Bamboo Scroll竹簡 Ep. 8 · Dead Beyond Ten Thousand Li
A lone horseman in a fur-trimmed robe riding up a bare steppe valley at dusk toward a line of torches on the horizon where Han cavalry wait in rank, banners bent flat by the wind, 51 BCE
Bamboo Scroll · Han · Episode 8

Dead Beyond Ten Thousand Li

Chang'an and the Steppe, 53–33 BCE — A defeated claimant to the steppe throne rode south and called himself a subject of the Han; his brother rode west until he was killed by a Han colonel who had no authority to raise the troops that did it, and the capital then spent months arguing over whether to pay him.
18 panels~8 min read free to readevery line sourced
Panel 01: In one generation the Han stopped fighting the steppe and started paying to keep it still. The change was made by a man who decided to ride south, and unmade by his brother's refusal to ride south with him.
In one generation the Han stopped fighting the steppe and started paying to keep it still. The change was made by a man who decided to ride south, and unmade by his brother's refusal to ride south with him.
Panel 02: It began as an inheritance. A chanyu died in 60 BCE, and within five years the title had passed through half a dozen hands and five men were calling themselves chanyu at once, the people starving and burning to find food.
It began as an inheritance. A chanyu died in 60 BCE, and within five years the title had passed through half a dozen hands and five men were calling themselves chanyu at once, the people starving and burning to find food.
Panel 03: The man left holding the wreckage was Huhanye. His chief adviser put the choice bluntly: beg the Han for help, or keep the prestige of a free steppe throne and lose both. The grandees answered with the old customs and the shame done to the dead chanyus.
The Left Yizhizhi King Strength and weakness take turns. Today the Han is strong, and the Wusun and the walled states are its servants. Serve it and your state is preserved; refuse and it is finished.
The man left holding the wreckage was Huhanye. His chief adviser put the choice bluntly: beg the Han for help, or keep the prestige of a free steppe throne and lose both. The grandees answered with the old customs and the shame done to the dead chanyus.
Panel 04: In the first month of 51 BCE he came to the Ganquan palace. The ceremony called him a subject and did not read out his name; on the way home he was reviewed from a bridge over the Wei, where tens of thousands of barbarian chiefs waited below it and lined the road to shout the acclamation.
In the first month of 51 BCE he came to the Ganquan palace. The ceremony called him a subject and did not read out his name; on the way home he was reviewed from a bridge over the Wei, where tens of thousands of barbarian chiefs waited below it and lined the road to shout the acclamation.
Panel 05: The ceremony was argued over before it happened. The Chancellor and the Imperial Secretary wanted the chanyu ranked below the vassal kings, in the ordinary place of a subject.
Xiao Wangzhi He is a matching state, not a people our calendar reaches. Give him the rites of a guest, above the vassal kings; let him bow and call himself a subject, and we yield and do not hold him as one.
The ceremony was argued over before it happened. The Chancellor and the Imperial Secretary wanted the chanyu ranked below the vassal kings, in the ordinary place of a subject.
Panel 06: What the peace cost is entered to the bushel. Grain went out to the frontier and did not come back; a garrison stayed with the chanyu for years; when his people went short, the emperor ordered two more commanderies to ship.
What the peace cost is entered to the bushel. Grain went out to the frontier and did not come back; a garrison stayed with the chanyu for years; when his people went short, the emperor ordered two more commanderies to ship.
Panel 07: The year the first chanyu came, the emperor had eleven ministers painted in the Qilin Pavilion from their likeness, offices and names written under each. The only man shown without his name was the one who had actually run the government for twenty years.
The year the first chanyu came, the emperor had eleven ministers painted in the Qilin Pavilion from their likeness, offices and names written under each. The only man shown without his name was the one who had actually run the government for twenty years.
Panel 08: Two years later the emperor's own secretaries had the winning arguer arrested. His wife said the summons could not be the emperor's wish; he asked his student, and his student bade him die. He drank before the guard took him.
Xiao Wangzhi I have filled the seats of general and chancellor and am past sixty. To go down into prison old and beg for a few more breaths — is that not mean?
Xiao Wangzhi Make the medicine up at once — do not keep me long a-dying.
Two years later the emperor's own secretaries had the winning arguer arrested. His wife said the summons could not be the emperor's wish; he asked his student, and his student bade him die. He drank before the guard took him.
Panel 09: Zhizhi never came back east. He pulled the western half of the steppe apart under him, beat the Wusun until they stopped counting the losses, and moved his court into country the chancellery could measure in li and nobody could picture.
Zhizhi never came back east. He pulled the western half of the steppe apart under him, beat the Wusun until they stopped counting the losses, and moved his court into country the chancellery could measure in li and nobody could picture.
