For the Xiongnu, as long as the Han surrendered, they would send money, officials, and women, and you couldn't accept it, because the Xiongnu would force you to enjoy this special treatment.
Is this true? Don't you say that the Xiongnu treated the Han people who surrendered in this way, and they were by no means a wild history that was spread falsely, and all of these were recorded in the "Records of the Historians" and the "Book of Han" and other official histories.
For example, in 139 BC, Zhang Qian, the pioneer of the Silk Road, led a team to Yueshi and was captured when he accidentally ran into the Hun cavalry when he passed through the Hexi Corridor.
After the Xiongnu captured Zhang Qian, they did not beat him, did not scold him, but coerced and induced Zhang Qian to surrender through various means, but Zhang Qian always remembered the entrustment of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and did not surrender, and finally escaped from the Xiongnu ten years later in 129 BC while the Xiongnu surveillance was loose.
Although Zhang Qian never surrendered in the past ten years, the Huns did not kill him or put him in prison, but treated him very favorably, and wanted to persuade him to surrender through various methods. ”
The meaning is also very clear, although Zhang Qian did not surrender, but the Huns still gave Zhang Qian a woman, and Zhang Qian also had a child in the Huns, which is more evidence, and we can also infer that the Huns also gave Zhang Qian money, otherwise what did he eat and drink in the ten years of the Huns?
Even if he spends little, don't his wife and children need to spend money? It can be seen that the Xiongnu did not embarrass him too much. If Zhang Qian's example is not convincing, then let's talk about Su Wu's sheep herding.
In 100 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che sent Su Wu to lead a team to the Xiongnu, but not long after Su Wu arrived in the Xiongnu, he caught up with the Xiongnu civil strife, Su Wu was implicated, and was immediately detained by the Xiongnu.
After the Xiongnu detained Su Wu, they did not hurt him, but promised a high-ranking official, but Su Wu did not waver, and then the Xiongnu got angry and began to be ruthless, using torture, but Su Wu still did not waver.
The Xiongnu, who had no choice, exiled Su Wu to the Beihai Sea to herd sheep, and told Su Wu when those sheep could give birth to lambs, and let Su Wu return to the Han Dynasty, but Su Wu found that it was impossible to wait for those sheep to give birth to lambs.
Because the sheep that the Xiongnu gave him were all rams, then until this time, Su Wu also understood that the Xiongnu did not plan to let him go back to the Han Dynasty at all, and this move was mainly to force Su Wu to submit, the Xiongnu did not want to kill Su Wu, and always wanted Su Wu to surrender.
But this Su Wu is really backbone, in the face of the harsh natural environment of Beihai, he never begged the Xiongnu for mercy, but silently herded sheep there for 19 years, until 81 BC, he was rescued by the envoys of the Han Dynasty, and returned to the territory of the Han Dynasty.
And when Su Wu was in the Xiongnu, he was also given a Xiongnu wife, and Su Wu also gave birth to a son named Su Tongguo with this Xiongnu wife, who later followed Su Wu back to the Han Dynasty and was rewarded with Langguan.
In fact, the Xiongnu not only treated the ministers of the Han Dynasty such as Zhang Qian and Su Wu so politely, according to the historical records at the time, even the ordinary soldiers or people of the Han Dynasty, if they were captured by the Xiongnu, as long as they surrendered, they would be rewarded by the Xiongnu, but it was relatively less.
Then the Xiongnu were obviously in the same situation as the Han Dynasty, so why did they treat the Han captives so favorably? Could it be that the Xiongnu really had this kind of civilized tradition of not killing prisoners? Of course not, the Xiongnu did this for their own special reasons, and in the final analysis, it was still interests.
Because the Xiongnu seem to belong to the barbarians of the wilderness, but in fact, the high-level Xiongnu are also very shrewd. Below, we will briefly talk about the specific reasons why the Xiongnu sent money, women, and official positions to Han captives:
01Increase the population
Although the Xiongnu repeatedly invaded the Han Dynasty and caused great trouble to the Han Dynasty, the population of the Xiongnu was not large, and it can be roughly inferred from the historical materials that the population of the Xiongnu was about 2 million at most.
How could such a small population give the Han Dynasty such a big problem? Because the Xiongnu were cavalry on the Mongolian plateau, they were strong in stature, and they were good at sports warfare and guerrilla warfare, that is, they ran after fighting and ran after grabbing.
Throughout the ancient feudal dynasties, the reason why they have been plagued by the cavalry of the Mongolian plateau is that they come and go quickly, even if you send troops, it is difficult to find the enemy's main force, especially in the vast grassland, and it is easy to encounter ambushes.
Therefore, the reason why the Xiongnu is powerful is not that they have a huge population advantage, but that they have a special cavalry combat mode, which can be fought in ancient times, and the most important thing is the population, if the Xiongnu have enough population, then they can naturally better consolidate their regime.
Even after winning the war, there was no need to run at all, just stick there, so how could the Xiongnu develop the population? Of course, the Huns kept giving birth, but the number of Hun cavalry was limited, and in the war, the loss was also very large.
Therefore, the adult males of the Xiongnu were insufficient, so once the Han surrendered, they could naturally supplement the lack of Xiongnu men, that is, in a sense, the Xiongnu also regarded the Han people as fertility machines.
