🎓 On the Diplomacy of Steppe Princesses

How "Wordle meets Wikipedia" expanded my horizons in regard to the importance of noble daughters in Asia, particularly among the Xiongnu.

I never got into Wordle; my vocabulary is strong, but things like crosswords and scrabble always feel contrived. The fact that the current world record holder for French scrabble doesn’t speak French is, to me, utterly damning of the game. And crosswords — like bar trivia nights — seem to take great delight in obscure pop culture things I don’t care about. After a while I get tired of everyone expecting me to be good at it. Most of my obscure knowledge is about history or science, not Disney movies or video games from the 1970s.

Redactle, though, is right up my alley.

The idea is that they take a Wikipedia article and (you guessed it) redact most of the words. You end up with punctuation and some common words like “and,” “on,” “are,” “the,” etc. Mostly you see a bunch of blank boxes, where the only context is the character count for each word. The goal is to figure out the title of the Wikipedia article in as few guesses as possible.

Unlike Wordle or crosswords, I actually feel like I learn something by playing. The competitive aspect of comparing scores with my friends is much less important than the scavenger hunt quality of collecting clues, investigating them, and racking my brain for half-forgotten knowledge. At the end, I usually learn something interesting.

It’s one of those games where even if you “cheat” (which is to say, “utilize search tools”) it feels like you’re practicing a useful skill — in some cases Google Fu, in others prompt engineering. I’ve learned a lot about what various OpenAI API models are (not) capable of. For example, while trying to come up with the name of a particular book I know is relevant to an article on a topic I know almost nothing about (lookin’ at you, Peter Kropotkin, exiled Russian anarchist.

David Friedman

could probably have gotten that one so fast, tho)

Once, the answer related to a school of philosophy — as I majored in philosophy during college, that feeling of “oh! oh! I know this one!” was very fun after a bunch of things that were more in the wheelhouses of my modern history loving friends than ancient history nerd me.

And once, the article was about the Xiongnu, a group of steppe nomads who were frenemies of the Han Chinese. That was even better, because not only was it in my wheelhouse — I am literally in the middle of reading Empire of Horses by John Man, yes that’s an affiliate link — several of my friends had never even heard of the Xiongnu.

If that’s you too, well. Welcome to today’s lucky ten thousand!

XKCD 1053: Ten Thousand

Nomadic Empires Thrive on Trade

The Xiongnu were a major political rival to imperial China. Among other things, they operated expansive trade networks, importing luxury goods like Roman glass, Persian textiles, and Greek silver.

Empire of Horses says most people haven’t heard of them — they take a distant third in pop culture, behind the Mongols and the Huns — but it’s worth noting that there’s some uncertainty about whether they’re “actually” the same people as the Huns, who you probably have heard of. If you’re around my age, maybe you even saw the (not terrible!) miniseries Attila. It was set in the 5th century, an era where the steppe nomads pressed westward, united with the Germans, crossed the Danube, and smacked the Romans around like a bear pouncing on half-rotted salmon. If you’re younger, maybe you learned about them in the context of speculation about how climate change was the reason they migrated west, pushing the Goths before them.

In the context of the Chinese, though, they show up in the encyclopedia as the Xiongnu, not the Huns. The Xiongnu formed their empire around 209 BC, and they are the best example I’ve ever seen of the idea that nomadic raiders have a symbiotic relationship with civilization.

While raiding's spectacular quality tends to dominate accounts of the early state's relationship with barbarians, it was surely far less important than trade. The early states, located for the most part in rich, alluvial bottomlands, were natural trading partners with nearby barbarians. Ranging widely in a far more diverse environment, only the barbarians could supply the necessities without which the early state could not long survive: metal ores, timber, hides, obsidian, honey, medicinals, and aromatics. The lowland kingdom was more valuable as a trade depot, in the long run, than as a site of plunder.

— James C. Scott, Against the Grain (here’s the affiliate link, it’s a very good book… but see also With the Grain by food historian Rachel Laudan for a good rebuttal of Scott’s central thesis)

All that makes it sound very natural that a settled state should have a relationship with a more mobile one on its borders.

The reality of Xiongnu and Han relations was a bit… messier. The Xiongnu Empire — as opposed to the Xiongnu cultural group of scattered raiders and traders — was formed in response to the Qin military expelling them from the Ordos Plateau. The Xiongnu fled to the Mongolian Plateau, where Modu Chanyu (i.e. Emperor Modu) forged them into a powerful confederation essentially out of necessity; they united due to pressure from the Qin. When the Qin emperor died, throwing the Chinese into disarray, Modu explosively expanded.

