The Westward Migration of the Northern Huns: Ethnic Changes in Eurasia after the Fall of the Hun Empire (Part II)
Ethnic changes provoked by the westward migration of the Huns
1. Ethnic changes on the Asian continent
The desert steppe will never lack a master, and once a wave of nomads has passed, the next wave of nomads will be on top, over and over again, and again. The Northern Xiongnu left the Desert North Grassland in order to survive, and some ethnic groups entered the Desert North Grassland in order to survive.
After the northern Xiongnu tiger left, the first monkey to call the king was Xianbei. Xianbei was also once a branch of the Eastern Hu clan that was defeated by the Xiongnu, and after the Northern Xiongnu left, their strength gradually increased and began to enter the desert grassland.
In the middle of the 2nd century, Xianbei produced a capable man, Tanshi Huai, who unified all the xianbei tribes and occupied the homeland of the Xiongnu, which once made the Han court greatly jealous. But after his death, Xianbei flourished and declined, and fell into a split.
At this time, the Eastern Han Dynasty was already at the end of the crossbow, and great chaos was already brewing, in 184 AD, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, and the Central Plains launched a new round of deer hunting, unable to take care of the invasion of the nomadic peoples in the north of the desert. When the overall situation was slightly determined, the world was divided into three parts, and then unified in the Western Jin Dynasty, so it was seventy or eighty years later, and many nomadic herders in northern Mobei were already settled in the Han Dynasty at this time.
At this time, the nomads would be so keen to go south, in addition to the reason why the Central Plains Dynasty was unable to resist, there was also a climate reason.
The Han to Sui Dynasty (from the beginning to the 7th century AD) was the second cold period in China, when the temperature in the desert north plummeted, the precipitation decreased, and there was a Xiaoice period, which seriously affected the growth of pasture grass, thus affecting the survival of the nomadic people, so they would of course take the opportunity to invade the Central Plains in order to live in the chaos of the Central Plains.
By the time the Western Jin Dynasty reacted, the situation in the north had changed dramatically. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Southern Xiongnu that had been attached to it were already living in Hezhou at the end of the Han Dynasty, and Cao Cao divided it into five parts, divided into commanders, and the Xiongnu guided each other, and the remnants of the Xiongnu outside the Saixi had gone south, and by the time of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Xiongnu living in Hezhou had reached more than 200,000 people.
The Xiongnu were originally Hu people in the Western Regions, with a high nose and deep eyes and many beards, and they were also enslaved by the Xiongnu, so they were known as "Xiongnu Beibu", and the Western Jin Dynasty was mainly divided in Wuxiang County, Shangdang County. After the Northern Xiongnu left, they moved eastward from the Eastern Han Dynasty, and by the time of the Western Jin Dynasty, they mainly lived in Longxi and Guanzhong, and their population already accounted for half of the population of the central region.
At this time, Xianbei, which had once risen in the Eastern Han Dynasty, mainly lived along the border of the northeast and the north. The five ethnic groups mentioned above are also known as "Wuhu", and their ethnic changes are in the northern Xiongnu moving west, the desert north is empty, and the central plains are weak, and the Wuhu chaohua followed.
Therefore, after the Northern Xiongnu left, the ethnic changes in Asia were that the tribes that were originally suppressed by the Xiongnu occupied the homeland of the Xiongnu, and then invaded the Han nationality through the chaos in the Central Plains, which provoked the great integration of the Huhan people. This fusion of violence and war has brought great disasters to the people of all ethnic groups, but at the same time injected new vitality into the development of the Central Plains.
2. Ethnic changes on the European continent
The Northern Xiongnu came to the east, bringing a series of ethnic changes to the European peoples, some countries perished, some countries rose, and their liveliness was not much worse than that of the Sixteen Central Plains.
The Huns migrated to Europe after about the middle of the 4th century AD. At this time in Europe, the powerful Roman Empire had weakened under the siege of barbarians.
In 375, after the Westward Migrating Huns entered Europe, they attacked the European barbarian Ostrogoths, the Ostrogoths were defeated and retreated to the west, thus squeezing the Visigoths, who in order to survive and asked Rome to live on the Roman border, got Rome's permission, and the Visigoths were dissatisfied with Rome's oppression and broke out an anti-Roman uprising.
Rome's power was weakened, and in the battle against the Visigoths, it was repeatedly defeated, and in 408, the Visigoths, under the leadership of Alaric, captured the city of Rome and then moved to various places, and in 419 established the Visigothic kingdom in Toulouse.
After the establishment of the Visigothic kingdom, the spearhead of expansion was directed at Spain, and after marching into Spain, they oppressed the barbarian kingdom of Suvihui in Spain to a northwestern corner, and drove the Vandal-Alan out of Europe, they crossed the Iberian Strait, occupied North Africa, and in 439, occupied Carthage and established the Vandal kingdom.
After the ostrogoths were defeated by the Northern Huns, they entered Italy under the leadership of the tribal leader Theodoric, and in 439 established the Ostrogothic kingdom, with the capital at Lavina, and later conquered the entire Italian peninsula.
Because the Ostrogothic kingdom vigorously defended the remnants of the Roman slave owners, after its founding, it was strongly opposed by the lower classes, so the foundation was not solid, and soon the country was divided, and the country's power gradually declined. It was also destroyed by Justinian of the Eastern Roman Empire in 554.
After the Ostrogoths were squeezed out by the Northern Huns, the Lombards moved to Pannonia in the 6th century, occupying the place where the Ostrogoths once lived.
In 568, the Lombards, led by their leader Alboin, crossed the Alps, invaded northern Italy, defeated the Byzantine army, and established the Lombard Kingdom, with the capital at Ravenna, the end of the Great Migration of European peoples. The European migration began with the Northern Huns attacking the Ostrogoths and ending with the establishment of the Lombard kingdom.
And the Northern Xiongnu, the fuse of this great migration, also established a powerful kingdom in Europe. In the early 5th century, the Huns conquered the Danube Plain and by the 1620s had established the Attila Empire.
In 445, Attila became the only Great Danyu of the Hun Empire, and under his leadership, repeatedly attacked the Eastern Roman Empire, and Theodosius II was forced to pay tribute to peace, and the heyday of the Hun Empire arrived.
In 453, Attila Dadanyu married another maiden as a concubine, but when he died on the wedding night, the strength of the Hun Empire declined, and attila's sons competed for the throne.
Portrait of Attila
Therefore, the westward migration of the Northern Xiongnu rolled up a bloody storm in Eurasia, and China was an alternating of the sixteen kingdoms, and then entered a period of great division and great turmoil between the Northern and Southern Dynasties that lasted for more than three hundred years.
In Europe, the Northern Huns added a fire to the originally impatient barbarians, and the barbarians, squeezed by the Huns, attacked the Roman Empire on a large scale, accelerated the division of Rome and perished, and established a series of barbarian kingdoms, which were as lively as China. #古代史 #