Panel 10: In Kangju he built what a steppe power was not supposed to be able to build: a walled town, a second wooden palisade outside the earth, and five-coloured banners on the wall. He levied the country on it, five hundred men a day for two years, and then wrote to Chang'an pretending he was in straits and wished to come.
In Kangju he built what a steppe power was not supposed to be able to build: a walled town, a second wooden palisade outside the earth, and five-coloured banners on the wall. He levied the country on it, five hundred men a day for two years, and then wrote to Chang'an pretending he was in straits and wished to come.
Panel 11: The argument that got Gu Ji killed was a small one: should the prince be walked home, or handed over at the wall. He volunteered for the longer answer, against the men who had run out of reasons to trust this brother.
Gu Ji We fed his son ten years and then cut him off at the frontier, and show them we mean to throw them both away? Sink one envoy, quiet one border. That is the state's plan and my own wish.
The argument that got Gu Ji killed was a small one: should the prince be walked home, or handed over at the wall. He volunteered for the longer answer, against the men who had run out of reasons to trust this brother.
Panel 12: The next mission went to the other brother, to walk his prince home and quietly ask about the missing men. Its two officers climbed a mountain, killed a white horse, drank the blood out of a dead king's skull, and swore that Han and Xiongnu were one family for all future generations.
The next mission went to the other brother, to walk his prince home and quietly ask about the missing men. Its two officers climbed a mountain, killed a white horse, drank the blood out of a dead king's skull, and swore that Han and Xiongnu were one family for all future generations.
Panel 13: In 36 BCE, while his superior lay ill, Chen Tang rode out and raised an army on the emperor's authority, which he had no right to invoke. Gan Yanshou came out of bed to stop a force already marching, and was shouted down by his own deputy, who pressed his sword on him.
Chen Tang The mass is assembled and you mean to break it up? Boy — do you want to delay the host?
In 36 BCE, while his superior lay ill, Chen Tang rode out and raised an army on the emperor's authority, which he had no right to invoke. Gan Yanshou came out of bed to stop a force already marching, and was shouted down by his own deputy, who pressed his sword on him.
Panel 14: Six divisions, forty thousand Han and barbarian troops, and two roads across the Western Regions between them and a city on the Talas. They came to the water three li from the wall.
Zhizhi Chanyu The Han army has come a long way; it cannot hold a long attack. Stay and fight from the city.
Six divisions, forty thousand Han and barbarian troops, and two roads across the Western Regions between them and a city on the Talas. They came to the water three li from the wall.
Panel 15: The memorial that came back with the head asked for something above the reward: that the skull be hung in the barbarian quarter of Chang'an, so that anyone who could read the distance could also read the price.
The memorial that came back with the head asked for something above the reward: that the skull be hung in the barbarian quarter of Chang'an, so that anyone who could read the distance could also read the price.
Panel 16: Then came the harder question, which was whether the men who did it were criminals. Shi Xian and Kuang Heng said one reward here would buy a war on every frontier; the emperor liked the deed and dreaded the argument, and the case sat unresolved.
Liu Xiang He who weighs great merit does not tally small faults. The Sima Fa says the reward of a campaign must not wait the month out.
Then came the harder question, which was whether the men who did it were criminals. Shi Xian and Kuang Heng said one reward here would buy a war on every frontier; the emperor liked the deed and dreaded the argument, and the case sat unresolved.
Panel 17: Huhanye came again in 33 BCE, having waited for his brother to die, and asked to marry into the imperial house. The court sent a woman of Nan commandery who had been chosen into the palaces, and renamed the era in the same month.
Huhanye came again in 33 BCE, having waited for his brother to die, and asked to marry into the imperial house. The court sent a woman of Nan commandery who had been chosen into the palaces, and renamed the era in the same month.
Panel 18: The chanyu's last offer was what the court had wanted for a century: he would give up the wall and police the frontier himself, for ever. Every minister thought it a good trade. One man who knew the border wrote down ten reasons why it was not.
Huhanye Chanyu Let the border garrisons be withdrawn and the Son of Heaven's people rest. I will hold the wall from Shanggu west to Dunhuang and pass it to my sons without end.
The chanyu's last offer was what the court had wanted for a century: he would give up the wall and police the frontier himself, for ever. Every minister thought it a good trade. One man who knew the border wrote down ten reasons why it was not.

In this episode

Six people carried the fifty years before Christ's birth turned into Han foreign policy: two brothers who each wanted the steppe throne, the courtier who received one of them as a subject, the colonel who killed the other without asking, and the woman who married into the peace they made.