Modu is a pretty interesting guy, by the way; his father wanted a different son as his heir so he sent Modu off to be a hostage among another nomadic group, then deliberately attacked them in hopes they’d execute Modu. They tried, but Modu stole a fast horse and escaped.

After a stunt like that, it’s no wonder he was hailed as a hero by his people — his father was basically forced to give him an army. Modu took those 10,000 soldiers and forged them into a unit, inventing a signalling arrow and teaching them to fire their arrows simultaneously. And he didn’t settle for just any militarily skilled unit; he wanted a loyal unit. Any man wasn’t willing to kill his favorite horse at his order was executed; later, any man who balked at killing his favorite wife was similarly executed.

It sounds cruel, but it was all lead up to Modu’s critical gambit; getting his men to help kill his father. Was Modu brutal? Wikipedia says yes.

Modu's Xiongnu Empire aggressively protected and expanded their territory. When their eastern neighbors, the Donghu, expressed desire to occupy uninhabited land that lay between them, Modu reacted by attacking them. By 208 BCE, the Donghu had been defeated and their remnants split into the Xianbei and Wuhuan tribes. Modun went on to subdue the Dingling and other peoples to the north, and defeat the Yuezhi in 203 BCE. After these conquests, all Xiongnu lords submitted to him.

Did his methods work? Also yes.

With these victories, he was able to gain control of the important trade routes, which later supplied the Xiongnu with a large income.

That’s all like… one paragraph, but surely you can see the cinematic montages unfolding in your mind’s eye. Why isn’t this a Blockbuster movie? No, Shan Yu from Mulan doesn’t count!

The thing is, though, none of this would have happened without the settled, agricultural people under the Qin and Han leaders. Between tribute paid by leaders trying to stave off predation by the barbarians, trade along routes controlled (which is to say: simultaneously threatened and protected) by the nomads, and the sheer economic surplus created by settled agriculture, a nomad empire in the shadow of the settled empire was in some ways inevitable.

You don’t get pirates without a population to prey on, after all.

Genetically Diverse Empires with Low Gender Inequality Should Interest Us

When I wrote about what I like to call “the Phoenician Gap” I explained that although I think the Phoenicians are fascinating, I totally understand why we don’t really learn about them in the West. America cares more about the Pax Romana and the Fall of the Republic than a maritime empire with a bunch of interconnected but independent colonies. The Levant is also a bit complicated by being the birthplace of the Bible, and American schools in my experience shy away from talking about early Christianity and Judaism too much. Dunking on the Catholics because of the Protestant Reformation? Easy! Explaining the relationship between Carthage and the Canaanites? Tricky, tricky.

But if you care about melting pots that managed to unite disparate ethnic groups into a cohesive unit strong enough to stand up to China? You should care about the Xiongnu!

Genetic studies reveal that the Xiongnu had a diverse society, and their genetic diversity was not limited to the early phases of their empire but continued throughout. This diversity was part and parcel of their empire-building processes; to wit, high-ranking women were often sent to seal alliances with local leaders. This was key in knitting their empire together. There may even have been a deliberate strategy to mix and integrate various populations to strengthen their control across the steppe. Archaeologist Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav explains it pretty succinctly:

If you want to rule a bigger area, you have to put a trusted person in place. They’re controlling local elites through these princesses.

Women in the Xiongnu society were not only political agents but were also involved in the military — not surprising, given that they were horse nomads, and horse archers sort of definitionally use force multipliers for their strength. The mythical Amazons were probably Scythians, aka horse nomads from the other side of the Eurasian steppe. Of all the stories I’ve collected about women taking part in war — from camp followers taking up arms to defend an overrun bivouac to Joan of Arc taking active part in the breaking of a siege to all-female military units in 18th century West Africa — the steppe nomads seem the most normalized.

In medieval Mongolia, nearly every activity, from races to wrestling matches, doubled as military training—perhaps the most important being the communal hunt or nerge. “Women were hugely involved in setting up the hunts,” says Greenland. Everyone, young and old, male and female, participated. As the sun rose across the hilly grasslands of the steppe, hunters rode off in search of game. When they found an unfortunate deer or boar, the group would encircle the animal, tightening and tightening their formation until someone dealt the panicked animal a killing blow. — Sarah Durn, Atlas Obscura

But even if Xiongnu women weren’t fully capable of defending a citadel¹ it shouldn’t be too surprising that their marriages played an important role in maintaining relationships between the local groups. This is what elite marriages throughout history have excelled at, after all. In Medieval Europe, marriage alliances weren’t just a matter of trying to get your grandson on a throne; Queens like Isabella of France and Catherine of Aragon were unusual in some senses, but I don’t think it was unusual to have a powerful woman running a region with her father’s support while her husband was off on campaign. Or for a father to take more active interest in what was going on in a region because his daughter lived there.

