Xianbei

Xianbei
鮮卑
Xiānbēi
3rd century BC–3rd century AD
Territory of the Xianbei Confederation under Tanshihuai during the late 2nd century. It spanned from the Liao River in the east to the borders of the Wusun in the west. North of them were the Dingling people that resided south of Lake Baikal.[1][2][3]
Territory of the Xianbei Confederation under Tanshihuai during the late 2nd century. It spanned from the Liao River in the east to the borders of the Wusun in the west. North of them were the Dingling people that resided south of Lake Baikal.[1][2][3]
StatusNomadic empire
CapitalMount Danhan (around present-day Shangdu County, Inner Mongolia)
Common languagesXianbei
Religion
Shamanism
Tengrism
Buddhism[4]
GovernmentTribal confederation
Chieftain 
• c. 156–181
Tanshihuai
• c. 181–189
Helian
• c. 190s
Kuitou
Historical eraAntiquity
• Established
3rd century BC
• Disestablished
3rd century AD
Area
200[5]4,500,000 km2 (1,700,000 sq mi)
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Xiongnu
Rouran Khaganate
Han dynasty
Dai (Sixteen Kingdoms)
Xianbei
Traditional Chinese鮮卑
Simplified Chinese鲜卑
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinXiānbēi
Gwoyeu RomatzyhShianbei
Wade–GilesHsien1-pei1
IPA[ɕjɛ́n.péɪ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationSīn bēi
Southern Min
Hokkien POJTshinn-pi
Middle Chinese
Middle ChineseSjen-pjie
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*S[a]r-pe

The Xianbei (/ʃjɛnˈbeɪ/; simplified Chinese: 鲜卑; traditional Chinese: 鮮卑; pinyin: Xiānbēi) were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. The Xianbei were strongly suggested to be a multilingual, multi-ethnic confederation consisting of mainly Proto-Mongols (who spoke either pre-Proto-Mongolic,[6][7][8][9] or Para-Mongolic languages[9]), and, to a minor degree, Tungusic[10] and Turkic peoples.[6][11] They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the Wuhuan and Xianbei when they were defeated by the Xiongnu at the end of the third century BC. Following the split, the Xianbei people did not have a direct contact with the Han dynasty, residing to the north of the Wuhuan. In the first century BC, the Xianbei began actively engaging in the struggle between the Han and Xiongnu, culminating in the Xianbei replacing the Xiongnu on the Mongolian Plateau in 93 AD.

In the mid-2nd century, the chieftain, Tanshihuai unified the Xianbei and waged war against the Han dynasty. His confederation threatened the Han's northern borders for many years, but quickly disintegrated following his death in 181 AD. After suffering several defeats by the end of the Three Kingdoms period, the Xianbei migrated south and settled in close proximity to Han society and submitted as vassals to the Chinese dynasties. As one of the so-called "Five Barbarians" that settled in northern China, the Xianbei fought as auxiliaries for the Western Jin dynasty during the War of the Eight Princes and the Upheaval of the Five Barbarians before eventually distancing themselves and declaring their autonomy as the Jin was pushed to the south. During the Sixteen Kingdoms period, the Xianbei founded several short-lived states in the north and established themselves on the Central Plains.[12][13]

The Xianbei were at one point all subjected to the Di-led Former Qin dynasty before it fell apart not long after its defeat in the Battle of Fei River by the Eastern Jin. In the wake of the Former Qin's collapse, the Tuoba formed the Northern Wei dynasty and eventually reunited northern China, ushering China into the Northern and Southern dynasties period. The Northern dynasties, all of which were either led or heavily influenced by the Xianbei, opposed and promoted sinicization at one point or another but trended towards the latter and had merged with the general Chinese population by the Tang dynasty.[14][15][16][17][18] The Northern Wei also arranged for ethnic Han elites to marry daughters of the Tuoba imperial clan in the 480s.[19] More than fifty percent of Tuoba Xianbei princesses of the Northern Wei were married to southern Han men from the imperial families and aristocrats from southern China of the Southern dynasties who defected and moved north to join the Northern Wei.[20]

  1. ^ Grousset, Rene (1970). The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0-8135-1304-1.
  2. ^ "Nomads in Central Asia." N. Ishjamts. In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. Harmatta, János, ed., 1994. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, pp. 155–156.
  3. ^ SGZ 30. 837–838, note. 1.
  4. ^ Hu, Alex J. (February 2010). "An overview of the history and culture of the Xianbei ('Monguor'/'Tu')". Asian Ethnicity. 11 (1): 95–164. doi:10.1080/14631360903531958. ISSN 1463-1369.
  5. ^ Bang, Peter Fibiger; Bayly, C. A.; Scheidel, Walter (2 December 2020). The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience. Oxford University Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-19-977311-4.
  6. ^ a b Golden 2013, p. 47, quote: "The Xianbei confederation appears to have contained speakers of Pre-Proto-Mongolic, perhaps the largest constituent linguistic group, as well as former Xiongnu subjects, who spoke other languages, Turkic almost certainly being one of them."
  7. ^ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1983). "The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic China," in The Origins of Chinese Civilization, University of California Press, p. 452 of pp. 411–466.
  8. ^ Kradin N. N. (2011). "Heterarchy and hierarchy among the ancient Mongolian nomads". Social Evolution & History. 10 (1): 188.
  9. ^ a b Janhunen 2006, pp. 405–6.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Xu173179 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Wolfgang-Ekkehard Scharlipp Die frühen Türken in Zentralasien, Darmstadt 1992, p. 10
  12. ^ de Crespigny 2017, p. 502.
  13. ^ Theobald, Ulrich. "Xianbei 鮮卑". Chinaknowledge.de. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  14. ^ "The Sixteen States of the Five Barbarian Peoples 五胡十六國". Chinaknowledge.de.
  15. ^ Gernet, Jacques (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–87. ISBN 9780521497817.
  16. ^ Tanigawa, Michio; Fogel, Joshua (1985). Medieval Chinese Society and the Local "community". University of California Press. pp. 120–21. ISBN 9780520053700.
  17. ^ Van Der Veer, Peter (2002). "Contexts of Cosmopolitanism". In Vertovec, Steven; Cohen, Robin (eds.). Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context and Practice. Oxford University Press. pp. 200–01. ISBN 9780199252282.
  18. ^ Dardess, John W. (2010). Governing China: 150–1850. Hackett. p. 9. ISBN 9781603844475.
  19. ^ Rubie Sharon Watson (1991). Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. University of California Press. pp. 80–. ISBN 978-0-520-07124-7.
  20. ^ Tang, Qiaomei (May 2016). Divorce and the Divorced Woman in Early Medieval China (First through Sixth Century) (PDF) (A dissertation presented by Qiaomei Tang to The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of East Asian Languages and Civilizations). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. pp. 151, 152, 153.