The border areas of the ancient dynasties were always harassed and plundered by nomads, and the border areas played an important role in the unification of the country.
Emperor Wudi of Han had great foresight, having sent troops to fight the Xiongnu and subordinate, and even sent troops to fight a war readiness area despite opposition, which still benefits China today. Let's look below and feel the pride of "Kou can go, I can go"
The Han and Xiongnu are inherently antagonistic, one is an agrarian people and the other is a nomadic people, one is self-sufficient and lives on the land, the other grazes and plunders, and survives by herding.
As early as the beginning of the Warring States, the northern princely states successively built the Great Wall to resist the Xiongnu, and after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, the original Great Wall was connected and continued to be built on its basis.
The largest military campaign against the Xiongnu during the Qin Dynasty was when Qin Shi Huang sent the general Meng Tian to lead an army of 300,000 to attack the Xiongnu and occupy the land of Henan, which is the area of today's Hetao.
At the end of the Qin Dynasty, the world was in chaos, the Qin Dynasty had no time to take care of the north, the Xiongnu took the opportunity to occupy the land of Henan, the Han Dynasty after more than 60 years of inaction, the rule of Wenjing, the Han Wudi period of the country was rich and strong, turned defense to attack the Xiongnu, and successively fought decades of war against the Xiongnu, known as the Han-Hungarian War.
In 202 AD, Liu Bang ascended the throne, named the state Han, and it took Liu Bang only seven years from Peixian to ascend the throne as emperor, and Liu Bang's only remaining enemy at this time was the Xiongnu.
The Xiongnu Empire can be said to be a steppe empire that rose at the same time as the Han Empire, and the conflict between nomads and farming peoples seemed inevitable.
The Qin Dynasty temporarily blocked the iron hoof of the Xiongnu with the Great Wall, and now the problem is in the hands of the Han Dynasty, let's see how the Han Dynasty made the answer.
At that time, the leader of the Xiongnu, Mudun Shan Yu, led troops to occupy a vast area from Yin Mountain in the south, Lake Baikal in the north, Liao River in the east, and Congling Mountains in the west, becoming the most powerful nation in the north.
In the second year of Liu Bang's accession to the throne, Shan Yu led his troops across the Great Wall, constantly harassing the borders of the Han Empire, and planted the banner at the head of Jinyang, an important border town.
Liu Bang couldn't sit still, he could do Xiang Yu himself, and destroyed the Qin State that was afraid of the Xiongnu, isn't it easy for the Great Han to fight this little Xiongnu?
This plausible logic made Liu Bang confident to send troops and lead an army of 320,000 to Jinyang, Liu Bang can be said to have no idea of the strength of the Xiongnu, left the infantry behind, and personally led the light cavalry to rush to today's Datong area of Shanxi.
As a result, in Baidengshan, 400,000 Xiongnu elite cavalry suddenly appeared overnight to surround the Baidengshan regiment, and Liu Bang was dumbfounded all of a sudden, and Shan Yu led his troops to intercept the infantry that was left behind, and directly surrounded Liu Bang so that every day was not working, and the ground should not be called.
With no food and grass and no foreign aid, after seven days and seven nights, seeing that Liu Bang was about to receive a boxed lunch, the strategist Chen Ping used a stratagem to untie a corner of the encirclement, and Liu Bang fled back to Chang'an.
This scared Liu Bang, and at the beginning of the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the country was still relatively depressed, and in the face of the Xiongnu's intensified harassment, Liu Bang could only sacrifice the princess to Shan Yu, barely in exchange for a short period of peace. After Liu Bang's death, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing also implemented the policy of the previous emperor step by step.
During the reign of Emperor Wudi of Han, the confrontation with the Xiongnu would change dramatically. From the birth of Emperor Wudi of Han to two years before his accession to the throne, the Xiongnu carried out five large-scale invasions in eighteen years, which Emperor Wudi of Han regarded as a disgrace.
Emperor Wudi of Han was still young when he ascended the throne, and the young man with a strong ambition was not reluctant and determined to achieve a career, and his imperial career would be incomplete without defeating the Xiongnu.
In 133 BC, Emperor Wudi of Han issued an edict intending to attack the Xiongnu, which led to two controversies in the imperial court, and finally an edict decided that the Han dynasty should start rebelling from humiliating peace.
In the same year, the prologue of the Han-Hungarian War began in Mayi, and the Han Dynasty used Mayi as bait, and there was a man named Nie Yi, who was a more popular person on the Xiongnu side.
