Modu Chanyu
Modu's raids into China resulted in the dynasty agreeing to pay an annual tribute alongside other goods such as silk, grain and rice.
[8] According to Sima Qian, Modu was a gifted child but his father Touman wanted the son of another of his wives to succeed him.
Only when he was convinced of the absolute loyalty of his remaining warriors did he order them to shoot his father during a hunting trip, killing him in a shower of arrows.
[9] After his self-proclaimed ascension as Chanyu, Modu began to eliminate those who would prove a threat to his newly acquired power.
When their eastern neighbors, the Donghu, expressed desire to occupy uninhabited land that lay between them, Modu reacted by attacking them.
Modu Chanyu saw his chance to turn the tide and immediately surrounded the city with only 40.000 cavalry, cutting the emperor off from the rest of his army.
[2] In 195 BCE, Lu Wan King of Yan, fled to the Xiongnu after he was defeated by the Han general Zhou Bo.
[19] In 192 BCE Empress Dowager Lü Zhi (widow of Emperor Gaozu of Han) received a marriage proposal from Modu, who wrote as follows in a letter meant to intimidate and mock her: I'm a lonesome ruler born in marshes and raised in plains populated by livestock.
[20] Lü Zhi was infuriated at the rude proposition, and in a heated court session, her generals advised her to rally an army and exterminate the Xiongnu immediately.
As she was about to declare war, an outspoken attendant named Ji Bu pointed out that the Xiongnu army was much more powerful than the Chinese.
[21] Rethinking her plans, Lü Zhi rejected Modu's proposition humbly, as follows: Your Lordship does not forget our land and writes a letter to us, we fear.
[23] As Nicola Di Cosmo summarizes the sequence of events, the Qin invasion of the Ordos Plateau (the area within the bend of the Yellow River) came at the same time as a leadership crisis within the loose Xiongnu confederation.
Modu took advantage of the Xiongnu militarization process that came in response to the Qin invasion, and ably created a newly centralized political structure that made possible his empire.
Han weakness meant that it supplied Modu and his successors with a steady flow of luxury and staple tribute they could pass down to the aristocracy supporting them.
[24] Christopher I. Beckwith has pointed out that the story of the young Modu resembles a widespread class of folk tales in which a young hero is abandoned, goes on a quest, proves his worth, gains a group of trusted companions, returns to his home country, slays a powerful figure and becomes a king.
[29] It has been suggested that his name, as Beztur, appears in the genealogy as the ancestor of Attila, in the Chronica Hungarorum of Johannes de Thurocz.
