Origin Warring States period's
Chinese literature contains early mentions of Xianbei, as in the poem
The Great Summons in the anthology
Chu Ci and possibly the chapter "Discourses of Jin 8" in the
Guoyu. When the
Donghu "Eastern Barbarians" were defeated by
Modu Chanyu around 208 BC, the Donghu splintered into the Xianbei and Wuhuan. According to the
Book of the Later Han, "the language and culture of the Xianbei are the same as the
Wuhuan". The first significant contact the Xianbei had with the
Han dynasty was in 41 and 45, when they joined the Wuhuan and Xiongnu in raiding Han territory. In 49, the governor Ji Tong convinced the Xianbei chieftain Pianhe to turn on the Xiongnu with rewards for each Xiongnu head they collected.Throughout his reign, Tanshihuai aggressively raided the Han dynasty's northern borders, with his first recorded raid being in 156. In 166, he allied with the
Southern Xiongnu and
Wuhuan to attack
Shaanxi and
Gansu. These raids devastated the border commanderies and claimed many lives. Though the Han was able to repel them at times, they were concerned that they would not be able to subdue Tanshihuai. The Han attempted to appease him by offering him the title of King, but Tanshihuai rejected them and continued to harass their borders. In 177, Xia Yu, Tian Yan and the Southern Xiongnu
chanyu,
Tute Ruoshi Zhujiu led a force of 30,000 against the Xianbei. They were defeated and returned with only one-tenth of their original forces. A memorial made that year records that the Xianbei had taken all the lands previously held by the Xiongnu and their warriors numbered 100,000. Han deserters who sought refuge in their lands served as their advisers and refined metals as well as wrought iron came into their possession. Their weapons were sharper and their horses faster than those of the Xiongnu. Another memorial submitted in 185 states that the Xianbei were making raids on Han settlements nearly every year. (206 BC to 220 AD), from a Xianbei tomb in
Yushu,
Jilin Province|left Despite the constant raids, the loose Xianbei confederacy lacked the organization of the Xiongnu Empire, and they were struggling to sustain their growing population. Tanshihuai died in 181 and was succeeded by his son, Helian, but he lacked his father's abilities and was killed in a raid on
Beidi during the last years of
Emperor Ling of Han. Helian's son, Qianman was too young at the time of his father's death, so the chieftains elected his nephew, Kuitou, to succeed him. Once Qianman came of age, however, he challenged his cousin to succession, destroying the last vestiges of unity among the Xianbei.
Three Kingdoms By the
Jian'an era (196–220), the Xianbei had split into many different groups, including the Kuitou ruling in
Inner Mongolia,
Kebineng in northern
Shanxi, and Suli, Mijia and Queji in northern
Liaodong. Following his death, Kuitou's brothers
Budugen and
Fuluohan divided his territory among themselves. After
Cao Cao defeated the
Wuhuan at the
Battle of White Wolf Mountain in 207, Budugen, Fuluohan, Kebineng and others paid tribute to him. In 218, Fuluohan met with the Wuhuan chieftain Nengchendi to form an alliance, but Nengchendi double crossed him and called in Kebineng, who killed Fuluohan. Budugen went to the court of
Cao Wei in 224 to ask for assistance against Kebineng, but he eventually betrayed them and allied with Kebineng in 233. Kebineng killed Budugen soon afterwards. Kebineng was from a minor Xianbei tribe. He rose to power west of
Dai Commandery by taking in a number of Chinese refugees, who helped him drill his soldiers and make weapons. After the defeat of the Wuhuan in 207, he also sent tribute to Cao Cao, and provided assistance against the rebel Tian Yin. In 218 he allied himself to the Wuhuan rebel Nengchendi but they were defeated and forced back across the frontier by
Cao Zhang. In 220, he acknowledged
Cao Pi as emperor of Cao Wei. Eventually, he turned on Wei for frustrating his advances on Suli. Kebineng conducted raids on Cao Wei before he was killed in 235, after which his confederacy disintegrated. Many of the Xianbei tribes migrated south and settled on the borders of the Wei-Jin dynasties, where they often offered their submission. In 258, the
Tuoba tribe settled in the abandoned city of
Shengle, north of the
Yin Mountains. To the east of them, the
Yuwen tribe settled between the
Luan River and
Liucheng, while the
Murong tribe were allowed to move deeper into
Liaodong. The
Duan tribe was founded in
Liaoxi within the
Great Wall by a Xianbei ex-slave along with a group of exiles. In the west, an offshoot of the Murong moved into northern
Qinghai and mixed with the native
Qiang people, becoming the
Tuyuhun.
