AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary

Protection pricing on the steppe

Iron Age & Antiquity East Asia Steppe & Central Asia

Status: Open

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

Protection pricing on the steppe. Joins the economics of protection rackets (extraction is priced to the victim's outside option, so it rises with the victim's internal weakness) to Han-Xiongnu diplomacy: heqin tribute schedules should ratchet up after Han domestic crises, not after Xiongnu battlefield victories.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Across the roughly ten renegotiated heqin schedules recorded in the Shiji and Hanshu (198-135 BCE; silk floss and cloth in catties and bolts, grain in shi, plus marriage clauses), tribute quantities rise by at least 20% in real terms at every renegotiation that follows a Han internal shock (an imperial succession within 3 years, or the 154 BCE Rebellion of the Seven States) and are flat or falling after renegotiations that follow major Xiongnu raids without Han internal turmoil; a regression of log tribute growth on a victim-instability dummy is positive while the coefficient on a raider-victory dummy is non-positive.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the tabulated tribute schedules and event chronology compiled from Shiji 110 and Hanshu 94. Tribute tracking Xiongnu military success rather than Han instability kills it.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Generated by a fresh Fable-tier instance at maximum effort with generation-first blindness (no repo reads, no searches, no DB queries); title list supplied at launch, titles only, no verdicts or dossiers seen; prompt pre-committed in docs/GOAL_CONJECTURES_BATCH2_20260705.md (7e55eb8). Novelty unverified by construction.

Novelty / leakage triage

no prior formulation located (search dated 2026-07-05)

The heqin renegotiation record is documented (22 agreements; the 198 BCE founding terms; the 89 BCE escalation) and protection-racket pricing economics is an established general framework, but no source was located regressing tribute growth on Han-internal instability versus Xiongnu battlefield success; the one adjacent documented dynamic runs the other direction (Xiongnu-side succession crisis coinciding with Han gains). No prior formulation located (search dated 2026-07-05).

Heqin historiography overview (22 recorded agreements) — The renegotiation record
'Resisting Protection: Rackets, Resistance, and State Building' — The borrowed pricing framework

Predictions

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