Why Dou Xian's Northern Campaign Became an Eastern Han Peak

Dou Xian moved from palace crisis to the northern frontier, and victory over the Xiongnu lifted his power even higher.

After the Dou family rose, Dou Xian temporarily restrained his edge. But this restraint lasted only while the emperor lived. When Emperor Zhang died, the day the Dou clan had truly been waiting for arrived.

A Child Emperor Took the Throne

In 88 CE, Emperor Zhang died.

Crown Prince Liu Zhao succeeded him as Emperor He. He was still very young and could not handle government independently. His adoptive mother, Empress Dou, became Empress Dowager Dou and governed from court.

Once the empress dowager held power, the Dou brothers immediately stood at the center of politics.

Dou Xian entered the palace as Palace Attendant to handle confidential matters and went out to announce the empress dowager's orders. His younger brother Dou Du became General of the Tiger Guards, and other Dou brothers entered important palace positions. With the emperor young and the empress dowager ruling, the Dou relatives nearly controlled the channels between inner palace and outer court.

Dou Xian did not display arrogance immediately.

He knew the Dou family had suddenly gained power and every official was watching. A client also warned him that since Han began, many families of empresses had risen, but few had preserved themselves to the end. To be rich and noble without arrogance was hard; the higher one stood, the more careful one had to be.

Dou Xian read this reminder. He did not remove the Dou brothers from power. Instead, he first placed a seemingly steady senior figure in front of the court.

Deng Biao Was Pushed Forward

Dou Xian soon had Empress Dowager Dou issue an edict appointing the former Grand Commandant Deng Biao as Grand Tutor, in charge of the Secretariat. All officials were to obey the Grand Tutor.

Deng Biao was honest, mild, and of good conduct. The late emperor had respected him. Placing him high looked like respect for an elder minister and gave the government an appearance of stable leadership.

But what Dou Xian valued was precisely Deng Biao's gentleness.

After this, when Dou Xian wanted something done, the outside memorial would come through Deng Biao, and Dou Xian would explain the matter to the empress dowager inside. With Deng Biao endorsing from the front and Dou Xian operating from behind, almost everything was approved.

Deng Biao kept himself cautious, but he had no force to correct court discipline. Government looked as though an elder minister presided, while its actual movement increasingly circled through Dou Xian.

Diwu Lun had already left court, and Zheng Hong had died. In Emperor Zhang's final years, he had hoped to use old ministers such as Yuan An to check the Dou clan. Once the emperor died, the greatest restraint above Dou Xian disappeared.

His arrogance soon appeared again.

Killing to Avenge a Father

Dou Xian was violent by temperament and held grudges deeply.

Years earlier, an official named Han Yu had handled the case against Dou Xian's father, Dou Xun. By the time Dou Xian gained power, Han Yu had long been dead and his grave was overgrown.

But death did not end the grudge.

Dou Xian sent clients to kill Han Yu's son and took the head to sacrifice to his own father. The son of a state official was privately murdered by an imperial relative.

The capital was shocked. But Empress Dowager Dou was ruling, and Dou Xian was her brother. Even if officials were angry, it was difficult to move against him.

Before long, Dou Xian committed an even more dangerous act.

After Emperor Zhang died, Liu clan princes came to Luoyang to mourn according to ritual. Among them was Liu Chang, Marquis of Duxiang, whom Empress Dowager Dou often summoned. He seemed to have her trust.

Dou Xian watched this and became uneasy.

He feared Liu Chang would divide his power. The empress dowager was his sister; state affairs had passed through him. Now a Liu clan prince was entering the inner palace frequently, and Dou Xian immediately saw a threat.

So he sent assassins to kill Liu Chang and blamed the crime on Liu Chang's younger brother Liu Gang.

A Liu clan noble being murdered in the capital was a major matter. When the truth reached Empress Dowager Dou, even she could not suppress her anger. She ordered Dou Xian confined inside the palace and forbidden to go out.

Only then did Dou Xian become afraid.

Killing an imperial clansman was not an ordinary crime. Even if the empress dowager wanted to protect her brother, it would be hard to brush away court anger. Dou Xian needed a great enough achievement to weigh against the crisis.

At that moment, a memorial from the Southern Xiongnu chanyu reached Luoyang.

An Opportunity Came from the North

The main northern opponent of Han at the time was the Northern Xiongnu.

In the year Emperor Zhang died, the Northern Xiongnu suffered famine and internal disorder. Every year, thousands fled to the Southern Xiongnu side. Seeing the opportunity, the Southern Xiongnu chanyu submitted a memorial asking the court to attack while the Northern Xiongnu were weakened.

