Five Barbarians

Wu Hu ( Pinyin 五胡 Wu3 Hu2)

Summary

Wu Hu literarily means "five non-Chinese races". Traditionally "Hu" was interpreted as "barbarians", in parallel to those in Europe, although Sima Qian's Shiji explained it as the "proud son of heaven" (天之驕子). Wu Hu were conposed of five nomadic tribes: Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns), Xianpei, Di, Qiang, and Jie. The term was first used in Cui Hong's Shiliuguochunqiu, which recorded the history of those five tribes' ravaging Northern China from thte early 4th century to the mid 5th century. After later historians determined that more than five nomadic tribes took part (however, these five were the major ones), the term has become a collective noun for all non-Chinese nomads residing in Northern China at the time. The time at which the ravages occurred is called The Period of Wu Hu (五胡時代) or the Wu Hu ravaging of China (五胡亂華)。 Sovereignties founded by Wu Hu were named the Sixteen Kingdoms.

Origin of the ravage

When the Eastern Han Dynasty slowly brought the Southern Xiongnu into submission in the 1st century by military and diplomactic measures, hordes of herdsmen originally under the Xiongnu began trading their horses and animal products mainly for agricultural tools, such as the harrow and the plow, and clothing of which silk was the most popular. Those herdsmen helped the dynasty defend against the Xiongnu's (the Southern and Northern Xiongnu) in return. The more they engaged in commerce with the Chinese, the more they prefered staying near the dynasty's border, to facilitate trade, instead of residing on the steppes of Manchuria and Mongolia. Some groups of herdsmen even settled permenantly within the border, first of which was the Wu Huan (烏桓), who immigrated to the area of today Liaoning Province during the era of jiangwu ( 25 AD - 56AD ) . Liaision among the dynasty and groups of herdsmen relied on mutual commercial and military benefits. As the Northern Xiongnu, the mortal enemy of the dynasty, was still potent enough during the reigns of Ming Di, Zhang Di and He Di (58 AD-105 AD) to keep the volatile alliance intact, the dynasty enjoyed the most prosperous years of almost 200 years of existence. Even the Southern Xiongnu and fragments of the Northern Xiongnu migrated to the Xi He plain (literarily means the plain on the west of , south of the Ordos Desert), well within the border.

The picture changed drastically changed in the later years of reign of He Di.

As the Eastern Han Dynasty slowly distintegrated into an era of "warlords", battles for predominance evetually ushered in the Three Kingdoms; however, years of war generated a severe shortage of labor, a solution to which was immigration of nomads from outside of China, especially from north of the Great Wall of China and the West.