Historical records from
Bronze Age Chinese dynasties such as the
Shang and
Zhou dynasty, the latter of which included the
Spring and Autumn and
Warring States periods, recounted numerous encounters with the non-
Huaxia tribes beyond the authority of the
Son of Heaven. At that time, the preferred term to designate non-Sinitic peoples, whom the ancient Chinese regarded as culturally backward and
barbaric, was "
Four Barbarians" (), each of which was named for a
cardinal direction relatively to the
Central Plains: the
Dongyi (東夷; "Eastern Barbarians"),
Nanman (南蠻; "Southern Barbarians"),
Xirong (西戎; "Western Barbarians"), and
Beidi (北狄; "Northern Barbarians").
Xiongnu In the
Qin state (before 221 BC), the term "Hu" came into designated usages to specifically describe the
Xiongnu, who would be classified under the aforementioned
Beidi concept. For example, the Xiongnu prince
Jin Midi (134–86 BC), a
naturalized prisoner of war later promoted as a confidant of
Emperor Wu of Han, would be described as both a
Hu person and a
Yidi (夷狄). To the east of the Xiongnu were
Proto-Mongol people known as the
Donghu (東胡; "Eastern Hu"), whose descendants became the
Xianbei and
Wuhuan after the Xiongnu destroyed their confederation. Increasing
raids,
lootings and
abduction of civilians for
slavery by the Xiongnu was a primary reason for the construction of elongated defensive walls (precursors of the
Great Wall of China) by various
ancient Chinese states such as
Yan,
Zhao and Qin, which culminated in a
Qin expeditionary campaign in 215 BC that dealt heavy blow to the Xiongnu in the
Hetao region around the
Yellow River's
Ordos Loop. However, during the
civil war after the Qin dynasty's collapse, the Xiongnu were united into a powerful
nomadic empire under
Modu Chanyu, who defeated and purged rival steppes confederacies (such as Donghu and
Yuezhi, the latter being permanently evicted into
Central Asia), and also occupied the Hetao region, thus becoming a prominent threat to the
Guanzhong heartland during the early
Western Han dynasty. This prompted
Emperor Gaozu of Han to sortie against the Xiongnu at the
Battle of Baideng, but he was ambushed and trapped and only escaped after bribing the chanyu's wife. The Han was then forced to pay the Xiongnu
tribute for the next seven decades through so-called "
marriage alliances", a situation that lasted until the reign of Emperor Wu, the seventh Han emperor, who successfully waged
a war against the Xiongnu that tipped the
geopolitical landscape in favor of the Han, allowing new
trade routes (i.e. the
Northern Silk Road) and
power projection into the
Western Regions via the
Hexi Corridor, which were previously monopolized by the Xiongnu. Subsequent Han emperors such as
Emperor Xuan and
Emperor Ming further capitalized on the
strategic advantages gained under Emperor Wu and established the
Protectorate of the Western Regions and later the
Chief Official of the Western Regions, the latter of which lasted until two centuries after Han dynasty's collapse. The
Han hegemony in Inner Asia led many of Xiongnu's prior
vassals and
tributary states in
Central Asia to turn against them, coupled with attacks from resurgent old foes such as the Donghu, causing the Xiongnu to fall into
civil wars and fragmentate into two, namely the Northern Xiongnu and Southern Xiongnu. The Southern Xiongnu later subjected to the Han Empire as a vassal, while the Northern Xiongnu remained hostile and was evicted further west from Central Asia in 151 CE, eventually disappearing from historical records, leading many
historian scholars to
suspect them as the ancestors of the
Huns.
