in Issedonia, to deliver a royal Chinese bride to the elderly Wu Sun chieftain. (It was she who wrote the homesick poem quoted above.) Had his journey taken place five hundred years earlier, Zhang Qian might have crossed paths with the Greek adventurer Aristeas, who journeyed a comparable distance to the same general region. Wu also dispatched envoys to Ferghana with carts of gold and silk to buy Akhal Teke horses, but hostile tribes killed the envoys and kept the gold. After two long wars against the Ferghana tribes, finally in 102 BC the nomads agreed to exchange their horses for Chinese silk and other luxuries. The heavenly horses were celebrated in ceramic figures and paintings of the Han and Tang dynasties, and in poetry: “The Ferghana horse. . . among nomad breeds / lean like the point of a lance, hooves born of the wind / Heading away across the endless spaces / Truly you may entrust him with your life.”20
The grave goods of the Hunno-Sarmatian-Saka-Scythian men and women that the Chinese called Xiongnu include clothing of leather, wool, furs, and silk, caps with earflaps, horse gear, and a wealth of weapons—spears, arrows, quivers, and miniature replicas of bows. Beautiful belt plaques and buckles of gold, bronze, and iron decorated with dragons, tigers, deer, and other designs accompanied the Xiongnu horsewomen. The women’s skeletons evidenced harsh lives and riding injuries, and some women’s bones showed battle wounds similar to those of the males. To take just one example, in one Xiongnu cemetery two of the twelve skeletons with slashing sword cuts on the upper torso were
FiG. 25.2. Woman warrior’s skull with sword slash, Xiongnu skeleton XXXI, 115, Han Period, Altai Region, Tuva. Photo courtesy of Eileen Murphy, from Murphy 2003, pl. 46.
Female. The wounds were inflicted during “free-moving” face-to-face combat, probably on horseback.21
According to ancient Chinese sources, the Xiongnu were known for their highly maneuverable light cavalry armed with long composite bows. The women, noted the Chinese writers, were expert riders and archers just like the men, and the women taught the boys and girls how to ride and handle bows and arrows. The women also rode beside their men into battle and valiantly defended against attacks. For example, in 36 BC the Chinese army attacked the Xiongnu forces led by the powerful chieftain Zhizhi at his citadel on the Talas River. This is Taraz, southern Kazakhstan; the battle here marked the westernmost reach of Chinese power. Before their defeat, the Xiongnu queen and many other female archers on the fort’s walls shot arrows at the Chinese invaders. The queen’s name is unknown, but she was a Sogdian princess. The Xiongnu women, remarked the Chinese, remained at their posts longer than the men.22
World History
