Wuhuan had become somewhat of a dual vassal to both the Han and the Xiongnu during the late Han Dynasty, and, under a policy in effect since 121 BCE, is supposed to pay Xiongnu tributes in textile and leather.

Should Wuhuan fail to pay the tributes, Xiongnu forces kidnap Wuhuan women as hostages.

The first sign of irritation with Wang Mang’s policies had come sometime before 10, by which time the Xin director of Wuhuan affairs had informed the Wuhuan tribes not to pay further tribute to Xiongnu.

In response, the Xiongnu mount a punitive military action against Wuhuan, taking hostage about one thousand women and children.

At Wang Mang's orders, the Xiongnu are later forced to return the Wuhuan hostages.

Rivalry between Maroboduus and Arminius, the Cheruscan leader who inflicts the devastating defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest on the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 CE, prevents a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Maroboduus).

However, according to the first century CE historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus' head to Maroboduus, but the king of the Marcomanni sent it to Augustus.

Tiberius and Germanicus launch an operation against the Daesitiatesin the next year.

Bato and the Daesitiates after fierce battles surrender to Tiberius in  September CE 9, only a few days before the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

This is just in time: the Roman high command does not doubt that Arminius and the Cherusci would have formed a grand alliance with the Illyrians.

It has taken the Romans three years of hard fighting to quell the revolt, which is described by the Roman historian Suetonius as the most difficult conflict faced by Rome since the Punic Wars two centuries earlier.

It is alleged that when Tiberius asked Bato and the Daesitiates why they had rebelled, Baton was reputed to have answered: "You Romans are to blame for this; for you send as guardians of your flocks, not dogs or shepherds, but wolves."

Bato will spend the rest of his life in the Italian town of Ravenna.

Augustus, as part of his ongoing effort to increase the Roman populace, passes the Lex Papia Poppaea in CE 9, promoting large families.

It includes provisions against adultery and celibacy and complements and supplements Augustus' Lex Julia de Maritandis Ordinibus of 18 BCE and the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis of 17 BCE.

The law is introduced by the suffect consuls of this year, M. Papius Mutilus and Q. Poppaeus Secundus, although they themselves are unmarried.

The rebellion in the Balkans has only just been completed when Arminius raises the Germans against their Roman governor Varus and destroys him and his three legions.

As Augustus cannot readily replace the troops, the annexation of western Germany and Bohemia is postponed indefinitely; Tiberius and Germanicus are sent to consolidate the Rhine frontier.

The lower reaches of the Elbe River, known to the Romans as the Albis, marks the limit of the Romans' farthest advance in Germany in CE 9.

Angered by the governance of the arrogant and tactless Varus, Arminius deceitfully persuades Varus to lead his entire force—composed of the Seventeenth, Eighteeth and Nineteenth legions, plus three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries—into the Teutoburger Wald (Teutoburg Forest) in the late summer of 9, with Arminius as head of a rear guard.

Lying in wait is an allied coalition force of Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci and Sicambri.

Once the supply wagons mire (at a point supposedly near present Detmold, Germany) and the legions break formation, Germanic guerillas, the home advantage lying with their more loosely organized forces in the heavy woods, attack the unsuspecting Romans; the German recruits desert, and the rear guard falls on the legions from behind.

Varus desperately attempts to march west to safety, but the tribesmen annihilate his cavalry by the second day; by the end of the third, twenty thousand Roman soldiers are dead.

Varus, humiliated, takes his own life.

The Roman advance into Germany is thus halted at the Rhine, not the Elbe.

Wang, seeking to control fluctuations in the prices of food and textiles by purchasing excess goods and then selling them when prices rise, establishes a state economic adjustment agency in 10.

The same agency also becomes responsible for loaning money to entrepreneurs, at the rate of three percent per month.

Six offices are set up: in Luoyang, …

…Handan, …

…Linzi (modern Zibo, Shandong), …

…Wancheng (modern Nanyang, Henan), …

…Chengdu, and …