My preferred example isn’t Europe, though — it’s (of course) the Levant. I’ve written about this before, but Mesopotamian princesses acted as their father’s ambassadors in their husband’s court — not least of which because Mesopotamian kings rarely left their strongholds long enough to meet in person. Daughters and wives served as vital interpreters, providing much-needed trusted context, because in most cases they had loyalty to both men. Their job was to offer advice to their fathers on how best to deal with their husbands and presumably vice versa, to the betterment of all. The letters they wrote back home were filled with important diplomatic content.

We don’t know a ton about what exactly Xiongnu women did. Most of what we know comes from the Chinese, who were almost as opposed to marrying their daughters off to barbarians as the Egyptians were; in point of fact, several of the “princesses” they sent to the Xiongnu were commoners disguised as princesses. The most famous example I’m aware of is Wang Zhaojun, one of the “four beauties” of ancient China. She was from a prominent family and ended up as a lady-in-waiting in the Emperor’s harem, before being sent to the Xiongnu mostly by mistake.

Typically the daughter of a concubine would then be offered, but unwilling to honour Huhanye with a real princess, Emperor Yuan ordered that the plainest girl in the harem be selected. He asked for volunteers and promised to present her as his own daughter. The idea of leaving their homeland and comfortable life at court for the grasslands of the far and unknown north was abhorrent to most of the young women, but Wang Zhaojun accepted. When the matron of the harem sent her unflattering portrait to the Emperor, he merely glanced at it and nodded his approval. Only when summoned to court was Wang Zhaojun's beauty revealed.

The Emperor considered retracting his decision, but it was too late by then, and he regretfully presented Wang Zhaojun to Huhanye, who was delighted. Relations with the Xiongnu subsequently improved, and artist Mao Yanshou was subsequently executed for deceiving the Emperor.

As for actual Xiongnu princesses, their fathers had no problems sending them off into marriage to lesser men. We know (thanks to burial sites) they were often the highest status members of their local community, we know they were trained in military skills, and we know they helped bind together one of the largest empires of the time period.

So every time I notice a powerful American politician married to someone from a recent immigrant background, I remember this phenomenon and try to view the marriage through that lens. Yumi Hogan, a South Korean immigrant who married former Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, was able to help her husband make arrangements with the Korean government during the COVID pandemic to import testing kits². Mitch McConnell’s wife is Vietnamese, Jeb Bush’s wife is Mexican, and Melania Trump is Slovenian. Hell, Teresa Heinz Kerry (Portuguese, born in Mozambique) was married to two different Senators! And that’s even before we get to folks like Vice President JD Vance’s wife, whose parents immigrated to America from India.

In Popular Culture

When make guesses in Redactle, 0 results is sometimes just as informative as multiple revelations. Even so, I hate the 0s, and try to avoid them. My guess strategy is usually something like “he, century, war, works” but pretty often the pattern of headings makes it obvious that there’s a “See Also” or a “In Popular Culture.”

Somehow almost none of the stuff I looked at while researching the Xiongnu had an “In Fiction” section. Even Wang Zhaojun seems almost unknown in the West.

Seriously, how is none of this the subject of a blockbuster movie?! The script writes itself: beautiful commoner swept up by agents of the Han, put through deportment classes, given a bunch of silk and sent north as tribute, terrified but also oddly elevated in power, given a unique opportunity to rise above her station and help ensure that her people — poor peasant farmers near the Great Wall, perhaps, vulnerable to raids — are protected from the terrifying (but it turns out surprisingly noble) horse nomads…

Would you watch it? Do you know of anything like it in Western media? No, Daenerys doesn’t count.

1. Speaking of cinematic moments in Xiongnu history, although the Xiongnu lost the Battle of Zhizhi at the Talas River, Zhizhi was the only Xiongnu ‘supreme’ leader killed by the Chinese. Zhizhi’s queen and concubines shot arrows from the ramparts during the battle, and the Chinese noted that the women remained at their posts longer than the men. I can imagine a spectacular movie with Zhizhi’s brother Huhanye as the ultimately triumphant protagonist. It would begin when the tyrannical Woyanqudi kills their father’s supporters after his death, following the two boys in parallel during the civil war as they try to re-unite the empire.

2. The Korean test kits ended up being an enormous waste of money, but that’s not relevant to my point.