Qin Shi Huang knew that it was easy to defeat the Xiongnu, and it was not easy to completely exterminate the Xiongnu soldiers, so he had to find a way to stop the Huns from moving south, and building the Great Wall undoubtedly became Qin Shi Huang's first choice.
The term Xiongnu first came from the Warring States Period"Yi Zhou Shu Wang Hui Chapter", "Classic of Mountains and Seas, South of the Sea", "Warring States Policy: Yan Ce III".The three books, according to the records in the "Historical Records", were recorded in 318 BC, that is, the seventh year of the reign of King Hui of Qin.
According to the description in the "Historical Records": ".The Xiongnu, the descendants of the Miao clan of the first Xia Hou clan, also called Chunwei (獯鬻, smoked), lived in the north, and moved with grass and animal husbandry.
Sima Qian, the author of "Historical Records", believes that the Xiongnu were originally from the Central Plains, which can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty at the earliest, and when the Xia Dynasty fell, the remnants of the Xia Dynasty migrated to the north, and after coming to the north, they merged as nomads and became the "Hu people" at the earliest.
After the Warring States Period, the Xiongnu was only a small tribe in the north, at the beginning, the Xiongnu and several nomads in the north fought, but as time progressed, the Xiongnu slowly became the climate, Yan and Zhao began to strike at the Xiongnu, after a blow, found that the light strike could not solve the problem, so they began to build the Great Wall.
It can be seen from the Yan and Zhao countries that the Xiongnu at that time were not as strong as later generations, so they were quite honest at that time and did not cause much turmoil, but with the unification of the six countries by the Qin Dynasty, the Xiongnu became the biggest threat to the northern Xinjiang of the Qin Dynasty.
At that time, although the Xiongnu were not as strong as the Han Dynasty, they could not completely defeat the Xiongnu, and during this period, the Xiongnu continued to plunder southward, and the Qin army also reacted immediately, but because the Xiongnu fought guerrilla warfare, this made the Qin army unable to encircle and suppress the steppe living in the Gobi Desert, because this grassland Gobi was too big, and the Qin army had no way to completely sweep away the Xiongnu.
After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang let the general Meng Tian lead the army to attack the Xiongnu, and then the army was stationed in the Hetao Plain, and then the Xiongnu also appeared a hero called Mao Dun Shan Yu, this Mao Dun Shan Yu in the later time, the Han Gaozu Liu Bang besieged in Baishan Mountain, and this incident also opened the Han and Hungarian New Year's War. After Meng Tian was stationed in the Hetao Plain, his army began to plan to build the Great Wall, in fact, the Great Wall of the Qin Dynasty was more often connected to the Great Wall built by Yan Zhao and other countries during the Warring States Period. At that time, Yan Zhao and other countries also found that the Xiongnu were difficult to deal with, so they also built the Great Wall while the Xiongnu were fighting, so as to stop the pace of the Xiongnu going south.
The Qin Dynasty, which had just unified the country, was undoubtedly rolling in the face of the Xiongnu, but it was different for the Qin Dynasty to want to sweep away the Xiongnu, because the Xiongnu were different from their past opponents, and they could use the vast grasslands to make it difficult for the Qin Dynasty to find themselves.
At that time, the area where the Xiongnu lived included the entire Mongolian Plateau, as well as the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains, the Altai Mountains and Lake Baikal and other regions, there were shadows of Xiongnu life, but during that period, the population density of the Xiongnu was very small, so it was not easy for the Qin army to find his base camp.
The Xiongnu took advantage of this advantage and continued to invade the Qin State in the south, which made the Qin State very headache, because they could not end the war quickly like when they pacified the Six Kingdoms before, it was impossible at all, in order to reduce their losses, building the Great Wall was undoubtedly the best choice.
In addition to this reason, the cost of taking down the Xiongnu was too high and the return was too low, which made the Qin Dynasty think that a country like an agrarian civilization would undoubtedly consider the value of land when expanding abroad.
Most of the places where the Xiongnu lived were deserts and steppes, and the land was not only barren, but also harsh.
Due to the harsh living environment, this made the Huns choose to go south to loot whenever they encountered major natural problems, so as to ensure that they would not starve to death, and after looting enough supplies, the Huns quickly retreated to Mobei, so that the Qin army who came to pursue them could not find their love at all.
As a nomadic people, the Xiongnu have a very high riding ability, which makes it not easy for the Qin army, which is dominated by infantry, to catch up with the pace of the Xiongnu.
In order to better pursue the Xiongnu, there is no doubt that enough cavalry is trained, but after the cavalry is quickly completed, a large number of strategic materials to be prepared will also instantly make the Qin army feel the huge pressure, and at that time it was not as convenient to transport food as it is now, now we have the blessing of railways and high-speed railways, aircraft and ships, but at that time the transportation of food can only rely on people and animals, which is not only inefficient, but also causes losses.
The core area where the Qin Dynasty and the Xiongnu were located was far away from them, and the Qin army's mobility was far inferior to that of the Xiongnu, so once there was a war with the Xiongnu, then the logistics of the Qin Dynasty might encounter severe challenges, and these challenges were undoubtedly fatal, and they would eventually fail miserably.
At that time, although the Qin State had unified the whole country, the nobles of the Six Kingdoms who had just been destroyed were not reconciled, and the nobles of Baiyue and other places in the southeast region were also very unwilling to submit, which made the Qin Dynasty have no time to pay attention to the Xiongnu at all.
For the Qin Dynasty, only by stabilizing internal stability can its own country be sustained.
Since there is no way to solve the Xiongnu in the first time, then adopt a defensive strategy, and wait for the opportunity to do the Xiongnu in the future, since it is determined that the defense is the mainstay, then build the Great Wall to block the Hun cavalry from going south.
The Huns could naturally cross the Great Wall, but their horses could not cross the Great Wall, and the Huns who lost their horses were naturally not as terrible as in the past, which was very conducive to the extermination of the Qin army.
According to today's eyes, the existence of the Great Wall did not solve the problem, but at that time, this method was undoubtedly a good solution, because during the Qin Dynasty, the Xiongnu did not cause much trouble to the Qin Dynasty.
Qin Shi Huang's move undoubtedly made a choice for future dynasties, and later dynasties would rely on the Great Wall to resist the Xiongnu when dealing with the ethnic minorities in the north.
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