Bronze camel seal of Lijie Wenyudi of the Southern Xiongnu 1st-3rd C. CE
The Wenyudi Kings were high nobility that served the Chanyu and were blood related to him. They were a part of the Six Sectors ministers. Above them was the Four Sectors ministers, and above the Four Sectors was the Chanyu. There was a Left and Right King for each sector, so there were two Wenyudi Kings. Left was regarded above Right in Xiongnu hierarchy.
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"The Lijie 栗藉 lineage on the seal of the Wenyudi leader (Fig. 20; see also Akiyama 2009, 415) finds mention in the histories for the Lijie Gudu Marquis 栗籍骨都侯 that was established as guardian of the territories of Dai (Hou Hanshu 89: 2945). The ascription given in the ‘Di taiqi juqu’ seal seems a combination of proper name and two title names. ‘Juqu’ is a known title of lower ranking within the Xiongnu hierarchy. ‘Di taiqi’ is perhaps an abbreviation of ‘Yudi taiqi’ 薁鞮臺耆 (Hou Hanshu 89: 2962, 2963), also written as ‘Yujian taiqi’ 薁鞬臺耆 (Hou Hanshu 6: 272, 65: 2138), Yujian 薁鞬 being a well-documented name of one of the five major Kangju 康居 groups, west of the Mongolian steppes, that was incorporated into the Xiongnu realms. Thus, ‘taiqi’ 臺耆 can be gleaned as an independent word that could be a title name. Taiqi also appears in the seal of ‘Gutuhei taiqi,’ and so ‘Gutuhei’ might be a clan or lineage name. Whether or not ‘taiqi’ is a variant transliteration of Tuqi, which is the title for the highest kings in the Xiongnu hierarchy, remains speculation for the time being. Huluzi is clearly a proper name, though its occurrence in the Chinese histories as a king name (Hanshu 94A: 3788), given name (Hanshu 94B: 3823), and title name all its own (Hanshu 94B: 3822) makes it difficult to discern.
For the purposes of the present discussion, it is important to note the use of clearly non-Chinese proper names and title designations on the Chinese character seals given to local dignitaries in the Southern Xiongnu realms. These official seals, and even Chinese accounts of leaders subsumed within ‘affiliate states’, clearly recognize Xiongnu titles and thus imply that social integration into the Han system seems minimal, if at all. Despite the initial graph claiming their bearers to be “of the Han”, these seals may have merely functioned as a way for those associated with a Xiongnu-style regime to more acceptably interact with elite or bureaucratic constituents of the Han – a tool for structured mediation. One should therefore speak of degrees of participation, rather than integration, in a particular regime by outside groups or individuals that might appear entwined within the social networks and systems of another.
It is also important to recognize the presence of whole burial practices and goods assemblages that correlate to those seen in Xiongnu contexts within the northern steppes, especially their location within the areas of greater pastures of the Ordos plateau where previous non-Chinese groups had centered. Although most approaches to northern China and the Southern Xiongnu phenomenon assume a foundation of culturally Sinicized groups that were integrated into and managed by the Han social and political order, the above-mentioned material and written evidence clearly demonstrate significant communities of Hu Northerners that participated in the Xiongnu social order and embraced the steppe cultural regime associated with the Xiongnu empire."
-The Southern Xiongnu in Northern China: Navigating and Negotiating the Middle Ground by Bryan Miller
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