Mete, or Mao-tun (Chinese: 冒頓單于; pinyin: Mòdú Chānyú), was a Turco-Hunnic ruler who reigned over the Asian Hun (Xiongnu) Empire between 209 and 174 BCE. He is thought to be the same person as Oghuz Khagan in the Epic of Oghuz Khagan. His father was Teoman (Touman). During the Battle of Baideng he defeated the Han Dynasty and made it tributary. By also defeating the Yuezhi and Tungusic peoples, he extended his state from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria.
Name
Mete's true name was Batur or Bagatur. Owing to his name being mistakenly transcribed as Mei-tei, it entered the literature as Mete.
Mete Khan's accession as khagan
According to an episode related in Chinese sources, Teoman, the founder of the Asian Hun Empire, wished — under the influence of Mete's stepmother — to place another of his sons, Mete's half-brother, on the throne instead of Mete. For this reason the stepmother turned Teoman against Mete and had Mete sent as a hostage to the neighbouring Yuezhi people. His father then declared war on the Yuezhi, intending to have Mete Khan killed. Mete escaped from the hands of the Yuezhi before his father Teoman entered Yuezhi territory. After Mete had overcome such hardships, his father, to give him his due, placed a tümen (division) of soldiers under his command. In the end Mete killed his own father, his stepmother and his brothers, and became khagan in 209 BCE.
The story of the arrow
Mete is regarded as the inventor of the whistling arrow, called the çavuş (signal) arrow, used by many nomadic peoples. According to Chinese sources, if he pointed his arrow in a given direction, all the soldiers under his command would shoot at that target and destroy it at once. One day he turned his arrow toward his favourite horse. Some of his soldiers hesitated. Thereupon he turned his arrow in turn upon those who had hesitated. Those soldiers who had hesitated to shoot at his horse he killed, shooting them with arrows as an example to the others. After this incident, one day he turned his arrow upon his father Teoman, who had gone hunting, and not one of his soldiers hesitated; and Teoman died from the arrows that rained upon him.
The rise of the Huns
Mete first marched against his eastern neighbours the Donghu, who had demanded territory from the Huns, and inflicted a heavy defeat on them. Under the resulting agreement the Donghu accepted paying an annual tribute of cattle, horses and camels, and in 208 BCE were bound to Hun rule.
After defeating the Donghu, he also incorporated peoples such as the Tungus living in the northern part of Mongolia. Between 177 and 165 BCE he launched campaigns against the Yuezhi, who lived to the south-west of the Huns, between the Tian Shan (Tanrı) Mountains and Gansu. In 203 BCE he defeated the Yuezhi and annexed their land.
He defeated the Tahin Turks, who were seeking to dominate the Ordos. By campaigning continuously against China he brought under his rule the fortresses south of the Yellow River. Through these victories he gained control of important trade routes that would later bring the Huns great revenues.
By bringing under his rule the Mongol, Tungusic, Turkic and other Altaic peoples living in the region, he became militarily and strategically more powerful.
In 200 BCE he besieged the 320,000-strong army of the Chinese Han Dynasty emperor Gaozu (Gao-Di) at the fortress of Peteng at Baideng (present-day Datong, Shanxi). Gaozu (Gao-Di) sent gifts to Mete's wife and accepted all of Mete's conditions — such as ceding the northern provinces to the Huns and paying an annual tribute — and was thus allowed to escape the siege. Although Gaozu managed to return to his capital Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), Mete continued from time to time to threaten the Han's northern frontier, and finally in 198 BCE Gaozu sued for peace; a peace treaty was signed on the terms that a Han princess become the Chanyu's wife and that an annual tribute be paid.
Kinship with the Han Dynasty
After years of struggle with the Qin and the Chu, Liu Bang (Gaozu), who had become Han emperor, found himself in difficulty against Mete at Baideng and realised that his exhausted army could not cope with the Huns. In order to establish a marriage-alliance (heqin, 和亲) relationship, he sent a princess to the Hun court together with lavish gifts.
Liu Bang died in 195 BCE, and his wife Lü Hou became empress. In 192 BCE Mete sent a letter to Lü Hou proposing marriage in a crude manner. The empress, unable in her country's circumstances to risk a conflict with the Huns, wrote a letter — despite the disrespect she had suffered — and sent Mete a princess. According to Chinese sources, Mete, regretting his conduct in the face of Lü Hou's response, apologised to the empress in a letter.
After the war with China, Mete forced the Yuezhi and the Wusun to become subjects of the Huns.
During his reign most peoples came under Hun administration. He united them all — all the nomadic mounted archers of the steppes — under a single empire. Besides his nomadic subjects, Mete also established oasis city-states in the Tarim Basin that swore allegiance to him. His military as well as administrative organisation was later adopted by many Central Asian peoples and states.
He struck fear across his region with his military power. Thanks to his war tactics and military discipline, he won his wars against the Chinese Empire and the surrounding peoples. His army was not made up of civilians gathered in wartime. Instead it consisted of professional soldiers who were constantly trained and kept ready for war. He was able to sustain his army with the vast grain and food resources of the regions he ruled.
When Mete died in 174 BCE, he left behind a great empire that had united many peoples under one roof. This empire covered roughly 18,000,000 km². Its borders stretched from east to west from the Sea of Japan to the Volga (İdil) River, and from north to south from Siberia to Tibet and Kashmir. The fact that the Chinese army — the only organised and powerful force facing the Huns — was in a state of administrative weakness owing to internal turmoil is cited as a reason for Mete's being able to expand his state so easily.
Cultural influence
In the popular mass-entertainment industry, characters depicted as the ruthless and disciplined commander appearing in Chinese legends have been given Mete's names, such as Modu and Chanyu, and episodes from Mete's life story as recorded in Chinese sources have been carried over into these works.
The legend of Oghuz Khagan
It is thought that Oghuz Khagan, mentioned in Turkic epics in connection with the conquests of China and India, is Mete. There are many similarities between the Oghuz Khagan described in the epic and the life story of Mete. It is believed that his life story forms the historical basis of the legend of Oghuz Khagan.
Sources
- Turkish Wikipedia: tr.wikipedia.org
- English Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org