Chunwei (;

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

: ZS: *''djun-ɢʷi''; B-S: *'' ɢʷij'') is a name associated with the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

, a tribal

confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern

Eurasian Steppe The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Europea ...

from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD.

Overview

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

Records of the Grand Historian The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...

, the ''Xiongnu'' 匈奴 were mentioned as '' Shanrong'' 山戎, '' Xianyun'' 獫狁, and ''Hunyu'' 葷粥 "since before the time of Tang .e. Emperor Yao (堯)">Emperor_Yao.html" ;"title=".e. Emperor Yao">.e. Emperor Yao (堯)and Yu [i.e. Emperor Shun (舜)]" (唐虞以上).Sima Qian et al., ''"Records of the Grand Historian"''
"Ch. 110: Accounts of the Xiongnu"
/ref> 3rd century scholar Wei Zhao also identified the name Chunwei with the name of the

: “During the Han (206 BC-220 AD) they were called

匈奴, and the ''Hunyu'' 葷粥 is just another name for the same people, and similarly, the

Xunyu The Xunyu (; Old Chinese: (Reconstructions of Old Chinese#Zhengzhang (1981–1995), ZS) *''qʰun-lug'', (Schuessler): *''hun-juk'') is the name of an ancient nomadic tribe which invaded China during legendary times. They are traditionally identifi ...

獯粥 is just another transcription of Chunwei 淳維, their ancestor’s name”. In ''Shiji jijie'' (史記集解) "Collected Explanations on Historical Records"

Liu Song Song, known as Liu Song (), Former Song (前宋) or Song of (the) Southern dynasties (南朝宋) in historiography, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and the first of the four Northern and Southern dynasties#Southern dynasti ...

historian Pei Yin (裴駰) quoted Jin Zhuo's statement that "In Yao's time they were called ''Hunyu''; in Zhou's time they were called ''Xianyun''; in Qin's time they were called ''Xiongnu''." In ''Shiji Suoyin'' (史記索隱) "Seeking the Obscure in the Records", Tang history Sima Zhen quoted from Fengsu Tongyi (風俗通義) "Comprehensive Meaning of Customs and Mores", by

Ying Shao Ying Shao (144–204), courtesy name Zhongyuan, was a Chinese politician, writer and historian who lived during the Eastern Han dynasty. He was an author of the '' Fengsu Tongyi'', an encyclopedic work about the folk customs and legends that exi ...

應劭, that “In the time of Yin, they were called ''Xunyu'' ��粥 which was changed to ''Xiongnu'' ��奴��; however, this quote no longer exists in Fengsu Tongyi's received text.

wrote that the 匈奴 Xiongnu's ruling clan were descendants of Chunwei (淳維), a descendant of Lord Xia (夏后氏), aka

Yu the Great Yu the Great or Yu the Engineer was a legendary king in ancient China who was credited with "the first successful state efforts at flood control", his establishment of the Xia dynasty, which inaugurated Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic ru ...

. Chunwei is alleged to be a son of

Jie of Xia King Jie ( zh, c=桀; traditionally 1728–1675 BCE) was the 17th and last ruler of the Xia dynasty of China. He is traditionally regarded as a tyrant and oppressor who brought about the collapse of a dynasty.劉煒/著.

002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to: Airports *0O2, Baker Airport *O02, Nervino Airport Astronomy *1996 OO2, the minor planet 7499 L'Aquila *1990 OO2, the asteroid 9175 Graun Fiction *002, fictional British 00 Agent *''002 Operazione Luna'' ...

(2002) Chinese civ ...

(

Xia dynasty The Xia dynasty (; ) is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, it was established by the legendary figure Yu the Great, after Emperor Shun, Shun, the last of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Fiv ...

's last ruler). Sima Zhen stated that Yue Chan (樂產) wrote in now-lost ''Guadipu'' (括地譜) "Register of the Encompassing Lands" that: “Jie, (ruler of) the House of Xia lived an immoral life. Tang exiled him to Mingtiao, he died there three years later. His son Xunyu 獯粥 married his concubines and they wandered far away to the northern wilderness in search of pasture lands, and then in the Middle Kingdom they were mentioned as Xiongnu 匈奴.” Sima Zhen also quoted Zhang Yan (張晏)'s statement that “Chunwei, during the Yin era, fled to the northern borders.” However, Goldin (2011) points out chronological difficulties resulting from attempts to identify ''Chunwei'' 淳維 with ''Hunyu'' 葷粥 ~ ''Xunyu'' 獯粥. If one would literally interpret "since before the time of Tang .e. Emperor Yaoand Yu .e. Emperor Shun (唐虞以上) (when the Hunyu supposedly had been in existence) in Sima Qian's ''Shiji'' and would identify ''Chunwei'' 葷粥 with ''Hunyu'' 葷粥 ~ ''Xunyu'' 獯粥, those would result in Chunwei, allegedly a son of Jie of the

, living ''before'' instead of many generations ''after'' Yao and Shun, both of whom had lived and ruled before the Xia dynasty. Moreover, Goldin (2011) reconstructs the

pronunciations of ''Hunyu'' 葷粥 ~ ''Xunyu'' 獯粥 as *''xur-luk'', 獫狁 as ''hram′-lun′'', and 匈奴 as *''xoŋ-NA''; and comments all three names are "manifestly unrelated"; he further states that

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s made the names more superficially similar than they really had been, and prompted later historians and commentators to conclude that those names must have referred to one same people in different epochs, even though people during the

Warring States period The Warring States period in history of China, Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and ...

would never have been thus misled.Goldin, Paul R. (2010
"Steppe Nomads as a Philosophical Problem in Classical China"
in ''Mapping Mongolia: Situating Mongolia in the World from Geologic Time to the Present''. Penn Museum International Research Conferences, vol. 2. Ed. Paula L.W. Sabloff. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. 2011. p. 225-226

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* Zhonghan Wang, ''Outlines of Ethnic Groups in China'', Taiyuan, Shanxi Education Press, 2004, p. 133, {{ISBN, 7-5440-2660-4

Overview

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