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Ancient semi-nomadic people in Central Asia
The Wusun were an ancient semi-nomadic steppe people mentioned in Chinese records from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.
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The Wusun ( WOO-sun) were an ancient semi-nomadic steppe people mentioned in Chinese records from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.
The Wusun originally lived between the Qilian Mountains and Dunhuang (Gansu) near the Yuezhi. Around 176 BC the Xiongnu raided the lands of the Yuezhi, who subsequently attacked the Wusun, killing their king and seizing their land. The Xiongnu adopted the surviving Wusun prince and made him one of their generals and leader of the Wusun. Around 162 BC the Yuezhi were driven into the Ili River Valley in Zhetysu, Dzungaria and Tian Shan, which had formerly been inhabited by the Saka. The Wusun then resettled in Gansu as vassals of the Xiongnu. In 133–132 BC, the Wusun drove the Yuezhi out of the Ili Valley and settled the area.
The Wusun then became close allies of the Han dynasty and remained a powerful force in the region for several centuries. The Wusun are last mentioned by the Chinese as having settled in the Pamir Mountains in the 5th century AD due to pressure from the Rouran. They possibly became subsumed into the later Hephthalites.
Wusun is a modern pronunciation of the Chinese Characters '烏孫'. The Chinese name '烏孫' (Wūsūn) literally means wū 'crow, raven' + sūn 'grandson, descendant'.
There are several theories about the origin of the name:
The Wusun were first mentioned by Chinese sources as living together with the Yuezhi between the Qilian Mountains and Dunhuang (Gansu). although different locations have been suggested for these toponyms.
Around 210–200 BC, prince Modu Chanyu, a former hostage of the Yuezhi and prince of the Xiongnu, who were also vassals of the Yuezhi, became leader of the Xiongnu and conquered the Mongolian Plain, subjugating several peoples. Around 176 BC Modu Chanyu launched a fierce raid against the Yuezhi. Around 173 BC, the Yuezhi subsequently attacked the Wusun, at that time a small nation, killing their king Nandoumi.
According to legend Nandoumi's infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild. He was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens. The Wusun ancestor myth shares striking similarities with those of the Hittites, the Zhou Chinese, the Scythians, the Romans, the Goguryeo, Turks, Mongols and Dzungars. Based on the similarities between the ancestor myth of the Wusun and later Turkic peoples, Denis Sinor has suggested that the Wusun, Sogdians, or both could represent an Indo-Aryan influence, or even the origin of the royal Ashina Türks.
In 162 BC, the Yuezhi were finally defeated by the Xiongnu, after which they fled Gansu. According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi were defeated by the rising Xiongnu empire and fled westward, driving away the Sai (Scythians) from the Ili Valley in the Zhetysu and Dzungaria area. The Sai would subsequently migrate into South Asia, where they founded various Indo-Scythian kingdoms. After the Yuezhi retreat the Wusun subsequently settled the modern province of Gansu, in the valley of the Wushui-he (lit. 'Raven-Water River'), as vassals of the Xiongnu. It is not clear whether the river was named after the tribe or vice versa.
The Xiongnu ruler was impressed with Liejiaomi, considering him a supernatural being, and adopted the child. When the child grew up the Chanyu made him leader of the Wusun and a Xiongnu general. He won many victories for the Xiongnu and the Wusun became powerful. Liejiaomi constantly requested the Xiongnu ruler for permission to avenge his father, and around 133–132 BC, he successfully attacked the Yuezhi in the Ili Valley. The Yuezhi then migrated to Sogdia and then Bactria, where they became unified under Kujula Kadphises and expanded into South Asia, founding the Kushan Empire, which at its peak under Kanishka stretched from Turpan in the Tarim Basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain and played an important role in the development of the Silk Road and the transmission of Buddhism to China.
The Wusun subsequently took over the Ili Valley, expanding over a large area and trying to keep away from the Xiongnu. According to the Shiji, Wusun was a state located west of the Xiongnu. When the Xiongnu ruler died, Liejiaomi refused to serve the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu then sent a force against the Wusun but were defeated, after which the Xiongnu considered Liejiaomi a supernatural being even more than before and avoided conflict with him.
After settling in the Ili Valley the Wusun became so strong that the Han were compelled to win their friendship in alliance. Chinese sources name the Scythian Sai (Saka), and the Yuezhi who were often have identified with Tocharians in the past, among the people of the Wusun state in the Zhetysu and Dzungaria area. The Wusun realm probably included both Yuezhi and Saka. It is clear that the majority of the population consisted of linguistically Iranian Saka tribes.
In 125 BC, under the Han emperor Wu of Han (156–87 BC), the Chinese traveller and diplomat Zhang Qian was sent to establish an alliance with the Wusun against the Xiongnu. Qian estimated the Wusun to number 630,000, with 120,000 families and 188,000 men capable of bearing arms. The Book of Han described them as occupying land that previously belonged to the Saka (Sai). To their north-west the Wusun bordered Kangju, in modern Kazakhstan. To the west was Dayuan (Ferghana), and to the south were various city states. The Royal Court of the Wusun, the walled city of Chigu, was located in a side valley leading to Issyk Kul. Lying on one of the branches of the Silk Road Chigu was an important trading centre, but its exact location has not been established.
