24. Daring to Troll the Imperial Court
In 194 BC, after Emperor Gaozu died, Modu Chanyu sent a rude and mocking marriage proposal to his widow, the dowager empress. Incensed, the empress and imperial court were all for declaring war, with generals urging the extermination of the Xiongnu. Eventually, calmer voices reminded everybody of Chanyu’s victory just a few years earlier, and that the Xiongnu army was more powerful than the Chinese. Reconsidering, the empress wrote back, humbly declining the daring rogue’s proposal, and accompanied the letter with a gift of imperial carriages and horses.
So badly had Chanyu beaten the Han emperor, and so memorable was the defeat, that Chinese attempts at a military solution were abandoned altogether. Instead, the Heqin system of buying off the nomads with princesses and tribute became the bedrock of Chinese diplomacy for centuries. The appeasement continued even after the Xiongnu Empire collapsed and the Xiongnu disappeared from the annals of history. Chinese princesses and Chinese “gifts” continued to be sent regularly to Steppe chieftains for over a thousand years, with the last recorded instance of Heqin occurring in 883 AD.