The Huns had a crucial impact on the West and the East from time to time in history. The peoples known as Huns in the West were apparently the peoples known to the Empires of China as the Hsiung-nu who lived in the southern part of the Gobi Desert and the present province of Gansu.
By the fourth century A.D. Huns had migrated west first controling the area around the Aral Sea, but by 370 A.D. had crross the Don river and driven the Visigoths from their territories north of the Black Sea. The Visigoths retreated to the Danube River in 376 A.D.
By 433 A.D. the Hunnish Empire stretched from the present Germany in the west to the Caucasus in the east. It extended roughly from the Danube River on the south to the Baltic Sea on the north.
It was in 433 A.D. that Attila and his brother Bleda ascended to rulership of the Huns. The Huns for a period of time maintained peace with the Roman Empire in return for an annual tribute seven hundred pounds of gold. When the Romans ceased to pay the tribute the Huns devastated Empire territories and stopped only when the Roman promised to pay the arrears and triple the annual tribute.
To be continued