imagine showing up to your ex bestie's (who you were a little in love with who also cucked you's) wedding with a fucking egg and saying it's the 12/10 hot bride's and she just looks at it with a customer service smile and the groom had no idea she fucking laid that egg and she says it's hers and everyone who doesn't know whom cheated on whom first thinks the new heavenly empress couldn't help but fuck the egg man and cheat on her husband but then actually it's not even her fucking egg she just lied because she didn't want to embarrass her ex who she cheated on for 60,000 years and even her husband didn't know. also egg man was so traumatized from how hot she was he just gave up dating

Themes: Wuhuan; Army

Overview:

           De Crespigny begins this chapter by introducing the Wuhuan, describing them as having a “comparatively unimpressive history” compared to the other Northern tribes. The sources mainly describe them based upon their impact between the Han Dynasty and other tribes. He then describes the primary sources available, their overlap and content.

           Next, he turns to what the sources say about their culture. He notes that they were a splinter of the Donghu tribe who were defeated by the Xiongnu. He also challenges the assertion that they got the name Wuhuan from the mountains at which they gathered, instead suggesting the mountains were named after the tribe. The word Wuhuan seems to mean wise and he suspects that the name came from a prince’s title.

           De Crespigny says the sources describe them as nomads and gives details about how they lived, what they wore and their knowledge of iron. Next, he talks about agriculture and what they ate and drank. He also describes their religion and funeral practises; however, he questions the Chinese statement that they believed the most honourable way to die was in battle. De Crespigny points out this was also said about the Qiang and argues this could just be Chinese ignorance.

           Much of this was understandable to the Chinese, De Crespigny says. However, their marriage and family customs not so. In particular he describes the priority given to the young and how generations and sexes happily mixed. The last area he considers in their social history before moving to their interactions with the Han dynasty is their political structure.

           At the beginning of the Former Han, the Wuhuan paid tribute to the Xiongnu. However, Huo Quobing on an expedition against their overlords formed an alliance with the Wuhuan and encouraged them to return to China with him to serve as a buffer. This worked well for many years other than an occasional raid, until the Wuhuan grew complacent attacked the Xiongnu burial grounds. The Chinese went to help but seeing the Xiongnu had already retreated attacked the Wuhuan themselves. Sufficiently weakened the Wuhuan no longer attempted to raid China and were submissive to the central government.

           The continued until the reign of Wang Mang. At this point the Wuhuan broke off the informal alliance with the Central court and instead realigned themselves with the Xiongnu. De Crespigny considers in depth the account in the Chinese sources and Bielenstein’s argument that the sources at this point need to be treated carefully as they contain anti-Wang Ming biases. This remained the state of affairs for most of Emperor Guangwu’s rule. De Crespigny considers Ma Yuan’s expeditions against the Wuhuan before explaining how the Xiongnu civil war bought the Wuhuan back under the sway of the Imperial court of the Later Han.

           This became the settled state for many years. De Crespigny describes the office of Colonel Protector of the Wuhuan and the state of the relationship between the Later Han Dynasty and the Wuhuan. He says the existence of the Chang River regiment of the Northern Army was proof of a strong relationship between court and tribesman. This began to change when the Xianbi rebelled against the Han in 109 AD. Some Wuhuan joined with the rebels and although they were defeated the Xianbi continued to cause problems, giving disgruntled Wuhuan an outlet to join.

           The chapter then moves into the fall of the Later Han. Looking at the Wuhuan uprising under Zhang Chun before examining Gongsun Zan, Liu Yu and Yuan Shao. De Crespigny briefly describes the Wuhuan hopes of becoming a powerful force under Tadun before ending with Cao Cao’s campaign at White Wolf Mountain. This led to the end of the Wuhuan as a distinct people. Many settling into China as part of Cao Cao’s army, whilst others were absorbed into the Xianbei.

Analysis:

           This chapter doesn’t cover as much about the cultural history of the Wuhuan as Duthie’s essay does. However, De Crespigny does engage with secondary sources and makes some interesting observations as a result, that Duthie misses out on. If you are interested in the cultural history, I would recommend reading both, while lots of information will be repeated both provide unique nuggets.