Zahu and Five Barbarians The fall of the
Eastern Han dynasty during the turn of the 3rd century coincided with the disintegration of the Southern Xiongnu vassal state on the northern frontier. From then on, the Xiongnu identity gradually disappeared as their descendants were referred to as "Hu" instead. These miscellaneous Hu people (雜胡; záhú) were loosely grouped based on their shared geography or characteristics, such as the
Lushuihu (盧水胡; "Black River Hu") in northwestern China and
Shanhu (山胡; "Mountain Hu") in the mountainous regions of
Shanxi. Many of these Hu intermingled among themselves and with tribes from other ethnic groups, eventually amalgamating into the Buluoji (步落稽) or
Jihu (稽胡) that inhabited
Shaanbei and western Shanxi by the 6th century CE. The Jihu disappeared by the late 7th century CE, presumably as they completed their assimilation into Chinese society. Many tribes of the Five Barbarians had settled into the northern frontiers and
Guanzhong heartlands by the
Western Jin period, and took advantage of the political chaos after the
War of the Eight Princes to launch rebellions in
northern China from 304 to 316, culminating in the
Disaster of Yongjia in 311 CE where the Xiongnu
Han-Zhao state captured and sacked the Jin capital
Luoyang. This
Upheaval of the Five Barbarians caused the surviving Jin royal court to relocate to
Jiankang (modern-day
Nanjing) on the south bank of the
Yangtze River and establish the
Eastern Jin dynasty. The Five Barbarians then established the
Sixteen Kingdoms, among whom
total wars and
ethnic cleansings were frequent until they were finally all conquered and unified under the
Northern Wei in 439 CE, beginning the
Northern and Southern dynasties period. The
Rouran Khaganate, a multi-ethnic tribal confederation comprising primarily Xiongnu and Donghu, was founded in the
Mongolian plateau in 330 CE. They were involved in
royal intermarriages (
heqin) with the
Northern Yan, the Northern Wei dynasty and Wei's warring successors
Eastern Wei and
Western Wei, before being overthrown by the
Göktürk First Turkic Khaganate in 555 CE. Later, "Hu" was also used to include various groups of
Iranic peoples from
Central Asia who settled in
in China for trade, especially the
Sogdians. The
Tang dynasty conquered the
Eastern Turkic Khaganate and
defeated the
Western Turkic Khaganate, creating
a hegemony in Inner Asia with the establishment of the
Protectorate General to Pacify the West. Central Asian
trading caravans and
tributary convoys became common, and Central Asian cultural practices that spread into Tang heartlands would then be qualified as "Hu", such as their dance the "
Huteng" (胡腾, "barbarian hopping"), or the
Huxuan (胡旋, "barbarian whirling", also 胡旋舞,
Húxuănwǔ, "barbarian whirling dance"), but known as "
Sogdian Whirl dance" or simply "Sogdian whirl" to
Western scholars.
Turkic peoples During the
Sui and
Tang dynasty, "Hu" also included
Turkic peoples along the
Silk Road such as
Göktürks,
Uyghurs and
Shatuo, in addition to the Sogdians. Some of these Hu people had been
sinicized so much that they became a significant part of Tang court politics, taking over prominent military and administrative roles such as
fanzhen jiedushi, allowing them to become powerful warlords and oligarchs that the Tang relied upon heavily to manage other Hu threats. The defection of the Turkic
Karluk mercenaries were instrumental to the
Abbasid Caliphate and the
Tibetan Empire defeating the Tang at the
Battle of Talas in 751, which subsequently led to the loss of Tang control over
Transoxiana and most of the Western Regions. Two naturalized Sogdian warlords,
An Lushan and
Shi Siming, waged
a massive rebellion in 755 that almost toppled the Tang dynasty. As a result, the heavily sinicized Shatuo people were instead entrusted to guard the Tang Empire's northern borders, and one such clan was even bestowed the surname
Li as a token for their loyalty, with
Li Keyong being rewarded heavily for his contribution defeating the
Huang Chao Rebellion in 884. After Tang dynasty's collapse in 907, three of the
Five Dynasties that ruled over
northern China (
Later Tang,
Later Jin and
Later Han) were headed by Shatuo sovereigns, who by this point were so completely sinicized that they were no longer regarded as Hu people, rather as Han Chinese. The "Hu" name was instead given to the newly arrived nomads to the north, the
Khitans.
