Han Dynasty Army

The army of the Han dynasty, which ruled China from 206 BC to 220 AD, was the imperial military built under centralized command that expanded and consolidated Chinese territory across four centuries. Facing the nomadic Xiongnu confederation on its northern frontier, early Han emperors initially relied on a heqin policy of marriage alliances and tribute after a defeat at the Battle of Baideng in 200 BC, but Emperor Wu reversed this stance from 133 BC onward with a sustained offensive campaign, and commanders Huo Qubing and Wei Qing won a decisive victory at the Battle of Mobei in 119 BC that drove the Xiongnu court north of the Gobi Desert as far as Lake Baikal. Han forces went on to conquer the Hexi Corridor in 121 BC, establish the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BC, and extend Chinese control south into Nanyue by 111 BC and into Korea by 108 BC, while garrison settlements of soldier-farmers secured the expanded frontier. By 51 BC the Xiongnu leader Huhanye had submitted as a Han tributary vassal, a subordination that persisted into the Eastern Han period and marked the definitive end of the steppe threat that had shaped Han military policy for generations.