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The Battle of Mobei (漠北之戰, "Battle of Desert's North"), at the north of the Gobi Desert, was a major campaign launched by the Han Dynasty on January, 119 BC, as a vanguard campaign into the heartland of Xiongnu. The battle was a success for the Han, whose forces were led by Wei Qing and Huo Qubing. The forces were dispatched in two columns, taking the routes from Dingxiang and Dai Prefecture, each commander set off with a force of 50,000 cavalry and infantry carriers for supplies as rearguard.

After encountering the 80,000-strong cavalry main force of Yixixie Chanyu, who was defeated and eventually escaped under the protection of only a few hundred cavalries, Wei Qing lead the way of his army to the Khangay mountains and burned the Fortress of Zhao Xin to the ground at the Orkhon Valley, permanently removing the Xiongnu stronghold.

The other army led by Huo Qubing from Dai Prefecture, marched as far as the Lake Baikal in pursuit of the Worthy Prince of the Left, and killed 70,443 enemy soldiers, effective annihilated the Xiongnu tribe.

Aftermath

The costs of the victorious campaigns over ten years over the Xiongnu from 129 to 119 BC were enormous: the Han army lost almost 80% of their horses to the expedition, due to combats and non-combative losses, such as the harshness of the journey and plague by Xiongnu contamination of water supply with dead cattles. Economic pressure on the central Han government led to new taxes being levied, increasing the burden on average peasants. The population of Han empire dropped significantly as a result of famine and excessive taxing to fund military mobilisations.

Xiongnu, however, suffered a far more lethal blow, as their military losses would reflect directly onto their economy. On top of loss of manpower due to combat deaths and diseases, the nomadic Xiongnu lost millions of livestocks (their vital food resource) to the Han army, and the war left large proportion of the remaining cattles suffering miscarriages during reproductive seasons. Furthermore, the loss of control over the southern fertile grassland meant that Xiongnu had to hole up in the barren land of northern Gobi desert, struggling to survive. As a result, there was a ceasefire between the Han Dynasty and Xiongnu for seven years, which ended after a Xiongnu raid in 112 BC at Wuyuan.

References

• Ban Gu et al, Hanshu. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1962. ISBN 978-7-101-00305-5
• Sima Guang, comp. Zizhi Tongjian. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1956. ISBN 978-7-101-00183-9

Battle of Zhizhi

Liu Yuan was a member of Xiongnu nobility, as a descendant of chanyus of the Luanti (欒提) royal clan, who, along with their people, had long been loyal vassals of Han Dynasty, and then to its successor states Cao Wei and Jin Dynasty (265-420). In late Cao Wei or early Jin Dynasty (265-420) times, the Xiongnu nobles claimed that they had Han Dynasty ancestry as well -- through a princess that married the first great chanyu in Xiongnu history, Modu Shanyu, and therefore changed their family name to Liu, the same name as the Han imperial clan. Liu Yuan's father Liu Bao (劉豹) was a son of one of the last chanyus, Yufuluo (於扶羅), and the nephew of the very last chanyu Huchuquan (呼廚泉) (before Cao Cao abolished the office in 216 and divided the Xiongnu into five tribes (bu, 部), and he had the command of the Left Tribe (左部). Liu Yuan's mother Lady Huyan (呼延) appeared to be from a noble family, and was in probability Liu Bao's wife and not a concubine, but that is not clear. As all five tribes settled down in modern southern Shanxi, that was likely where Liu Yuan was born and raised.