Bishop Augustine of Hippo works tirelessly in…

Fan Yang Mai I, king of Champa, commands over one hundred boats in a looting expedition along Jih-nan’s coast in Chinese-held Tonkin.

In his absence, the Chinese retaliate by laying siege to Ch'u-su, breaking it only after severe weather compels them to withdraw.

Yang Mai’s troops, while fighting in Tonkin, attempt, unsuccessfully, to enlist the aid of Funan soldiers.

Skirmishing continues sporadically between the Chinese and the Chams until 425, when Tonkin’s new governor denounces the ongoing peace talks and lays siege to Ch'u-su, eventually reducing the city and carrying off large quantities of plunder.

His forces then advance on the Cham capital near present Hue, commandeering Champa’s gold, and taking control of the country, forcing the Cham people to pay an annual tribute.

Emperor Taiwu reestablishes peaceful relations with Liu Song in 425.

Helian Bobo, the founding emperor of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Xia, is generally considered to be an extremely cruel ruler, one who has betrayed every benefactor that he had, and whose thirst for killing is excessive even for his turbulent times.

He has built an impressive capital for his state at Tongwan (modern Yulin, Shaanxi) that will resist siege even hundreds of years later during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.

Traditional historians, who may have had a reason to exaggerate, write of Helian Bobo, “He was arrogant and cruel, treating the people like wild plants and mustard greens.

He often climbed up towers with bows and arrows, and whenever he had a sudden thought of distrust, dislike, or anger at a person, he would kill that person personally.

If any of his officials looked at him in a gazing manner, he would gouge out their eyes.

Anyone who laughed frivolously would have their lips sliced open with knives.

Anyone who dared to offer a contrary opinion would first have his tongue cut out and then head cut off.”

For reasons not now known, Helian Bobo decides in 424 to depose Crown Prince Gui and create another son, Helian Lun, the Duke of Jiuquan, crown prince.

Upon hearing this news, Helian Gui commands his troops north from Chang'an and attacks Helian Lun.

Their forces meet at Gaoping, and Helian Gui defeats and kills Helian Lun.

However, Helian Lun's brother Helian Chang then makes a surprise attack on Helian Gui, killing him and seizing his troops, leading them back to Tongwan.

A pleased Helian Bobo creates Helian Chang crown prince.

Xu and Fu offer to resign in 425.

Emperor Wen approves and begins to handle important matters of state himself.

However, Xu's nephew Xu Peizhi and his associates Cheng and Wang Shaozhi persuade him that he does not need to resign, and thereafter he resumes his post. (While it is not explicitly stated in history, it appears that Fu then did so as well.)

However, Emperor Wen is resentful that Xu, Fu, and Xie had killed his two older brothers, and in late 425 plans to destroy them, particularly at the urging of Wang Hua and the general Kong Ningzi.

He therefore mobilizes troops and publicly declares that he is going to attack rival Northern Wei, but is privately preparing to arrest Xu and Fu while engaging in a military campaign against Xie, at this time the governor of Jing Province.

Eastern Roman society on the whole is an educated one.

Primary education is widely available, sometimes even at village level and uniquely in this society for both sexes.

Female participation in culture is high.

At this time, various economic schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine arts academies are also open in the city.

Scholarship is fostered not only in Constantinople but also in institutions operated in such major cities as Antioch and Alexandria.

At the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia, Theodosius in 425 establishes an institute of higher education in Constantinople, under the name of Pandidakterion; it is the nucleus of the later University of Constantinople, endowing thirty-one chairs—fifteen in Latin and sixteen in Greek—for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects.

The main content of higher education for most students is rhetoric, philosophy and law with the aim of producing competent, learned personnel to staff the bureaucratic postings of state and church.

In this sense, the university is the secular equivalent of the Theological Schools.

The university will maintain an active philosophical tradition of Platonism and Aristotelianism, with the former being the longest unbroken Platonic school, running for close to two millennia until the fifteenth century.

Further military actions in Italia are inconclusive until the garrison of Ravenna is persuaded to betray Joannes to the Eastern imperial forces.

The fallen emperor is brought to Aquileia, where first his hand is cut off, then he is paraded on an ass in the Hippodrome to the insults of the populace; then after further insults and injuries, he is decapitated in June or July of 425.

Aetius, having from the beginning supported Joannes, returns to Italy leading an army of sixty thousand Huns but his arrival in Ravenna comes three days after Joannes' execution.

After some preliminary skirmishing, Aetius, backed by his large Hunnish force, negotiates with Galla Placida, from whom he is able to secure a pardon and obtain the office of Magister militum per Gallias (or Master of Soldiers in Gaul) from Galla Placidia, the empress-mother and regent for Augustus-elect Valentinian III.

The Huns are to be paid off and sent home.

Thus the political landscape of the Western Roman Empire is established for the thirty years remaining to it.

Valentinian III is installed Western Emperor in Rome, at the age of six, on October 23.

Emperor Taiwu begins in 426 to seek a target for a concentrated attack, asking his officials for their opinions on whether to attack Xia or the Rouran.

His officials are divided in their opinions, some proposing Northern Yan as a third alternative, although after hearing of the death of the Xia emperor Helian Bobo, the emperor settles on Xia.

When the senior official Baba Song opposes this, the intemperate emperor has his guards pound Baba's head on the floor, but does not demote him.

He now sends Daxi Jin to attack …