The Xianyun (; Old Chinese: (ZS) *g.ramʔ-lunʔ; (Schuessler) *hɨamᴮ-juinᴮ < *hŋamʔ-junʔ) was an ancient nomadic tribe that invaded the Zhou dynasty. This Chinese exonym is written with xian 獫 or 玁 "long-snouted dog", and this "dog" radical 犭 is commonly used in graphic pejorative characters. They were traditionally identified with the Xunyu, Guifang and Xiongnu. Overview The earliest record of the Xianyun is dated to the reign of King Xuan of Zhou (827/25–782 BC). The Book of Songs contains four songs about military actions between the Zhou and the Xianyun. The song "Gathering sow thistle" (Cai qi) mentions 3,000 Zhou chariots in battle against the Xianyun. The song "Sixth month" (Liu yue) says that the battlefield was between the lower courses of the Jing (泾河) and Luo rivers and the Wei valley, very close to the center of the Zhou state. Written records place the first incursions against Zhou under the name Xirong "Western Rong" in 843 BC. In 840 BC, the fourteenth year of reign of King Li of Zhou, the Xianyun reached the Zhou capital Haojing. Apparently, the "Western Rong" and Xianyun were the same people here, named in the first case by a generic term meaning "warlike tribes of the west" and in the second case by their actual ethnonym. The Xianyun attacked again in 823 BC, the fifth year of reign of King Xuan. Some scholars (e.g. Jaroslav Průšek) suggest that their military tactics characterized by sudden attacks could only have been carried out by highly mobile troops, most likely on horseback and relate the appearance of the Xianyun to migrations from the Altai region in Chinese or, more specifically, the appearance of Scythians and Cimmerians migrating from the west. However, there is no definite evidence that the Xianyun were nomadic warriors; moreover, a Duo You bronze ding vessel inscription unearthed in 1980 near Xi'an tells that c. 816 BC Xianyun forces attacked a Jing (京) garrison in the lower Ordos region, drawing a Zhou military response. It indicated that like the Zhou, the Xianyun fought on horse-drawn chariots; contemporary evidence does not indicate that the increased mobility of the Xianyun is related to the emergence of mounted nomads armed with bows and arrows. Later Chinese annals contain a number of references to the Xianyun, such as by Sima Qian (c. 145/135 – 86 BC), Ying Shao (140-206 AD), Wei Zhao (204-273), and Jin Zhuo (late