In the Qin and Han dynasties, a powerful nomadic people who dominated the north of the Central Plains, were expelled from the Yellow River Hetao area in 215 BC, and after the division of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Southern Xiongnu entered the Central Plains and annexed, and the Northern Xiongnu moved westward from Mobei, which experienced about 300 years in the middle. The Xiongnu in ancient China and the Huns (Xiongnu) in Europe were not related by blood and were not the same people.

The Xiongnu were the remnants of the Xia Dynasty. "Historical Records: The Biography of the Huns" records: "The Xiongnu, the descendants of their ancestor Xia Hou, are also called Chunwei. ”。 "The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Great Wilderness of the North" said: The dog Rong and the Xia people have the same ancestor, both from the Yellow Emperor. "Historical Records Suoyin" quoted Zhang Yan as saying: "Chunwei ran to the north at the time of Yin. It means that Chunwei, a descendant of Xia, fled to the north during the Shang Dynasty, and his descendants multiplied into the Xiongnu. There is also a theory that the descendants of Xia who moved to the north are the sons of Xia Wei. Xia Wei died in exile for three years, and his son Xiong Hu took the wives and concubines left by his father, took refuge in the northern wilderness, and migrated with the animals, which is called the Xiongnu in China.

Wang Guowei systematically summarized the evolution of the name of the Xiongnu in "Ghost Fang Kunyi Qiangli Examination", and believed that the Ghost Fang, Chaoyi, and Qiangqi in the Shang Dynasty, the Qiangli in the Zhou Dynasty, the Rong and Di in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Hu in the Warring States Period were all the so-called Xiongnu in later generations.

The real large-scale battles with the Xiongnu were fought in the Han Dynasty. In 201 BC, Liu Xin, the king of Han, surrendered to the Xiongnu. In the following year, Liu Bangqin, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, led a large army to conquer, and was besieged by more than 300,000 cavalry of the Xiongnu Mao Dunshan in Baideng (now northeast of Datong, Shanxi) for seven days and nights. After escaping with a trick, he began to make peace with the Huns. Later, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing also followed the policy of harmony and proximity to recuperate. In 57 BC, the Xiongnu split, Zhizhishan won the victory in Mobei, and Huhan Yedan went south to join the Han Dynasty in 51 BC. In 33 BC, Hu Han Xie Shan Yu married Wang Zhaojun and reconciled with Han.

In 48 years, in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu were divided into two parts, and more than 40,000 people went south to attach to the Han Dynasty and were placed in the Hetao area by the Han Dynasty. Those who stayed in Mobei were called the Northern Xiongnu. From 89 to 91, the Southern Xiongnu and the Han jointly attacked the Northern Xiongnu, and successively defeated the Mobei and Altai Mountains, forcing them to move westward, and the Northern Xiongnu disappeared from ancient Chinese books.

In 187, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Dong Zhuo's dictatorship occurred, there was internal strife among the Southern Xiongnu. In 195, the Southern Xiongnu participated in the melee in the Central Plains, and Cai Wenji, the daughter of Cai Yong of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was taken captive to the Xiongnu. In 202, the leaders of the Southern Xiongnu were attached to Cao Cao, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty, and Cai Wenji returned to the Han Dynasty. Cao Cao divided the Southern Xiongnu into five divisions.

At the beginning of the 4th century, Liu Yuan, the governor of the five major capitals of the Xiongnu tribe, was a general under Sima Ying, the king of Chengdu. Taking advantage of the chaotic period that followed the Rebellion of the Eight Kings of the Western Jin Dynasty, Liu Yuan raised troops to occupy most of northern China, proclaimed himself King of Han, and in 311 Liu Yuan's son Liu Cong captured Luoyang, and in 316 captured Chang'an, destroying the Western Jin Dynasty. Historically, it is known as the former Zhao or Han Zhao.

The mixed-race descendants of the Xiongnu and Xianbei are called the Tiefu people. Liu Bobo, a Tiefu man, was defeated by the Xianbei Tuoba clan and defected to the Qiang people's Hou Qin. Later, he thought that he was the last Xiongnu king, changed his surname to Helian, and founded the Xia Kingdom in the Hetao area, known as Hu Xia in history. In 425, Helian Bo died and was succeeded by his son Helian Chang. In 428, the Northern Wei Dynasty captured Helian Chang. Helian Chang's younger brother Helian Ding proclaimed himself Emperor Xia in Pingliang. In 431, the Northern Wei Dynasty captured Helianding and died in Xia. The capital of the Xia Kingdom, Tongwancheng, is the only vestige left by the Xiongnu as a nomadic people in East Asia.

The Xiongnu merged into the Xianbei Yuwen tribe near Goryeo and entered the Korean Peninsula. Later, the Yuwen clan usurped the Northern Zhou regime established by the Western Wei Dynasty, and was later usurped by Yang Jian, a relative of the Han nationality. Yang Jian founded the Sui Dynasty and unified the Central Plains.

The above is the period of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Xiongnu performed the last performance on the stage of Chinese history. Later, the Xiongnu disappeared from Chinese history as an independent people, and merged with some other ethnic groups into the Chinese people. After the sinicization of the Xiongnu descendants, the Han surnames changed include Liu, He, Cong, Huyan, Wan Qian, etc., and many of them live in today's Shaanxi, Shanxi and Shandong.