Portrait of Huhanye Chanyu
Huhanye Chanyu呼韓邪單于
d. 31 BCE
Claimant in a five-cornered civil war who took his adviser's advice and gave the Han his name. Ended with a title above every vassal king, a Han bride, and a Han guard left at his camp.
Portrait of Zhizhi Chanyu
Zhizhi Chanyu郅支單于
d. 36 BCE
His elder brother, who would not kneel and rode ten thousand li west instead. Built a city on the Talas, killed the envoys sent to talk to him, and was shot through the nose on the wall and died in his inner quarters.
Portrait of Xiao Wangzhi
Xiao Wangzhi蕭望之
d. 47 BCE
The grandee who argued that a chanyu should be received as a guest and not a subject. He won, was painted on the wall of honoured ministers while still alive, and was driven to poison two years later.
Portrait of Gan Yanshou
Gan Yanshou甘延壽
fl. 36–33 BCE
Protector General in the Western Regions, a frontiersman picked for his strength at throwing stones. He was ill in bed when his deputy raised an army in the emperor's name, and ended up riding at the head of it.
Portrait of Chen Tang
Chen Tang陳湯
fl. 47–36 BCE
Deputy commander: poor, always borrowing, disliked in his home district, twice in gaol. He forged the edict, the garrison colonies marched on his signature, and he spent the rest of his life defending it.
Portrait of Wang Zhaojun
Wang Zhaojun王昭君
fl. 33–31 BCE
A woman of Nan commandery chosen into the palaces, given to the chanyu as a consort when the northern war was over. The era name was changed the same spring to mark the gift as finished.

Myth Check

The Ming romances of the Han dynasties, the stage plays drawn from them and the serials drawn from those are entertainment — and not a source. Where their famous scenes depart from the histories, we leave them out of the story and put them here.

The story you may know

Wang Zhaojun was sent out because the emperor picked the wrong portrait, having been refused a bribe by the painter Mao Yanshou.

What the sources say

Neither Han history has a portrait bureau or a painter. The Book of the Han says only that a daughter of good family was given from the palaces; the Book of the Later Han says she asked to go and that the emperor saw her for the first time at the farewell. Mao Yanshou and the bribes enter with later anecdote collections, and the pipa is a stage property.

Hanshu, juan 9 and juan 94; Hou Han shu, juan 89; the anecdote tradition is later and is not a source for these years
The story you may know

Chen Tang's raid was the emperor's own plan, carried out without the paperwork.

What the sources say

The record says the opposite and is blunt about it: Gan Yanshou wanted to memorialise first, Chen Tang would not wait, and the edict was forged while the Protector General lay ill. Both men then accused themselves in writing on the day they marched. The argument over the skull, the months-long deadlock over the reward, and Tang's later imprisonment and degradation all follow from the fact that nobody had authorised any of it.

Hanshu, juan 70, Biographies of Gan Yanshou and Chen Tang
The story you may know

Huhanye's submission made the Xiongnu a Han province.

What the sources say

It made him a client in an unusually expensive class. He was ranked above every vassal king and was not administered as a subject; the Han sent grain, gold, silk and a guard, and asked for the words of his address, not for the government of his people. When he offered to take over the frontier wall himself, the court refused after one clerk listed what would walk out through the gap.

Hanshu, juan 94, Biography of the Xiongnu (lower); juan 78, Biography of Xiao Wangzhi
The story you may know

Zhizhi's city on the Talas was garrisoned by a lost Roman legion captured at Carrhae.

What the sources say

The hypothesis rests on one phrase in the Han account of the assault, describing infantry drilled in fish-scale order at the gate, plus a place-name. No Han source and no Roman source puts a legion east of the Jaxartes; the city is described as earth with a doubled wooden palisade, built with Kangju's help and conscripted labour. Raised in print by Homer Dubs and taken up since by a museum, the reading has not been accepted by specialists in Han military text.

Hanshu, juan 70 is the whole of the ancient evidence; the Roman legio IX and Carrhae are not connected to it
The story you may know

Wang Zhaojun drowned herself rather than marry the new chanyu.

What the sources say

The only early account of her after Huhanye's death says the reverse: she wrote asking to come home, Emperor Cheng told her to follow barbarian custom, and she married his successor and bore him two daughters. The river is later.

Hou Han shu, juan 89, Biography of the Southern Xiongnu

Sources

Every caption and quotation in this episode traces to one of these. Where scholars disagree, the panel says so.

Next

The steppe was settled, the frontier paid for itself, and the throne came to a family that read the past as an instruction manual: Episode 9 · Ten Thousand Changes (Chang'an and the New, 8 CE to 23 CE). The peace held for fifty years, and then a well-read regent decided the mandate had moved. Or back to the Han line, or meet the cast.