Nie Yi said that he could pretend to let Mayi be in civil unrest, kill Ma Yi's officials, hang his head on the city gate, and lure the Xiongnu to attack Mayi.
The fact that a head was hanging from the gate of Mayi was summoned to Shan Yu by the Xiongnu cavalry, and at this time Shan Yu was the grandson of Shan Yu, a military minister Shan Yu.
He learned that Nie Yi killed the Mayi County Order as agreed, and used the head hanging from the city gate as a signal to send troops, at this time the troops could occupy Mayi, and the military minister Shan Yu did not think that this was a strategy of the Han army, after all, the Han Dynasty had no attempt to resist for decades.
The head hanging on the city gate was actually pretended by Nie Yi in collusion with the officials and using the heads of death row prisoners, and at this time there were 300,000 Han troops in the valley of Mayi, and everything was ready, and the Xiongnu arrived.
Sure enough, the military minister Shan Yu led 100,000 cavalry, and under the temptation of interests, he rushed to Mayi without hesitation.
However, during the march, the military commanders found something strange, there were no scattered people fleeing on the road, and there were actually flocks of sheep grazing leisurely on the meadow, but there was no one to guard the flock.
It was all too quiet, a little too strange, and the military minister Shan Yu decided to pause the assault and take a prisoner back.
Wuzhou is about two hundred kilometers northeast of Mayi, and attacking Mayi will definitely pass through Wuzhou, and Wuzhou Weishi has become this unlucky ghost.
Wuzhou sent a Wei Shi out to inquire about the war, and as a result, this Wei Shi met the Xiongnu as soon as he went out, and so many Xiongnu came, he fled in a panic.
Then the Xiongnu found the target, chased after him, and after being captured, he had to be tortured in the Xiongnu, this Wei Shi was a timid man, in fact, he did not know the military deployment of Ma Yi, he only knew that the imperial court wanted to fight here.
The timid Wuzhou Wei Shi now only had the idea of living in his mind, and directly confessed everything he knew under pressure. While the Han army was waiting in front of the army, the military minister Shan Yu had already ordered the cavalry to withdraw quickly.
This time, the Han army achieved nothing, Emperor Wudi of Han was furious, and the plan was actually destroyed by a rat, and the first ambitious undertaking was planted.
Emperor Wudi of Han knew that if he chose to retreat after this time, the Han Dynasty would continue to be at a disadvantage in the border area, which also prompted Emperor Wudi of Han to make up his mind to use tough means again.
In 129 BC, Emperor Wudi of Han decided to attack the Xiongnu in four ways, sending the cavalry general Wei Qing out of Shanggu with 10,000 cavalry, the light cavalry general Gongsun He with 10,000 cavalry out of the clouds, the light cavalry general Gongsun Ao with 10,000 cavalry out of Dai County, and the cavalry general Li Guang with 10,000 cavalry out of Yanmen.
Cross the Great Wall deep into the heart of the Xiongnu, take guerrilla warfare, and look for fighters on the move.
As a result, the four-way army turned around for several days, and Sun He went out of the clouds, and the Xiongnu were not encountered at all in the vast grassland, and the whole army returned. Not long after the general Gongsun Ao set out, he directly encountered the main Xiongnu forces, losing 7,000 men.
Li Guang's luck was even worse, almost all the army was destroyed, and he was captured by the Xiongnu, and later pretended to be dead and saw the opportunity to escape with his outstanding martial arts. Only Wei Qing's last hope remained.
Wei Qing set his target on the place where the Xiongnu sacrificed, Dragon City, he knew that if this place was taken by the Han army, this battle would be considered a victory, Dragon City was a place that condensed the spirit of the ethnic group, and it was an important spiritual sacred place for the Xiongnu.
If you can break through Dragon City, it will inevitably strike at the arrogance of the Xiongnu, and under Wei Qing's careful analysis, kill hundreds of Xiongnu in one fell swoop and severely damage Dragon City.
Wei Qing's victory this time can be said to have saved the face of Emperor Wudi of Han and gave hope for the continuation of the subsequent crusade, but it was also this action of the Han army that completely angered the Xiongnu.
In the winter of the same year, the military minister Shan Yu sent five large armies to attack Yuyang Commandery, Youbeiping Commandery, Dai Commandery, Yanmen Commandery, and Yunzhong Commandery respectively, because of the long front, the Xiongnu had already retreated by the time the Han army came to reinforce them, and as soon as the Han army returned to the interior, the Xiongnu began to harass again.
