In the third year of Yuanfeng, an urgent report arrived from Shuo Fang Commandery: "Hu cavalry have been sighted at the foot of the Yin Mountains. It appears that some Hu People have entered the Henan Land."
Although no battle reports had arrived, the court immediately sprang into action. The Han Court had never let its guard down against the Hu People of the North.
Moreover, years of observation showed that the Hu People on the Grasslands were indeed gradually flourishing again.
Emperor Xiaoding Liu Jin's fifteen years of fighting and losing had given many tribes on the Grasslands a chance to catch their breath. Liu Dan had not sent troops against the Grasslands early in his reign, while later he had won too many victories and defeated all the powerful enemies around him. He had therefore repeatedly ordered generals to patrol the frontier, flaunting the Han Court's military achievements and intimidating the Barbarians on the Grasslands.
It was not that these frontier patrols were useless; it was simply that there was something wrong with the thinking behind them.
The Han Dynasty could crush the Xiongnu, but it could not crush the Grasslands. The Grasslands remained right there, open in every direction. When one tribe or people fell, another would rise.
That went all the more for a state like the Xiongnu, whose institutions were already relatively well developed. Destroying it was exceedingly difficult.
Usually, when a state on the Grasslands perished, it either fell to internal strife or was annexed by another state on the Grasslands. Very few were directly crushed by a dynasty of the Central Plains.
One interesting thing about reading history was that, after several decades, the Central Plains still had the same dynasty, while its enemy states on the Grasslands had already changed several times.