During the Two Han Dynasties, there were Xiongnu, Wuhuan and Xianbei in the north, and Fuyu in the northeast, the greatest threat of which was the Xiongnu on the Mongolian plateau in the north, the Xiongnu was a collective name, and the Turks after the Xiongnu all belonged to the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu people are mainly animal husbandry, this kind of life by relying on the sky to eat is extremely unstable, as long as the grassland encounters drought or blizzard, basically can only survive through robbery, which also forms a fundamental contradiction with the agricultural civilization of the Central Plains, which is irreconcilable.
The Huns who moved west
At its peak, the Xiongnu had a population of 1.5 million and a military strength of about 300,000, while the Han Dynasty population at that time was 60 million, and the number of soldiers who could support them was 600,000, but the nomadic cavalry had a natural advantage over the infantry of the Central Plains Dynasty, they basically did not need logistical support, led three horses, thirsty and hungry to drink horse milk, and could find wild food with their bows. If the Han Dynasty wanted to transport grain and grass to the north, the escort soldiers needed to eat 80%, and it can be said that the war consumption was much greater than that of the nomads. Moreover, the nomadic people are also relatively mobile, able to march 80 kilometers a day on the grasslands, basically catching up with the current mechanized troops.
Therefore, in the early days of the Western Han Dynasty, it could only avoid war by means of peace and affection, not only marrying daughters, but also sending valuable items such as grain, goods, silk and gold and silver. During the period of Emperor Wu of Han, the han dynasty was strong, and Emperor Wu of Han appointed Wei Qinghuo to go on an expedition to the Xiongnu, and achieved great counterattack results. Although the Han Dynasty was also a cavalryman, at that time the Han Dynasty's iron smelting technology was very advanced, and its weapons were ahead of the Xiongnu, so in 73 AD, Dou Gu and Dou Xian's nephews defeated the Northern Xiongnu, forcing the Northern Xiongnu to move west.
The Northern Xiongnu regime collapsed, and their last appearance in Chinese history was in 119 AD, and more than two centuries later, they appeared in Europe. As for where they went in the middle of these 200 years, no one knows, because the Huns have no writing, and there are very few cultural relics unearthed, and the surrounding ethnic groups are not recorded, and can only rely on historians to speculate.
The Huns we call, European scholars habitually call them Huns, and are also the ancestors of the present Hungarians, the first three letters of hungarian English hunger are Hun, which means Hun in English. Because of the mixed blood of thousands of years, today when I go to Hungary, I can no longer see that the Hungarians have the appearance of yellow people, but that they see white people.
However, the statue of the ancient king in the central square is obviously of Mongolian race, and according to the European historical records of Attila, unlike the Europeans, the facial features are very clear and exaggerated, but the flat face, small eyes, thin eyebrows, and collapsed nose bridge are obviously yellow people. It is said that the Finns, as well as the Estonians, may also be of Somewhat Hunn descent.
After these Huns arrived in Europe, they were still the same as in the Han Dynasty, the battle was extremely fierce, coming and going without a trace, not only did they have no opponents on the European steppe, but even the more powerful Roman Empire at that time dared to break their wrists. However, the Roman walls at that time were very strong and could not be taken casually, so the Western Romans at that time proposed to exchange hostages with the Huns and live in harmony.
At that time, the Huns adopted a system of two kings ruling together, in which two chiefs prevented one leader from leading the charge and dying in battle, and the entire tribe was leaderless. Because the leaders of the nomadic people rely on military merit to build their prestige, it is common to rush in front of them when fighting, so the chance of death in battle is also very high. At that time, the future crown prince of the Huns was not only the hostage Attila, but also Attila's brother Brida.
Attila, the Hungarian leader
Attila was only 12 years old when he was sent as a hostage, and was 28 years old when he returned to take the throne, and when he was a hostage in Rome, Attila received a good education and knew the habits and tactics of Rome very well. At this time, Rome was no longer the Rome of the past, and it was divided into two Romes, East and West, and its influence was constantly decreasing.
In 436 AD, there was unrest in North Africa, the Eastern Roman Empire sent most of the army to North Africa, Attila and his brother Brida seized this opportunity to launch an attack on the Roman Margus, Attila asked the Eastern Roman Emperor to send envoys to negotiate peace, and hand over the traitors of the Huns in eastern Rome, in return the Huns will guard the border crossings for the Roman Empire and prevent other nomads from harassing them.
This was actually a test by Attila, on the one hand, to test the bottom line of Eastern Rome, on the other hand, to look at the military deployment of Eastern Rome, etc. Through this negotiation, Attila also established his own prestige. He then found a reason to believe that the Pope had dug up his family's ancestral grave and stolen the treasure of the funeral, so he abrogated the covenant and led his troops across the Danube.
