The Xianyun (;

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...

: ( ZS) *''g.ramʔ-lunʔ''; (Schuessler) *''hɨamᴮ-juinᴮ'' < *''hŋamʔ-junʔ'') was an ancient nomadic tribe that invaded the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

. This Chinese

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group ...

is written with ''xian'' 獫 or 玁 "long-snouted dog", and this "dog" radical 犭 is commonly used in

graphic pejorative Some historical Chinese characters for non-Chinese peoples were graphically pejorative ethnic slurs, where the racial insult derived not from the Chinese word but from the character used to write it. For instance, written Chinese first transcribed ...

characters. They were traditionally identified with the Xunyu, Guifang and

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

Overview

The earliest record of the Xianyun is dated to the reign of

King Xuan of Zhou __NOTOC__ King Xuan of Zhou, personal name Ji Jing, was the eleventh king of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. Estimated dates of his reign are 827/25–782 BC. He worked to restore royal authority after the Gong He interregnum. He fought the 'Western ...

(827/25–782 BC). The Book of Songs contains four songs about military actions between the Zhou and the Xianyun. The song "Gathering sow thistle" (''Cai qi'') mentions 3,000 Zhou chariots in battle against the Xianyun. The song "Sixth month" (''Liu yue'') says that the battlefield was between the lower courses of the Jing (泾河) and Luo rivers and the

Wei Wei or WEI may refer to: States * Wey (state) (衛, 1040–209 BC), Wei in pinyin, but spelled Wey to distinguish from the bigger Wei of the Warring States * Wei (state) (魏, 403–225 BC), one of the seven major states of the Warring States per ...

valley, very close to the center of the Zhou state.Nicola Di Cosmo, ''The Northern Frontier in Pre-Imperial China//The Cambridge History of Ancient China'', p. 920 Written records place the first incursions against Zhou under the name

Xirong Xirong () or Rong were various people who lived primarily in and around the western extremities of ancient China (in modern Gansu and Qinghai). They were known as early as the Shang dynasty (1765–1122 BCE), as one of the Four Barbarians that fr ...

"Western Rong" in 843 BC. In 840 BC, the fourteenth year of reign of

King Li of Zhou King Li of Zhou (died in 828 BC) (), personal name Ji Hu, was the tenth king of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. Estimated dates of his reign are 877–841 BC or 857–842 BC (''Cambridge History of Ancient China''). King Li was a corrupt and decadent ...

, the Xianyun reached the Zhou capital Haojing. Apparently, the "Western Rong" and Xianyun were the same people here, named in the first case by a generic term meaning "warlike tribes of the west" and in the second case by their actual ethnonym. The Xianyun attacked again in 823 BC, the fifth year of reign of King Xuan. Some scholars (e.g. Jaroslav Průšek) suggest that their military tactics characterized by sudden attacks could only have been carried out by highly mobile troops, most likely on horseback and relate the appearance of the Xianyun to migrations from the Altai region in Chinese or, more specifically, the appearance of

Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...

and

Cimmerians The Cimmerians (Akkadian: , romanized: ; Hebrew: , romanized: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people originating in the Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into Wes ...

migrating from the west. However, there is no definite evidence that the Xianyun were nomadic warriors; moreover, a Duo You bronze

ding Ding may refer to: Bronze and ceramics * Ding (vessel), a bronze or ceramic cauldron used in ancient and early imperial China * Ding ware, ceramics produced in Dingzhou in medieval China People * Ding (surname) (丁), a Chinese surname and lis ...

vessel inscription unearthed in 1980 near

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...

tells that c. 816 BC Xianyun forces attacked a Jing (京) garrison in the lower Ordos region, drawing a Zhou military response. It indicated that like the Zhou, the Xianyun fought on horse-drawn chariots; contemporary evidence does not indicate that the increased mobility of the Xianyun is related to the emergence of mounted nomads armed with bows and arrows. Later Chinese annals contain a number of references to the Xianyun, such as by

Sima Qian Sima Qian (; ; ) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a general history of China covering more than two thousand years be ...

(c. 145/135 – 86 BC), Ying Shao (140-206 AD), Wei Zhao (204-273), and

Jin Zhuo Jin Zhuo () was a Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic g ...

(late 3rd–4th century AD). They stated that Xunyu (獯鬻) or ''Xianyun'' were terms that designated nomadic people who later during the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

were transcribed as "

" (匈奴). This view was also held by the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

commentator Sima Zhen (c. 8th century).

