The Woman Who Loves History has Huigen, No. 76
In 135 BC, the Xiongnu were beaten in the "Great War of Han and Hungary".
The Xiongnu, who were seriously injured, were divided, and some of them surrendered south to Emperor Wu of Han and became the courtiers of the Han Dynasty, known in history as the "Southern Xiongnu".
The other part of the Huns chose to continue to resist, but they became more and more weakened under the blows of the Han. In the end, he had to choose to pass through the vast no-man's land and flee to the desert north, known in history as the "Northern Xiongnu".
However, the Northern Xiongnu also mixed badly in the north of the desert, and they have been beaten by the "locals" of the north of the desert, the Xianbei people. As a result, the Northern Xiongnu split again, and some people broke away from the Court of the Northern Xiongnu and joined the Xianbei tribe.
The other part chose to flee the desert north and migrate west to the "Turan Plain" in Central Asia.
They rested for a long time in the Turan Plain, but Central Asia was barren and difficult to stay for long. The Huns, who had regained some of their strength, set their sights on the fertile and rich lands to the west, and marched into Europa.
Battle of the Don: Slay the King of Chechnya and Knock on the Gates of Europe!
The first to be taught a lesson by the Hun cavalry were the ancestors of the present Chechens, the Alans.
Alain, also known as the "Amatsai", was an ancient nomadic people who originated in Central Asia and established a "fighting kingdom" between the Volga and Don rivers that the Roman Empire was afraid of.
When the news of the Xiongnu cavalry attack came, King Xiangcai was very nervous, and he raised his troops to meet the enemy on the banks of the Don River. Chariots and armor are lined up neatly, and the armor is bright and mighty.
This army had fought against Rome, and its combat effectiveness was admired by the Romans. Today, however, they will encounter unprecedented tactics. Their queue, to the tattered Huns, looked like living targets, like "inserting bids and selling heads."
"Chariots" and "armored soldiers", yes, the way of fighting of the Amamicai people is still stuck in the mode of "military vehicle confrontation" in the Spring and Autumn Period of China and the early Warring States period. The Huns' way of fighting was extremely advanced— riding and shooting. What's more, its tactics have become more advanced in the confrontation with the Western Han Dynasty for many years.
The Central Plains regime, since King Wuling of Zhao, has replaced chariots with cavalry equipped with bows and arrows and spears through "Hufu riding and shooting". In the world of great strife, the nations fought endlessly. Catalyzed by high-intensity warfare, cavalry eventually evolved into "crossbow cavalry" armed with crossbows, heavy bows, and spears.
By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Even organized hundreds of thousands of crossbow cavalry troops. These professionalized Western Han cavalry were better nourished, better equipped than the Huns, and had better tactics than the Huns.
Every year, when the snow melted in the spring, they searched along the rivers of the steppe for traces of the Huns. Because the Xinchun River thawed and the river was rich in water and grass, the large and small tribes of the Xiongnu had to bring livestock to the river to eat grass and drink water.
Once the Xiongnu were found, these Western Han crossbow cavalry surrounded them, surrounded the Xiongnu at a distance, and fired long-range with heavy bows with longer ranges. If the Huns return fire at a close range, they will take the initiative to stick to it and shoot flat with crossbows with faster rate of fire and higher accuracy, and a large number of casualties will directly defeat the Hun cavalry.
By the end of the Western Han Dynasty and the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the invention of the stirrup on the half side made the cavalry have a stronger impact, and the heavily armored cavalry appeared. Clad in heavy armor, they completely ignore the arrows of the crossbow, and only a small number of heavy ballistas can inflict damage on them. They launched an attack on the infantry army, and often a single charge could crush an enemy who was ten or even dozens times larger than themselves. For example, in Liu Xiu's war to restore the country, the heavy cavalry of the Eastern Han Dynasty easily defeated the Youzhou crossbow cavalry.
In short, although the archers of the Huns could not defeat the crossbow cavalry of the Western Han Dynasty and the assault cavalry of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they still cut melons and cut vegetables in the face of European military vehicles.
The Huns came and went like the wind, using the Western Han dynasty to deal with them against the Yancai people, and when the enemy approached, they shot with their bows at a long distance, always maintaining "I can hit you, you can't hit me." When the Amakusa people were exhausted, they changed into spears and rushed up to "harvest the wheat."
The Huns' flexible tactics injected "vitality" into the rigid European methods of warfare, leaving a huge shock on king Xiangcai. Unfortunately, it didn't work. At the Battle of the Don River, the kingdom was destroyed by the fiasco of The Tang Dynasty, and the King of Amami Cai was killed on the spot by the Xiongnu, and the whole of Europe was shaken.
But the demise of The Huns was only the beginning, and the Huns continued westward, like a tornado, tore Europe to pieces.
Occupy Germany, France, drink the Madonna River
There is an architectural style in Europe called "Gothic architecture". The "Gothic" is a place name that refers to what is now France, Germany, and Austria south of Germany.