Themes: Wuhuan

Overview:

           Introducing her article, Duthie explains that the relationship between the central state and the Xiongnu has been explored frequently, but the same is not true of the Wuhuan and Xianbei. Therefore, she is going to see how they are presented in the earliest available sources, the Sanguozhi and the Houhanshu. She notes that there are similarities with the Xiongnu, but also clear differences and the primary Chinese sources aren’t as hostile to these two groups.

           Next Duthie introduces her two primary sources. Each has a chapter on the two tribes, covering their ethnography, historical narrative and political comment from the historian. She then gives a brief overview to the composition of the two historical records, noting that lots of the information is very similar. She notes that she is going to include translations of these original sources.

           The sources say both tribes are remnants of the Eastern Hu, following their defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu. It also goes into less detail on the Xianbei, saying that what is true for the Wuhuan was also true about them, with a single paragraph about practises unique to the Xianbei. Therefore, Duthie will presume that what she writes about the Wuhuan is also true about the Xianbei. She translates and examines sections of both sources’ ethnographies, concluding that they are nomads and that this is similar to the descriptions of the Xiongnu. As is the way they esteem the young rather than the old. However, Duthie soon picks up some differences, most significantly their matriarchal system. She covers a range of topics such as marriage, sacrifices and hairstyles. Duthie is particularly interested in the similarities in funeral practises between these tribes and those of the Han Chinese.

           Having translated and commented on the ethnographical descriptions of the Wuhuan and Xianbei, Duthie then looks at the commentary of the historians. She says that Chen Shou in the SGZ depicts them as the latest in the long line of Northern others, who caused issues for the central lands. However, he ends the section with Cao Cao’s victory over the tribes giving it a triumphant emphasis. Fan Ye writing many years later is similar but is far more negative about the tribes, and living in a time when the Xianbei had formed Northern Wei, he doesn’t share the triumphant spirit of his predecessor.

Analysis

Wuhuan and Xianbei.

If you wonder what these countries are, here are two link I recomend to read on Wikipedia, I found it quite interesting!

Annually, the Chinese city of Wuhan has been hosting 10,000 fireflies for those who admire their wondrous illumination. The entire location has been divided into five separate zones: the flying zone, observation zone, zero-distance contact zone, breeding zone, and science popularization area. This allows the park to cater to visitors who simply want to enjoy the sights and to those who are there for research purposes. 

I've been working on a very long essay about this for a while, but basically:

In northern China, there were the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Wuhuan. These are the tribes with whom Han and Wei had the most interaction, and they are the best recorded. All three have an extensive history and well-defined culture.

The Xiongnu are believed to be the same as the Huns who caused problems for Rome in the 4th and 5th century, and it is further believed that the Xiongnu eventually developed into the Turks. The Xianbei and Wuhuan are commonly believed to have developed into the Mongolians - though since the Turks and Mongols have many different cultures within those larger umbrellas, it is a bit more complicated than that.

The Xiongnu had a long history of war with Han, and they were at one point Han's greatest enemies. Han eventually emerged victorious in this war and maintained about half of the Xiongnu population as a dependency and used them to fight against their other enemies in the north. Eventually, the Xianbei supplanted the Xiongnu as the great power in the north, particularly after being united by the great leaders Tanshihuai and Kebineng. The Wuhuan were closely related to the Xianbei - they were originally slaves of the Xiongnu but were freed when Han defeated the Xiongnu, so they typically had a close and friendly relationship with Han.

There were other tribes in the north, but they were considerably smaller and not particularly noteworthy.

The Qiang were the most important tribes in the west. Qiang was an ethnic group rather than a particular tribe. Unlike the Xianbei, Xiongnu, and Wuhuan (whose different tribes recognized a common identity), the Qiang tribes had no unity and many of the tribes did not even consider themselves related. Some tribes were friendly to Han and Wei and supported them in Liang, while others were rebellious and fought against Han and Wei (often in alliance with Shu). Other western tribes included the Di and Rong, but they were considerably smaller groups and of less importance.

There were innumerable tribes in the south. These are often called the Nanman, which just means "southern barbarians" but most of them were wholly unrelated. Of the tribes in the southwest, the most important were probably the Zhong, who inhabited the Ba region and represented a significant portion of its population. There were many tribes in the south, the ancestors of the Indochinese people.

The southeast was also populated by numerous tribes. They are often called the "shanyue" but this is just a general term meaning "hill tribes" and it refers to many different and unrelated groups living in the southeast.