Juan-Juan

(also, Jou-jan; in Russian, zhuzhane), a confederation of nomadic tribes inhabiting the steppes of western Manchuria, Mongolia, and Turkestan during the early Middle Ages. Its rise is associated with the name of Shelun’ (402–410), who united scattered tribes into a powerful military confederation. Wars with the Turks, Chinese, and Uighurs, as well as unceasing internal strife, gradually weakened the confederation, and in the mid-sixth century it collapsed. Some of the Juan-juan were assimilated by the Turks and other peoples, while others, numbering about 30,000 tents, migrated far to the west and settled on the middle Danube, where they survived as an ethnic group until the ninth century.