Wang Guowei Wang Guowei (; 2 December 18772 June 1927) or Wang Kuo-wei, courtesy name Jing'an () or Boyu (), was a Chinese historian and poet. A versatile and original scholar, he made important contributions to the studies of ancient history, epigraphy, ph ...

(1877–1927), as a result of phonetical studies and comparisons based on the inscriptions on bronze and the structure of the characters, came to the conclusion that the tribal names " Guifang" (鬼方), " Xunyu" (獯鬻), " Xianyu" (鮮虞), "Xianyun", "

Rong Rong or RONG may refer to: Places China * Rong County, Guangxi, Yulin, Guangxi, China * Rong County, Sichuan, Zigong, Sichuan, China Nepal * Rong, Ilam, a rural municipality in Ilam District, Nepal Norway * Rong, Norway, a village in Øygard ...

" (戎), " Di" (狄), and " Hu" (胡) given in the annals designated one and the same people, who later entered history under the name Xiongnu. The exact time period when the nomads' ethnonym had the Old Chinese phonetizations ancestral to

standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...

''Xianyun'' remains determined only vaguely. Using the

Bronze Inscriptions Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

and

Classic of Poetry The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, c ...

, Sinologist Axel Schuessler posited the date of 780 BCE. Using Sima Qian's Shiji and other sources, Vsevolod Taskin concludes that in the earlier pre-historic period (during the time of legendary

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

) the Xiongnu were called 葷粥 ''Hunyu'', in the late pre-historic period (during the time of legendary Emperor Yao and

Emperor Shun Emperor Shun () was a legendary leader of ancient China, regarded by some sources as one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors being the last of the Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he lived sometime between 2294 and 2184 BC. Tradition a ...

) they were called 戎 ''Rong'', in the literate period starting with the

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty a ...

(1600–1046 BC) they were called 鬼方 '' Guifang'', in the Zhou period (1045–256 BC) they were called 獫狁 ''Xianyun'', starting from the Qin period (221–206 BC) the Chinese annalists called them 匈奴 ''Xiongnu''. Even so, Paul R. Goldin (2011) reconstructs the

pronunciations of 葷粥 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 薰育 as *''xur-luk'', 獫狁 as ''hram′-lun′'', and 匈奴 as *''xoŋ-NA''; and comments all three names are "manifestly unrelated". He further states that

sound change A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s made the names more superficially similar than they really had been, and prompted later historians and commentators to conclude that those names must have referred to one same people in different epochs, even though people during the

Warring States period The Warring States period () was an era in History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded ...

would never have been thus misled. Li Feng (2006) characterizes Wang Guowei's argument as "essentially deductive" and not based on solid evidence. Following Pulleyblank (1983), Li rejects the identification of the Xianyun with the Xiongnu, and only accepts identification of the Xianyun as one of the 戎 ''

'' "warlike foreigner" groups. Li proposes that the Xianyun were indigenous hunters, farmers, and pastoralists living in widely distributed communities in the "Northern Zone Complex" in the

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

stretching from the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

Ordos Loop The Ordos Plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin or simply the Ordos, is a highland sedimentary basin in North China, northwest China with an elevation of , and consisting mostly of land enclosed by the Ordos Loop, a large northerly rectangular ...

to its upper reaches and they were possibly were cultural successors to the Ordos culture ( 6th to 2nd centuries BCE; from late Shang to early Western Zhou), with pastoralism gradually becoming dominant, and the Xianyun society boasted "a considerable size and high concentration of power", allowing them to field hundreds of chariots against the Zhou. Further, Li suggests that the ''Xianyun'' and ''Quanrong'' were either closely related or the term Quanrong was invented during

Eastern Zhou The Eastern Zhou (; zh, c=, p=Dōngzhōu, w=Tung1-chou1, t= ; 771–256 BC) was a royal dynasty of China and the second half of the Zhou dynasty. It was divided into two periods: the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States. History In 770 ...

period to denote the Xianyun. Li points to evidence from the Western Zhou

bronze inscriptions Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

, the

, Guoyu, the

Bamboo Annals The ''Bamboo Annals'' (), also known as the ''Ji Tomb Annals'' (), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the Yellow Emperor) and extends to 299 BC, with the later centuries focusing on the history ...

, and that when the name ''Xianyun'' became written graphically pejorative as 獫狁 with the 犭 "dog" radical, the character 獫's notion of dog motivated the coining of ''Quanrong'' (犬戎 ; lit. "Dog Barbarians").Li (2006) p. 343-346

Overview

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See also