Modu Chanyu

Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire from 209 to 174 BCE

Modu, Maodun, Modun (, from Old Chinese (220 B. C. E.): *mouᴴ tuən or *mək tuən, c. 234 – c. 174 BCE) was the son of Touman and the founder of the empire of the Xiongnu. He came to power by ordering his men to kill his father in 209 BCE. The eastern border stretched as far as the Liao River, the western borders of the empire reached the Pamir Mountains, whilst the northern border reached Lake Baikal. Modu was succeeded by his son Laoshang. Also Modu Chanyu take tax from today's China. In year China always give princess to Xiongnu and some wheat, rice.

His name Mòdùn (Wade Giles: Motun) is pronounced in Later Han Chinese and in Middle Chinese; the name's Old Chinese pronunciation might have represented the pronunciation of the foreign word *baɣtur, a relative of the later attested Central Eurasian culture word baɣatur "hero". His name was also read as Modun 墨頓 (MC: *mək tuənH; following to Sima Zhen's commentary on Shiji) and Modu 墨毒 (MC: *mək duok; following Song Qi's commentary on Hanshu), the latter of which, according to Pulleyblank (1999), "does not make sense" phonologically.

As Nicola Di Cosmo summarizes the sequence of events, the Qin invasion of the Ordos Plateau (the area within the bend of the Yellow River) came at the same time as a leadership crisis within the loose Xiongnu confederation. Modu took advantage of the Xiongnu militarization process that came in response to the Qin invasion, and ably created a newly centralized political structure that made possible his empire. He was aided by the rapid fall of Qin and the fact that the Han initially set up independent "kingdoms," whose leaders, like Xin, King of Han, were as likely to ally with Xiongnu and attack Han as the other way around. Han weakness meant that it supplied Modu and his successors with a steady flow of luxury and staple tribute they could pass down to the aristocracy supporting them. Without that tribute, the Xiongnu might not have been able to expand and maintain control.

Christopher I. Beckwith has pointed out that the story of the young Modu resembles a widespread class of folk tales in which a young hero is abandoned, goes on a quest, proves his worth, gains a group of trusted companions, returns to his home country, slays a powerful figure and becomes a king. The name of Modu has been associated with Oghuz Khagan, a legendary ancestor of Oghuz Turks. The reason for that is a striking similarity of the Oghuz Khagan biography in the Turco Persian tradition (Rashid al Din Hamadani, Husayni Isfahani, Abu al Ghazi Bahadur) with the Modu biography in the Chinese sources (feud between the father and son and murder of the former, the direction and sequence of conquests, etc. ), which was first noticed by Hyacinth (Compilation of reports, pp. 56–57). Another suggestion connects it with the name of the Magyar royal tribe of the Hungarians and with their distant relatives the Mators, now extinct. Modu has been linked with the Dulo clan known from the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans and this, in the form *Duh klah Tuqi King, with the Hungarian Gyula clan. It has been suggested that his name, as Bixtun or Beztur, appears in the genealogy as the ancestor of Attila, in the Chronica Hungarorum of Johannes de Thurocz.

Modu Chanyu is also known as Mete Khan (particularly, Mete Han in Turkish) across a number of Turkic languages. The Turkish Land Forces claims the beginning of his reign in 209 BCE as its symbolic founding date.