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Great Daring Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan September 28, 2020 31 min

Josip Broz Tito - World War II — Yugoslav partisans wading across a river. Wikimedia

25. Daring to Extort an Empire

Modu Chanyu and his horde besieging a Chinese city. Pintrest

In 200 BC, the Chinese Emperor Gaozu, founder of the Han dynasty, tried to bring the Xiongnu to heel, but it ended badly for him. Modu Chanyu was untroubled by the massive Chinese army. He and his daring warriors led the invaders on a merry chase through the Steppe, while harrying their supply lines and keeping them on constant edge with frequent skirmishes. When the Chinese were exhausted, Modu ambushed and trapped them in a disadvantageous locale, cutoff from resupply and reinforcement.

Surrounded, the Chinese emperor bought his life with an appeasement treaty known as the Heqin. It recognized Modu Chanyu and the Xiongnu Empire as equals, and defined The Great Wall of China as the mutual border. Under the treaty, China sent the Xiongnu leaders Chinese princesses as brides, and sought to buy them off with regular tribute payments that were face-savingly referred to as “gifts”.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.