According to Sima Qian in the Shiji:
Wusun as a nation, has its great Kunmi [monarch] presiding at Chigu City which is 8900 li [3700km] away from Chang'an (...) It land is bare and flat, rainy and chilly. Its hills are covered with pines. Its people do not plow of plant but follow their flocks to where water and grass are found. Its customs are similar to those of the Xiongnu. The nation has plenty of horses... and its people violent, greedy and not trustworthy. There are abundant bandits and thieves. Its territories originally belonged to the Sakas, the latter king went south to Bolor (Baltistan) whereby the Yuezhi took over and settled on the land. (...) Later, when the Yuezhi moved west to subjugate Bactria, the Wusun Kunmo replaced them and lived there. For that reason, the Wusun population is admixed with Sakas and Yuezhi peoples.
— Sima Qian, Shiji
The Wusun approved of a possible alliance, and Zhang Qian was sent as ambassador in 115 BC. According to the agreement the Wusun would jointly attack the Xiongnu with the Han, while they were offered a Han princess in marriage and the return of their original Gansu homeland (heqin). However, due to fear of the Xiongnu, the Wusun had second thoughts and suggested sending a delegation to the Han rather than moving their capital further west.
Some time after the Han-Wusun negotiations ended, the Han inflicted several blows to the Xiongnu. The Han then threatened war upon the Wusun, after which Liejiaomi finally agreed to an alliance, sending tributary horses and accepting Princess Xijun as his wife. Along with the Yuezhi and the Kangju of the Ferghana Valley, the Wusun became the main suppliers of horses for the Han. The Xiongnu had however also sent a princess to marry Liejiaomi, and the Xiongnu princess was declared his senior consort, with Xijun becoming his junior wife. Since Liejiaomi was already an old man, Xijun was married to his successor Cenzou, which Wu agreed with. Xijun wrote a famous poem, the Beichouge, in which she complains about her exile in the land of the "barbarians":
My family sent me off to be married on the other side of heaven. They sent me a long way to a strange land, to the king of Wusun. A domed lodging is my dwelling place with walls of felt. Meat is my food, with fermented milk as the sauce. I live with constant thoughts of my home, my heart is full of sorrow. I wish I were a golden swan, returning to my home country.
Xijun bore the Wusun a daughter but died soon afterward, at which point the Han court sent Princess Jieyou to succeed her. After the death of Cenzou, Jieyou married Wengguimi, Cenzou's cousin and successor. Jieyou lived for fifty years among the Wusun and bore five children, including the oldest Yuanguimi, whose half-brother Wujiutu was born to a Xiongnu mother. She sent numerous letters to the Han requesting assistance against the Xiongnu.
Around 80 BC, the Wusun were attacked by the Xiongnu, who inflicted a devastating defeat upon them. In 72 BC, Kunmi, chief of the Wusun requested assistance from the Han against the Xiongnu. The Han sent an army of 160,000 men, inflicting a crushing defeat upon the Xiongnu, capturing much booty and many slaves. In the campaign the Han captured the Tarim Basin and the city-state of Cheshi (Turpan region), a previous ally of the Xiongnu, giving them direct contact with the Wusun. Afterwards the Wusun allied with the Dingling and Wuhuan to counter Xiongnu attacks. After their crushing victory against the Xiongnu the Wusun increased in strength, achieving significant influence over the city-states of the Tarim Basin. The son of the Kunmi became the ruler of Yarkand, while his daughter became the wife of the lord of Kucha. They came to play a role as a third force between the Han and the Xiongnu.
Around 64 BC, according to the Book of Han, Chinese agents were involved in a plot with a Wusun kunmi known as Wengguimi ("Fat King") and to kill a Wusun kunmi known to the Chinese as Nimi ("Mad King"). A Chinese deputy envoy called Chi Tu who brought a doctor to attend to Nimi was punished with castration by the Han dynasty when he returned to China for treating the mad king's illness instead of killing him which the Han court ordered them to do.
In 64 BC another Han princess was sent to Kunmi Wengguimi, but he died before her arrival. Han emperor Xuan then permitted the princess to return, since Jieyou had married the new Kunmi, Nimi, the son of Cenzou. Jieyou bore Nimi the son Chimi. Prince Wujiutu later killed Nimi, his half-brother. Fearing the wrath of the Han, Wujiutu adopted the title of Lesser Kunmi, while Yuanguimi was given the title Greater Kunmi. The Han accepted this system and bestowed both of them with the imperial seal. After both Yuanguimi and Chimi were dead, Jieyou asked Emperor Xuan for permission to return to China. She died in 49 BC. Over the next decades the institution of the Greater and Lesser Kunmi continued, with the Lesser Kunmi being married to a Xiongnu princess and the Greater Kunmi married to a Han princess.
In 5 BC, during the reign of Wuzhuliu Chanyu (8 BC – AD 13), the Wusun attempted to raid Yueban pastures, but Wuzhuliu repulsed them, and the Wusun commander had to send his son to the Yueban court as a hostage. The forceful intervention of the Chinese usurper Wang Mang and internal strife brought disorder, and in 2 BC one of the Wusun chieftains brought 80,000 Wusun to Kangju, asking for help against the Chinese. In a vain attempt to reconcile with China, he was duped and killed in 3 AD.
In 2 AD, Wang Mang issued a list of four regulations to the allied Xiongnu that the taking of any hostages from Chinese vassals, i.e. Wusun, Wuhuan and the statelets of the Western Regions, would not be tolerated.
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