The Xiongnu nomads, also known as the Xiongnu, have been disturbing the borders of China since ancient times. At the turn of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. e. they created a powerful alliance of tribes, which served as the basis of a gigantic steppe empire, which began to threaten the existence of China itself. And even the construction of fortifications, which later turned into the Great Wall of China, could not have saved the Celestial Empire if it had not been for the internal contradictions tearing apart the steppe power. A significant part of the Xiongnu eventually fell under Chinese rule and disappeared among its inhabitants. But the northern branch of this people at the end of the 1st century AD. e. went to the west and, absorbing many tribes like a sponge, gave birth to the Huns, whose invasion led to the death of the Roman Empire and marked the transition in Europe from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The book of the writer Oleg Ivik and archaeologist Vladimir Klyuchnikov, written with based on ancient Chinese sources and the works of modern historians and archaeologists.