The Xiongnu perished and knocked on the gates of Europe. The first to bear the brunt was the Ostrogothic kingdom west of Amak choi.
The king of the Ostrogothic kingdom at the time was named Herman Rick. After learning the news of The fall of Xiangcai, he urgently gathered an army and Chen Bing bordered to wait for the Xiongnu.
The Goths were tall and powerful, and the main force of their army was the heavily armored Gothic infantry.
At that time, the Goths did not master the technology of making bows and arrows, and the long-range combat means of the Gothic infantry was the "javelin". This method of warfare has been obsolete in the East for hundreds of years. Therefore, herman Like's army was undoubtedly easily defeated by the Huns.
King Herman Lee, with his own soldiers, followed the example of Spartan's three hundred warriors and launched a death-defying charge. However, the army was defeated, and the brave king could not save the retreating army. The Ostrogothic kingdom surrendered as a whole, and those who did not want to surrender fled to the Visigothic kingdom.
The king of the Visigothic kingdom learned the lesson of his neighbors, and he found it difficult for the Gothic army to defeat the nimble Huns in the wilderness. So he fortified his troops on the banks of the river, along the Transnistrian River. The aim was to limit the width of the battlefield and avoid being pulled by the Huns.
However, the Huns used the tactic of false accounts and suspected soldiers, ostensibly confronting the Visigoths on the other side of the river. In fact, the main force of the army crossed the river from upstream at night, attacked from the back of the Visigothic army, and defeated the Visigothic army that night. The Visigothic kingdom was also incorporated into the hands of the Huns.
More than 200,000 Visigothic refugees fled to the Roman Empire, and in the end, the Roman Emperor let these 200,000 people take refuge in the empire, laying the foundation for the future demise of Rome.
The Booming and Declining Hun Empire: Forced Rome to pay tribute, but collapsed overnight.
The Goths became the place where the Huns took root in Europe, and Europeans called them "Huns", and they also began to accept European culture.
In the 5th century, the Huns led an army against Thrace in the Roman Empire. Faced with the helpless governor of Thrace, Urdin uttered his famous phrase, "Whatever I want, I can conquer!" ”。
Soon after, in 431 AD, the Xiongnu Xindan Yu, the son of Urdin, led an army outside Constantinople and forced the Eastern Roman Empire to sign an alliance under the city, demanding 350 pounds of gold per year. Four years later, in 435, the Hun Empire raised the amount to 700 pounds of gold, which the unable to resist the Eastern Roman Empire could only accept.
Fourteen years later, the ambitious new Danyu, Attila, began to gather a large army with the intention of conquering the Western Roman Empire.
The cause of the incident was that Attila received a letter from the Western Roman Empire. The person who wrote the letter was the emperor's sister, the princess of the Roman Empire, Honoria.
It turned out that the head of the court guard who had smuggled in Honoria was discovered by the emperor, who put her under house arrest in the monastery and prepared to marry her to one of the senators of the senate. Hornoria was very reluctant and wrote the letter, hoping that Attila would rescue her and "get out of prison". The letter also came with a ring as a keepsake.
Attila, who had long coveted the Roman Empire, immediately explained that it was a courtship letter from Honoria, which amounted to a marriage contract. And sent people to ask the Roman Emperor for people, and asked for half of the country as a dowry.
When the Western Roman Emperor learned of this, he urgently married Honoria to the Senator and declared that Attila's so-called "marriage contract" was simply a forgery.
Attila naturally did not eat his set, and it was hard to have a reason, naturally it was impossible to give up easily. He raised an army of half a million and marched towards the Roman Empire. The Roman emperors also united with the Goths and raised an army to meet the enemy. The two sides fought a strategic decisive battle at Chalons in present-day northern France.
The battle was fought so hard that in just five hours, more than 160,000 people were killed on both sides.
After suffering heavy casualties, the Western Roman army had no intention of routing. Attila saw that there was nothing to do and chose to take the initiative to retreat. This was the first time that the European allies had defeated the Huns head-on.
More than a year later, summer. Attila died of a strange illness on the night of marrying a new concubine, the Germanic maiden Idico.
Historically, there are many opinions about the cause of Attila's death. One theory is that Attila drank too much, so the nasal artery ruptured and suffocated. Another theory is that the new concubine, Epic, was herself a Roman spy who poisoned Attila in her wine.
Attila died in his prime, his sons rebelled against each other, and the Hun Empire fell apart, and was broken by the Roman army. A year later, Attila's eldest son was killed by the Western Roman Empire. Fifteen years later, the last Hunnic king was killed by the Eastern Roman Empire. Since then, the once-prosperous Xiongnu Empire has disappeared.
The Roman Empire, which destroyed the Huns, was "in the limelight", but a few years later, the Western Roman Empire ushered in its own demise.
The story of the Huns' Western Expedition will be told here first, the next episode "The Fall of Rome", remember to watch It!
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Resources:
1. "The Next 5,000 Years in the World" was published by China Overseas Chinese Publishing House in 2013
2. Movie Attila the Hun, 1954, Italy