At the end of the Han Dynasty, Cai Yan (Moon Hee), the daughter of Cai Yong, a famous litterateur and guqin, was captured by Xiongnu in the mutiny, and she lived in South Xiongnu and Zuo Xianwang as a concubine, and gave birth to two children. Later, Cao Cao sent someone to take her back. She wrote a long poem about her miserable life and homesickness.

The whole poem is composed of eighteen paragraphs and eighteen complete sets of songs. According to Guo Moruo, the Turkic language calls "first" as "beat", and eighteen beats means eighteen songs. Because the poem was written by her because of Hu Jia's wailing, it was named "Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia" or "Hu Jia Ming". It was originally a Qin song, but it gradually evolved into two different instrumental music after Wei and Jin Dynasties, which were called "Big Hu Jia Ming" and "Little Hu Jia Ming". The former is the direct biography of Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia.

Huang Tinglan, a pianist in the Tang Dynasty, was famous for playing this song well. Li Jie has a poem "Listening to Dong Da's Playing Huqie": "Cai Nv used to make Huqie, and when long ago one by one she sang its eighteen stanzas, even the Tartars were shedding tears into the border grasses and Han made a heartbroken guest return." It is a summary of the content of the song. The existing music scores were first found in the book "Magic Secret Score" published in 1425, which was called "Big and Little Hu Jia", and they were all instrumental music without lyrics. The singing piano song "Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia" was first written in Qin Shi, which was carved by Sun Pixian in the thirty-ninth year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty (A.D.161year), and its lyrics are "I didn't do anything at the beginning of my life ...". Music basically uses the method of one word to one sound, which has the characteristics of early songs. From the first beat to the ninth beat, as well as the twelfth and thirteenth beats, there is a same ending, which is influenced by the Han Dynasty and Daqu. The whole song is a six-tone feather tone, and the rising eigen tone (L 5) and the high tone (L 1) formed in the mold are often used as the tone external voice. The mood is sad and exciting, which is quite touching.