Military history of the Three Kingdoms
By the time of the Three Kingdoms period the Xiongnu had already ceased to be a major power. Their last stand as a steppe empire was in 89 when Dou Xian led an army of 45,000 and decisively defeated them at the Battle of the Altai Mountains. The Xiongnu Empire was replaced by a loose confederation of disorganized Xianbei tribes, who were nonetheless highly aggressive and proved problematic to their southern neighbors. A southern branch of the Xiongnu split off from their northern neighbors in 50 AD and continued to exist as a Han puppet state in Bing Province. However, in 188 the Xiuchuge clan rebelled against their Chanyu, Qiangqu, for sending troops to aid the Han against the rebels Zhang Ju and Zhang Chun. They replaced Qiangqu with his son Yufuluo, who's hold on power was tenuous, and he was ousted over a marquis of the Xubu clan. When the marquis of Xubu died the next year an elderly king became the nominal head of state without the title of Chanyu and the Southern Xiongnu ceased to exist as a coherent entity. In 216 the Xiongnu of the Ordos were settled but the region remained outside the jurisdiction of Cao Wei's administration.
Xiongnu
Within the Xiongnu culture more variety is visible from site to site than from "era" to "era," in terms of the Chinese chronology, yet all form a whole that is distinct from that of the Han and other peoples of the non-Chinese north. In some instances iconography can not be used as the main cultural identifier because art depicting animal predation is common among the steppe peoples. An example of animal predation associated with Xiongnu culture is a tiger carrying dead prey. We see a similar image in work from Maoqinggou, a site which is presumed to have been under Xiongnu political control but is still clearly non-Xiongnu. From Maoqinggou, we see the prey replaced by an extension of the tiger's foot. The work also depicts a lower level of execution; Maoqinggou work was executed in a rounder, less detailed style. In its broadest sense, Xiongnu iconography of animal predation include examples such as the gold headdress from Aluchaideng and gold earrings with a turquoise and jade inlay discovered in Xigouban, Inner Mongolia. The gold headdress can be viewed, along with some other examples of Xiongnu art, from the external links at the bottom of this article.