His meaning was clear. The Southern Xiongnu would mobilize its own cavalry and absorb surrendered Northern Xiongnu forces, joining Han in several routes. If the campaign succeeded, the Northern Xiongnu could be pacified, the southern and northern branches merged under Han, and the northern frontier problem would be greatly reduced.

Empress Dowager Dou showed the memorial to Geng Bing.

Geng Bing believed it was a rare opportunity. Emperor Wu of Han had exhausted the empire and still not fully forced the Xiongnu to submit. Now the Northern Xiongnu were divided, and the Southern Xiongnu were asking to fight. Han could use one non-Han force against another, which benefited the state.

Empress Dowager Dou already wanted to give Dou Xian a chance to earn merit and offset his crime. Hearing Geng Bing support the campaign, she leaned toward the northern expedition.

But many at court opposed it.

The Secretariat official Song You argued that when the Xiongnu were strong, they dominated; when weak, they submitted. Since Han's founding, repeated attacks had gained little and consumed much. Emperor Guangwu had personally lived through war, so he used restraint and conciliation toward those who submitted, allowing frontier people to rest for more than forty years. Now the Xianbei were also attacking the Northern Xiongnu. Han could simply watch developments and did not need to exhaust troops on a distant campaign.

This was not unreasonable. For a central plains dynasty, steppe campaigns were far away, expensive, and hard to supply. Even victory might not repay the cost. If taxes and labor grew heavier, the people would suffer before frontier glory arrived.

But defeating the Xiongnu was a cause Han emperors could not easily put aside. Empress Dowager Dou also wanted to complete unfinished ancestral work. More importantly, Dou Xian needed this war to redeem himself.

She decided to send the army, appointing Dou Xian General of Chariots and Cavalry, with Geng Bing as deputy, to attack the Northern Xiongnu.

Three Routes Beyond the Frontier

In Yongyuan year one, 89 CE, the northern expedition began.

Before departure, ministers still opposed it. The Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers memorialized that the Northern Xiongnu had not actively invaded the frontier, and Han was launching a distant expedition without cause, consuming money and grain only to seek fame ten thousand li away.

The memorials were not accepted.

That summer, Dou Xian and Geng Bing led eight thousand elite cavalry and joined thirty thousand Southern Xiongnu cavalry in three routes beyond the frontier, meeting in what is now Mongolia.

Dou Xian first sent ten thousand elite troops against the Northern Xiongnu. The Han army defeated them badly, their people scattered, and the chanyu fled.

Dou Xian then organized pursuit, pressing all the way to the region of today's Uvs Lake in northwestern Mongolia. In this battle, more than thirteen thousand men below the rank of famous kings were killed, and more than a million horses, cattle, sheep, and camels were captured. Before and after the battle, eighty-one Xiongnu groups, more than two hundred thousand people, surrendered.

It was a decisive Eastern Han victory over the Northern Xiongnu.

Dou Xian and Geng Bing climbed Mount Yanran, more than three thousand li from the Han frontier. There the Han army carved an inscription in stone to proclaim Han power and had Ban Gu write the text.

Ban Gu, author of the Book of Han and elder brother of Ban Chao, wrote the inscription for the expedition. Later generations remembered the event as carving the inscription at Yanran.

Western Han had Wei Qing and Huo Qubing sealing merit at Mount Langjuxu. Eastern Han had Dou Xian and Geng Bing carving at Yanran. Later poetry and prose often used these allusions for frontier glory.

Merit Covered the Crime

For Dou Xian personally, this campaign saved him.

He had been in great danger because of the assassination of an imperial clansman. If the empress dowager wanted to protect him, she needed a reason that could stand in public. Now he had broken the Northern Xiongnu and carved merit at Yanran. The court could no longer handle him according to the earlier crime.

His prestige soared.

The victory also mattered beyond the Eastern Han court.

After the Northern Xiongnu moved far away, a huge power vacuum opened on the northern steppe. The Xianbei, originally part of the Donghu world, moved into the grasslands and gradually became a new great power. The Southern Xiongnu and other Hu groups moved more deeply inside Han territory, becoming a hidden line in later changes in the central plains.

The westward movement of the Northern Xiongnu also triggered wider chain reactions across the Eurasian steppe. Later migrations and disturbances far to the west were connected to this movement of steppe powers.

People at the time could not see all these consequences.

For the Luoyang court, the direct result was simpler: Dou Xian had won enormous frontier merit, and the Dou family had new capital with which to keep power. The court now had to decide how to reward him and where to place the Dou clan. But the greater the merit, the greater the power. Next, Dou Xian uses frontier glory to reach the summit, while the young Emperor He begins looking for a chance to strike back.