Ushi means "raven generation", and is semantically identical with U-sun – "raven descendants". In Wusun legend their ancestors were a raven and a wolf.
The Wusun are first mentioned by Chinese sources as vassals in the Tarim Basin of the Yuezhi.[20] Beckwith suggests that the Wusun were an eastern remnant of the Indo-Aryans, who had been suddenly pushed to the extremeties of the Eurasian Steppe by the Iranian peoples in the 2nd millenium BC.[35] Early Chinese histories such as Shiji and Hanshu recorded that the Wusun had initially lived near the Yuezhi in the Qilian and Dunhuang areas in Gansu[36] (different locations however have been suggested for these toponyms.)[37] According to Shiji, Wusun was a state located west of the Xiongnu.[38]
In the 5th century they were pressured by the Rouran and may have migrated to the Pamir Mountains.[48] From the 6th century onward the former habitat of the Wusun formed part of the western empire of the Göktürks. After this event the Wusun seem to disappear from Chinese records, though their name was last mentioned on an offering to the court of Liao Dynasty on September 22, 938.[49] The Chinese were involved in a plot with the Wusun involving a "fat King", and "Mad King". The Chinese were involved in a plot to kill the mad king, and a Chinese deputy envoy called Chi Tu who brought a doctor to attend to him was punished by castration when he returned to China.[50][51]
The Wusun left multiple diaspora islands along their centuries-old trek. As a rule, part of a tribe remained in the old habitats and later on participated in new ethnic unions. Wusun principalities are known in the Ordos Desert. Separate Wusun princedoms existed for a long time in the Khangai Mountains and along the Bogdoshan ridge (eastern Tian Shan).[52]
The modern Uysyn who number approximately 250,000 people, are regarded by some as the modern descendants of the Wusun. The Uysyn have two branches, Dulat andSary Uysyn ("Yellow Uysyn").
Around 175 BC, prince Modu Chanyu of the Xiongnu, also former vassals of the Yuezhi, soundly defeated the latter.[21] According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi were defeated by the rising Xiongnu empire and fled westward, driving away the Sai (Scythians) from the Ili Valley in the Zhetysu area.[39] Before this, they overran the Wusun, whose ruler Nandoumi was killed. His infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild. He was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens.[40][41] The Wusun subsequently settled the modern province of Gansu, in the valley of the Ushui-he (Chinese Raven Water river), as vassals of the Xiongnu. It is not clear whether the river was named after the tribe or vice versa.
The Xiongnu ruler was impressed and adopted the child. When the child grew up the Chanyu gave him command in the west. As an act of revenge, the Wusun attacked the Yuezhi, who had settled in the Ili Valley. The Yuezhi were crushed completely and fled further west to Sogdia, Bactria, and then South Asia, where one branch of the Yuezhi founded the Kushan Empire.
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