Chandragupta II, completing his predecessor’s work, conquers…

Emperor Mingyuan, in contrast to to his father's dictatorial style, has instituted a council of eight officials to advise him on all important decisions, with the intent to hear different opinions and then take informed actions.

The council mostly consists of ethnic Xianbei from his tribe, but also includes Han and other ethnic groups.

This will become a tradition that his descendants will follow as well.

However, while he is known as being much more lenient than his father, he also does not tolerate wrongdoing on his advisors' part.

For example, in 413, one of his key advisors, Tuoba Qu, the Marquess of Yuancheng, suffered a major defeat at the hands of Xia forces, and then, once demoted to governorship of Bing Province (modern central and southern Shanxi), failed to carry out his task competently, and Emperor Mingyuan executes him.

He often leaves the capital, Pingcheng, to examine the defenses on the northern and eastern fronts (with Rouran and Northern Yan), to make sure that his state will be properly defended against enemies.

He also often sends armies to pacify rebelling tribes.

Emperor Mingyuan sends ambassadors to Later Qin, Northern Yan, Jin, and Rouran in 414 in an attempt to establish peaceful relationships.

The Later Qin and Jin missions are apparently largely successful, but his ambassador Huniuyu Shimen has a conflict with the Northern Yan emperor Feng Ba over Feng Ba's insistence that Huniuyu kneel to him.

Feng Ba detains Huniuyu and refuses to establish relations with Northern Wei.

Late in 414, Emperor Mingyuan begins to have his official Cui Hao (the son of his key advisor Cui Hong teach him the ancient texts of I Ching and Hong Fan—both mystical texts.

He also often asks Cui Hao to make predictions based on those texts, which often come true.

Cui Hao therefore becomes increasingly trusted and consulted by Emperor Mingyuan for important decisions.

The khagan Yujiulü Hulü, in 414, the fourth year of his rule over the Rouran, is about to oversee the marriage of one of his own daughters to Feng Ba when he is overthrown by his nephew Yujiulü Buluzhen, who, along with the coup leaders, sends Yujiulü Hulü and his daughter to Northern Yan.

Feng Ba treats him as an honored guest and, as originally planned, takes Yujiulü's daughter as a concubine.

Yujiulü Hulü requests that Feng Ba send an army to escort him home and, in May 414, Feng Ba, with some reluctance, gives him an escort commanded by general Wan Ling who, according to the account, returns after having killed Yujiulü Hulü along the way.

Faxian "("Splendor of Religious Law")—the name taken by Sehi, a Chinese Buddhist monk and scribe—stirred by a profound faith to go to India, the "Holy Land" of Buddhism, had departed China in 399 to lead a pilgrimage (the first of several) through India and Central Asia to gather and copy sacred Sanskrit texts of the various Buddhist schools, aiming to compile a complete canon of Buddhist scriptures.

His journey is described in his important travelogue, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline, a trove of information on early fifth-century India.

He is most known for his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

On Fa Xian's return to China in 412, after a two-year stay in Ceylon, a violent storm had driven his ship onto an island that was probably Java.

Faxian had eventually landed at Laoshan in what is now Shandong province, thirty kilometers east of the city of Qingdao and had gone to Shandong's capital, where he has remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he has collected.

His work is a travel book, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Roads at the turn of the fifth century CE.

Anthemius exits the picture on July 4, 414, when the emperor's sixteen-year-old sister Pulcheria declares herself augusta (empress) and assumes the regency.

Cyril has come in conflict with the civil administration over the zeal with which he champions orthodoxy in his Alexandrian see.

He closes the churches of the Novatians, a schismatic sect that denies the power of the church to absolve those who had lapsed into idolatry during persecution.

Following Jewish attacks upon Christians in 414-15, he incites the Greeks to kill or expel the Jews from Alexandria and seize their property.

Forcing his way into the synagogue at the head of a mob, he expels the Jews and gives their property to the crowd.

The prefect Orestes, who refuses to condone this behavior, is set upon and almost stoned to death.

Only one Jew, Adamanlius, agrees to be baptized.

Riots ensue, and Cyril, who if not directly responsible at least had done nothing to prevent them, is forced to acknowledge the authority of the civil government.

Some Jews return to Alexandria within a few years, but many will return only t around 650 after the Muslims conquer Egypt.

Ataulf in 414 marries the Roman princess Galla Placidia (sister of the emperor Honorius), who had been seized at Rome during the sack of 410.

The orthodox church places additional harsh restrictions on the Donatists in 414; however, the Donatists expect hostility from the world as part of the natural order of things (and will survive into the seventh century).

Honorius's general Constantius, evidently an admirer of Galla Placidia, had bargained with Ataulf for the return of the princess.

Due to the rebellion of Heraclianus, however, the Romans were unable to fulfill their part of the bargain, the supply of corn to Ataulf’s troops.

After the heads of Sebastianus and Jovinus arrived at Honorius' court in Ravenna in late August, relations between Ataulf and Honorius improved sufficiently for Ataulf to cement them by marrying his royal hostage, apparently with her willing consent, perhaps at Narbo in early 414, but Jordanes says he married her in Italy, at Forlì (Forum Livii).

The nuptials are celebrated with high Roman festivities and magnificent gifts from the Gothic booty.

Priscus Attalus gives the wedding speech, a classical epithalamium.

Constantius poisons official relations with Ataulf and gains permission to march into Gaul, blockading the the Mediterranean ports and initiating hostilities with the Visigoths.

In reply, Attalus is again raised to the throne as a puppet emperor, this time by Ataulf at Bordeaux, in order for the Visigoths to impose their terms on Honorius.

The Rouran mission initially appears to be successful, but by the new year 415 the Rouran Khan Yujiulü Datan invades, and Emperor Mingyuan is forced to respond, chasing Yujiulü Datan back to his territory.

When Emperor Mingyuan sends his advisor Daxi Jin to pursue Yujiulü Datan, the Northern Wei forces run into severe weather and suffer many casualties from frostbite.

This initiates a pattern that is to last for centuries—often, Rouran will attack, and Northern Wei will counterattack successfully, but then become unable to score decisive victories over Rouran.

The northern regions of Northern Wei suffer a major famine in 415, causing Emperor Mingyuan to consider moving the capital southward to Yecheng (in modern Handan, Hebei), but at the advice of Cui Hao and the official Zhou Dan, who believed that such a move would quickly expose the actual numerical inferiority of the Xianbei to the Han, he keeps the capital at Pingcheng, but also pursuant to Cui and Zhou's suggestion, moves a number of impoverished Xianbei to the modern Hebei region.

In winter 415, pursuant to a peace agreement they had reached earlier, Later Qin's emperor Yao Xing sends his daughter the Princess Xiping to Northern Wei to be married to Emperor Mingyuan.

He welcomes her with ceremony fitting an empress.

However, Tuoba customs dictate that only a consort who is able to craft a gold statue by her hands could be empress, and Princess Xiping is unable to, so Emperor Mingyuan only creates her an imperial consort, but within the palace honors her as wife and empress.