This went back and forth, killing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the border area, and the following year the Xiongnu sent 20,000 troops to attack Liaoxi County, killing Taishou and plundering more than 2,000 people.
At the same time, he sent a large army to attack Yuyang Commandery, Yanmen and other areas, and quickly retreated after plundering the people with the advantage of cavalry, resulting in the Han army being unable to pursue, and in the face of such a provocation, Emperor Wudi of Han was determined to fight another big battle to deal a heavy blow to the Xiongnu.
According to the deployment of the Xiongnu, he formulated the strategic policy of "Hu riding east, Handang attacking west", that is, sending the general Wei Qing out of Yunzhong County, west to Gaoque, waiting for the opportunity to attack the land south of the Xiongnu Henan.
Henan is the Hetao Plain on today's Ordos Plateau, a plain sandwiched between the Yin Mountains of Helan Mountains, and the Yellow River enters Ningxia from south to north from Gansu, then turns east from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and then turns south to separate Shaanxi Province and Shanxi Province.
This is a place where the Xiongnu in the north and the Han people in the Central Plains must fight, and the Yellow River Loop area is nourished by the waters of the Yellow River, with fertile water and grass and rich land resources, it can be said that whoever controls the Loop area has the strategic initiative.
Emperor Wudi of Han, who had military acumen, knew very well that the battle of Henan was absolutely to be won. To be on the safe side, Emperor Wudi of Han ordered the general Li Xixian to lead an army of 10,000 to attack Dai Commandery and feign an attack on the Xiongnu, making a false impression that he wanted to attack the military subjects from the front.
And the military minister alone on this side, since the dragon city was breached, has been in the heart, the fire of revenge has long been impatient, when he learned that the Han army sent troops from Dai County, he immediately ordered the left and right Xian kings to move closer to the middle.
After continuous investigation, Wei Qing discovered a treasure land, which was the junction of the tripartite jurisdiction of King Lou Fu and King Aries and King Youxian, because this place was a vacuum and was unmanaged.
Since the fall of the Qin Dynasty, this place has been empty and undependent, and there has never been a Han army, so there is no Xiongnu vigilance in this area, and Wei Qing marched along the inner side of the Great Wall of Qin, on the north bank of the Yellow River, and appeared here unknowingly.
After leading the army to Gaoque, he left 5,000 cavalry to cut off the connection between the Xiongnu Right Xian King, and then led some elite troops to launch a fierce attack on King Lou Fu and King Aries with lightning speed, and the soldiers of the Han army were like fierce tigers descending the mountain to fight bravely.
When King Lou and King Aries were defenseless, countless Han troops came like a tide, and King Lou organized the Xiongnu cavalry to rush to battle, and the panicked Xiongnu could not organize an effective counterattack, and suffered heavy losses after a while.
The messenger they reported to the Right Xian King was also captured by the Han army, and after a long battle, King Lou and King Aries knew that the defeat was decided, or it was important to escape, and while ordering people to resist desperately, they quietly took advantage of the night to take advantage of the night and quickly ran away.
The Han army rode their war horses and chased closely behind, but King Lou and King Aries sneaked into the Hexi corridor with their familiar environment and disappeared into the mountains, and had no choice but to return.
Wei Qing led his army to retake the Yellow River Loop area, which had long been entrenched by the Xiongnu, killing more than 2,300 enemies, capturing countless chariots and horses, and capturing more than 3,000 enemy scouts.
Undoubtedly a heavy blow to the Xiongnu, Wei Qing made great achievements and was named the Marquis of Changping, and Wei Qing can be said to have won the love of the people of the whole country.
The Hetao Plain is a treasure land, the Han Dynasty made full use of the natural fertile land in the region to open up farmland and build new water conservancy, vigorously develop agriculture, and there are natural vast pastures in this area, which also provides convenient conditions for the establishment of Han military horse farms and domesticates high-quality war horses for subsequent wars.
Emperor Wudi of Han ordered people to build Shuofang City here, set up Shuofang Commandery and Wuyuan County, and moved 100,000 people from the interior to settle here, which not only relieved the Xiongnu's direct threat to Chang'an, but also became a military base for the Han Dynasty to attack the Xiongnu north, west and east.
The development of this area has played an indelible role in the preparation and unification of subsequent dynasties, and the Hetao Plain is still an important grain production base in the northwest region.