Mongolics and Tungusic peoples The mountainous
Sixteen Prefectures of
Yan–
Yun, which commanded the most important
natural barriers that shielded the
North China Plain from northerly invasions, were
ceded to the
Khitans in 938 by
Later Jin founder
Shi Jingtang in exchange of Khitan military aid in his selfish rebellion against his brother-in-law, Emperor
Li Congke of
Later Tang. The loss of this strategic region from
Han Chinese control gave the Khitans a solid
staging area for invading southwards, which proved decisive when the Khitan army under
Yelü Deguang invaded and conquered the Later Jin in 947. In 958, Emperor
Guo Rong of
Later Zhou attempted to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures via a northern expedition while taking advantage of political chaos within the Khitan
Liao dynasty, but despite many victories, his campaign had to be abandoned after he fell ill and died in 959. After Later Zhou general
Zhao Kuangyin usurped the throne of Guo Rong's 7-year-old heir
Guo Zongxun to establish the
Song dynasty in 960, he chose to wage war against the
Ten Kingdoms to the south instead of continuing the late Guo Rong's northern campaign to reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures. However, by the time his brother and successor
Zhao Guangyi finally decided to deal with the northern threat, the Khitans had already ended the two decades of infighting and stabilized politically. The Liao dynasty decisively defeated the Song dynasty's campaigns to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures twice in 979 and 986, but Liao's attempt to invade south was also defeated in 1004, resulting in the signing of the
Chanyuan Treaty in 1005. Due to the Song dynasty's inability to recapture either the Sixteen Prefectures or the
Hexi Corridor, Han Chinese no longer had access to the
Western Regions or the
Liao region, and the only northern non-Sinitic peoples they knew for the next century and a half were the newly risen Tibeto-Burman
Tanguts from the northwest, who occupied the Hexi Corridor and founded the
Western Xia; and the
Para-Mongolic Khitans from the northeast, who founded the Liao dynasty. These peoples became the new "Hu" peoples, even though they had little
ethnolinguistic relations to the previous Hu groups in Chinese history. Frequent
border disputes,
raids and
invasions would occur between the Song, the Liao and the Western Xia, most often waged by the latter two to extort
tributes from the former. Song and Liao ceased large-scale military conflicts with each other after the Chanyuan Treaty (though favoring the Liao, who received annual tributes and still continued small-scale border raids), while
open conflicts between Song and Western Xia persisted. In 1114, the
Tungusic Jurchens from
Northeast Asia rebelled against the Khitans to establish the
Jin dynasty. Seeing an opportunity to settle old grudges, the Song court made an
Alliance Conducted at Sea with the Jurchen leadership in 1120 to attack the Liao together, resulting in the Jin conquering the Liao in 1125. However, seeing how poorly the Song army performed in battle, the Jurchens' ambition grew and the
Jin–Song wars soon started. Now faced with a new and far more aggressive Hu threat, the Song court acted indecisively and cowardly, resulting in the humiliating
Jingkang incident in 1127 that collapsed the Song dynasty. Surviving Song court who fled the capital
Kaifeng established a
rump state south of the
Huai River based at
Lin'an called the
Southern Song dynasty. The loss of territories north of the Huai River also meant that Song no longer bordered its bitter rival Western Xia, who was defeated by the Jin dynasty and instead became a
vassal state to the Jurchens. Despite a counteroffensive by General
Yue Fei in 1140 almost successfully recapturing all lost territories,
Emperor Gaozong and
grand chancellor Qin Hui forcefully ordered Yue's retreat and later executed him under
fabricated charges in order to sign the
Treaty of Shaoxing. The Song and Jin then reached an uncomfortable stalemate across the
Qin–Huai Line for the next nine decades. In 1205, the newly established
Mongol Empire led by
Genghis Khan invaded Western Xia, and openly rebelled against the Jin dynasty in 1211. Genghis died three days before completing the conquest of Western Xia in 1227, and his son
Ögedei Khan made an alliance with the Song in 1232 to attack the Jin together. This turned out to be a repeat of the strategic mistake that the Song made with the Liao dynasty, as the Ögedei soon turned against the Song after
conquering the Jin in 1234. Now facing an even more ferocious Hu threat, the Southern Song dynasty would resist the Mongols bitterly for the next 45 years, defeating and allegedly killing
Möngke Khan at the
Siege of Diaoyucheng in 1259, until it was
finally conquered by
Kublai Khan in 1279. After
Yuan dynasty was established by Kublai, the Mongols now ruled over all of China and implemented a "four-class" sociopolitical system where the Mongols occupied the
upper class, followed by the "
Semu" peoples (the various older Hu peoples from Central Asia, who subjected to the Mongol conquest the earliest), the "Han" people (Han Chinese who were already ruled by the Liao and Jin dynasties) and the "Southerner" (subjects of Southern Song dynasty, who surrendered the last). This type of systemic
racial discrimination and
oppression further fueled
ethnic tensions between the Han Chinese and all those Inner Asian ethnic groups that ruled above them, culminating in numerous rebellions and eventually the overthrow of the Yuan dynasty by
Zhu Yuanzhang's
Ming dynasty in 1368. By this point, the term "Hu" had already fallen out of popular usage, while the word "
Tatars" (鞑靼) or "
Dazi" (鞑子) had become the new derogatory generic term for nomads in the north. == Influence ==