Battle of Mobei - Aftermath

Aftermath

The costs of the victorious campaigns over the Xiongnu in the ten years from 129 to 119 BC were enormous: the Han army lost almost 80% of their horses on these expeditions, due to combat as well as non-combative losses such as the harsh journey and plague caused by the Xiongnu contaminating the water supply with dead cattle.

Economic pressure on the central Han government led to new taxes being introduced, increasing the burden on average peasants. The population of the Han Empire dropped significantly as a result of famine and excessive taxing to fund military mobilisations.

The Xiongnu, however, suffered a more lethal blow, as their military losses would reflect directly on their economy. Apart from loss of manpower due to wartime casualties and diseases, the nomadic Xiongnu lost millions of livestock, their vital food resource, to the Han army, and the war left large proportion of the remaining cattle suffering miscarriages during their reproductive seasons.

Furthermore, the loss of control over the fertile southern grassland meant that Xiongnu had to hole up in the cold, barren land of the northern Gobi Desert and Siberia, struggling to survive. As a result, there was a true ceasefire between the Han Dynasty and Xiongnu for seven years, which ended after a Xiongnu raid in 112 BC at Wuyuan. The Xiongnu, however, never recovered to the strength of their past glory days, and would break apart into smaller clans in the coming decades.