Whether there was a tomb of the ancestors of the family is not known, but it has become a given fact that the soldiers are in the city, and at this time the Roman army is still in North Africa, unable to resist this Hun army, so they sent people to talk with the Huns. At this time, Attila's ambitions were also growing, and at the celebration banquet, he sent assassins to assassinate his brother Breda and purged his brother Breda's forces.
"Whip of God" Attila
Attila changed his former two-king policy, put his son in an important position, took all the power in his own hands, and became a veritable dictator. So he re-led the Hun army to attack the Roman Empire, he sacked several cities, and even many of the cities that resisted were slaughtered, and some even became ruins. It was also because of this almost crazy robbery that Attila was given the title of "Whip of God" by the Europeans, meaning that God sent the demons to punish the Europeans.
In 443, Attila led a large army to attack the eastern Roman capital of Constantinople, which is now Istanbul in Turkey, but at this time the Eastern Roman Empire was suffering from plague and famine, and also suffered a major earthquake, and the entire city wall was destroyed. Although Attila defeated the Roman soldiers outside the city, due to the lack of siege equipment, Attila gave up his plan to attack Constantinople and instead let the soldiers continue to plunder outside the city walls.
When the city of Rome was running out of food, the Eastern Roman Emperor finally agreed to peace talks on the condition that Attila be paid 1,900 kilograms of gold, and that 687 kilograms of gold would be surrendered to Attila every year, and each captured Roman would have to redeem it with 12 gold coins. The money was astronomical at the time, directly making Attila the richest man of his time and subjecting many other nomads directly to his feet. In the eyes of the nomadic people, there is milk is the mother, not to mention that the force value of this milk lady is still very strong.
The Attila Empire then expanded, becoming the king of the Eurasian steppes at the time. The Eastern Roman Empire had been taken care of, and Attila's next target was the Western Roman Empire, as well as some of the surrounding barbarian states.
At this time, the Situation of the Western Roman Empire was even worse than that of the Eastern Roman Empire, and due to many barbarian invasions, the Roman city had been dilapidated, and even the capital of the Empire had to be moved to Ravenna. When Attila arrived, the Western Romans offered to make friends with Attila. For Attila, the Western Roman Empire, which was the sun setting on the sun, was not the key, but the new barbarian states, which also happened to be the heart of the Western Roman Empire.
With Attila's help, the Western Roman Empire quickly swept away the barbarian forces around it, and when all the looters were looted, Attila found that there was nothing to grab. At this time, the news came that the Eastern Roman Emperor fell from his horse and died, and the new emperor refused to pay tribute to Attilana after succeeding to the throne. In fact, Attila also understood that Eastern Rome had been squeezed dry, and he had to find a new source of wealth.
Attila set his ultimate goal at the Western Roman Empire, which grew and grew, and it was necessary to have a big fat sheep to feed so many nomadic tribes. But at this time, the Western Romans did not want to be a lamb, and they united with the surrounding barbarian tribes to fight Attila, and fought a decisive battle with Attila in Chalons in central France.
The Fall of the Empire
Attila, who had never suffered defeat before, lost the battle, and returned to his base camp to await revenge. The following summer, Attila led an army across the Eastern Alps and invaded Italy, the core of the Western Roman Empire. The march was still burned and looted, all the cities in the northern plains of Italy were destroyed, and the military town of Achilles in northeast Italy was almost razed to the ground.
Eventually Attila stopped his attack on the Po River in northern Italy, and he agreed to negotiate with envoys sent by the emperor, and later Christians believed that Attila had been persuaded by the Pope and abandoned the attack. In fact, there was a massive outbreak of malaria and famine in Italy at that time, and the whole of northern Italy was like hell, and the threat of staying here was even greater.
Attila returned to the Hungarian plains after receiving a great fortune and arranged a wedding to commemorate the triumph. Although Attila had been married more than 50 times, because she had to establish marriages with each tribe, she needed to constantly marry women from different tribes.
Attila married a bride from a Germanic tribe, but after the wedding feast, Attila died unexpectedly. There is a contradictory, suspicious description of Attila's death, saying that his body was covered in blood but without obvious wounds. Attila's sudden death aroused suspicion. Some say he was killed by the bride of a Germanic tribe. But others say he choked to death of a nosebleed after getting drunk, and Attila's wedding eventually turned into his own funeral.
Thus ended Attila's legendary life, and his dictatorship did not have a successor, so there was a scuffle between the tribes, the first to rebel was the father of the bride at which Attila had just married, who together with Attila's second son and killed the eldest son. The second son of Attila, in order to show his prestige, re-attacked Eastern Rome, but this time it ended in failure, and the second son's head was hung outside the walls of Constantinople.