The Xiongnu belonged to a nomadic people, relatively speaking, much more barbaric than the Han people in the Central Plains, and their IQ was generally low, they only knew how to use brute force, and their productivity was very backward, so in order to get more resources, the Xiongnu could only constantly harass the border of the Han Dynasty and live by grabbing materials.
Therefore, in addition to being brave on horseback, the Xiongnu cannot be compared with the Central Plains civilization in many aspects such as medical care, science and technology, education, and culture, so how can the overall quality of the Xiongnu be quickly improved?
It is through continuous intermarriage with the Han people, and constantly improve their genes, this is the fastest way, otherwise even if some Han people are captured to serve the Xiongnu, but the stupid ordinary Huns will not be able to learn the excellent theories of the Han people at all.
If a nation wants to have a long-term future, it must take all kinds of abilities into its own hands, and the Xiongnu high-level also knows this, so they need Han people to make up for their own genetic shortcomings.
Only by letting those outstanding Han people marry Xiongnu women can they continuously improve the genes of the next generation of Xiongnu, so in this regard, it is actually a plundering of the genes of the Han people by the Xiongnu.
In fact, from the perspective of the development of the entire human history, this is more of a multi-ethnic integration, in fact, the development process of human beings is a continuous process of genetic improvement, of course, who is assimilated by whom in the end is really not certain.
For the Xiongnu, of course, they know the power of the Central Plains civilization, and the Xiongnu also hope that they can develop in an all-round way, until one day they don't need to rob and they can live well.
At that time, the Xiongnu will also have more strength, attack the Central Plains Dynasty, and even occupy the Central Plains Dynasty, and if you want to occupy the Central Plains Dynasty, you need to learn the advanced civilization of the Central Plains Dynasty.
If you want to learn from the Central Plains Dynasty, you have to be taught, and many of the Han people who were captured were very good, but the people of the Central Plains Dynasty, who were loyal to the monarch and patriotic, even if they really surrendered, they might not be able to teach the Huns sincerely.
Even those Han captives will constantly try to escape from the Xiongnu, so how can we keep these Han captives? In addition to giving money and officials, the most important thing is to give them women.
After having a Xiongnu woman as a wife, she will give birth to children for those Han people, and when the time comes, these women and children will be the eternal bond of those Han people, and they will naturally be able to better keep their hearts.
Although, such as Zhang Qian, Su Wu and others, even if they had Xiongnu women and children, they still chose to flee from the Xiongnu and return to the Han Dynasty in the end, but this is a minority after all, and there are still many Han people who choose to stay completely after the Xiongnu get married and have children, especially those ordinary Han soldiers and ordinary people.
As the Xiongnu who fought against the Han people all the year round, what they hoped most was to break the military spirit of the Han people through their own efforts, so that it would be easier to defeat the Han army.
And this preferential treatment of prisoners will naturally reach the ears of Han soldiers, for many Han soldiers, they have been fighting all their lives, and they can't afford to marry a daughter-in-law at all, and they don't have much money.
Once you hear about it, the Xiongnu will send money, officials, and daughters-in-law here, and naturally a small number of people will be shaken by the army, after all, for some people, joining the Han Dynasty army is just to survive.
Moreover, it is precisely because of this preferential treatment of prisoners that the Han soldiers can also be less desperate when fighting against the Xiongnu, and if they surrender and are captured, the situation will not be too bad.
And once the Xiongnu exterminated all the Han captives, it could only stimulate the infinite fighting spirit of the Han army, because at that time, if they surrendered, they would die, and it would be better to die on the battlefield than to be tortured to death after surrendering, so that there might be a chance to live.
Therefore, the Xiongnu's preferential treatment of prisoners also played a very good role in the Xiongnu's subsequent battle with the Han army, at least to a certain extent, disintegrating the Han army's fighting spirit.
The Xiongnu belonged to a nomadic people, and the reason why they were able to become a climate was to annex countless tribes on the steppe and form a real tribal alliance, which made the Xiongnu strong.
When the Xiongnu annexed the tribes of the grassland, it was a process of continuous absorption, so for them, as long as the other party surrendered, it would become their own strength and continue to grow their own strength.
Under the influence of this general environment, the Huns did not think that if they defeated or captured the enemy, they should kill the other party, and in the Xiongnu's view, the better way to deal with it was to absorb and assimilate the other party.
Then this habit, from the beginning of the first nomadic tribes, has always been like this, so in the bones of the Huns, it has always been believed that absorbing and assimilating the enemy is a very correct choice.
Therefore, when the Xiongnu faced the Han captives, they also imagined them as a certain tribal population that had been conquered by themselves, and after the conquest, they wanted to assimilate the other party.
Therefore, after a long period of habit, these Huns chose to give preferential treatment to Han captives, and completely turned the Han people into their own people by marrying wives and having children, and then strengthened their own strength.
To sum up, after the Huns captured the Han captives, the reason why they treated them preferentially and let them marry their own women was based on their own needs and interests, and the Huns were not so kind at all.
And, in fact, the Xiongnu women are not good-looking, and it is not too much to describe them as ugly compared to the women of the Central Plains, so for the Xiongnu women, marrying the Han people is not a loss, after all, the Han people are relatively handsome and handsome.