Sinicization, assimilation and descendants The Northern Wei unification was long-lasting and brought a period of relative peace to the north in the wake of the chaotic Sixteen Kingdoms period. The Xianbei had naturally been in the process of
sinicization since they first entered the Chinese interior, but this process became systemic during the late Northern Wei period.
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei established a policy of systematic sinicization that was continued by his successors and largely abandoned Xianbei traditions. The royal family took sinicization a step further by decreeing the
change of Xianbei names to Han names, even changing their own family name from
Tuoba to Yuan. Xiaowen also moved the capital to
Luoyang in the Chinese heartlands away from
Pingcheng near the northern frontiers. While the population in Luoyang were open to accepting the policies, the population near the old capital were more conservative and held on to their Xianbei culture. Marriages to Han elite families were encouraged, and the Northern Wei started to arrange for Han Chinese elites to marry daughters of the Tuoba in the 480s. Some Han Chinese exiled royalty fled from southern China and defected to the Xianbei. Several daughters of the Xianbei
emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei were married to Han Chinese elites, the
Liu Song royal Liu Hui, married Princess Lanling of the Northern Wei, Princess Huayang to Sima Fei, a descendant of
Jin dynasty (266–420) royalty, Princess Jinan to Lu Daoqian, Princess Nanyang to
Xiao Baoyin, a member of
Southern Qi royalty.
Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei's sister the Shouyang Princess was wedded to the
Liang dynasty ruler
Emperor Wu of Liang's son Xiao Zong. After the
Six Frontier Towns Rebellion and the events that followed, the Northern Wei split into
Eastern Wei (534–550) and
Western Wei (535–556) before becoming the
Northern Qi (550–577) and
Northern Zhou (557–581) respectively. The chaos allowed the Xianbei frontier nobility to enter the Central Plains and pushback on the Wei's sinicization policies. The Northern Qi was ruled by the Gao clan, a Xianbeified Han Chinese family who relied on the Xianbei elites and favoured their traditions. Meanwhile, the Northern Zhou was ruled by the
Yuwen clan of Xianbei ethnicity. Ruling over a predominantly Chinese population, the military reforms of the Western Wei and Northern Zhou saw an attempt to revive the Xianbei warrior culture, which included reverting the sinicized names of the Northern Wei and rewarding Han Chinese officers with Xianbei names. The Prime Minister of Northern Zhou,
Yang Jian, later had these names restored back to Han names. In 581, Yang Jian founded the
Sui dynasty (581–618) and unified China in 589 after absorbing the
Chen dynasty (557–589). When the Sui came to an end amidst peasant
rebellions and renegade troops, his cousin,
Li Yuan, founded the
Tang dynasty (618–907). Both Sui and Tang were founded by families who identified with their Han Chinese patrilineage, and were backed by an alliance of Chinese and Xianbei nobles from the Northern Zhou who sought to protect their common interest. Through these political establishments, the Xianbei who entered China and their culture were largely merged with the Chinese, examples such as the wife of
Emperor Gaozu of Tang,
Duchess Dou and
Emperor Taizong of Tang's wife,
Empress Zhangsun, both having Xianbei ancestries. The Xianbei who remained behind in the northern grassland evolved into tribes of the
Rouran Khaganate and
Khitan people. In the west, the
Tuyuhun remained independent until it was defeated by the
Tibetan Empire in 670. After the fall of the kingdom, the Tuyuhun underwent a diaspora over a vast territory that stretched from the northwest into central and eastern parts of China.
Murong Nuohebo led them eastward into central China, where they settled in modern
Yinchuan, Ningxia. == Culture ==