Northern Wei, Xianbei, or Tuoba Empire

The Jin Dynasty had developed an alliance with the Tuoba against the Xiongnu state Han Zhao early in the fourth century.

In 315, the Tuoba chief had been granted the title of the Prince of Dai.

After the death of its founding prince, Tuoba Yilu, however, the Dai state had stagnated and largely remained a partial ally and a partial tributary state to Later Zhao and Former Yan, finally falling to Former Qin in 376.

After Former Qin's emperor Fu Jiān is defeated by Jin forces at the Battle of Fei River in his failed bid to unify China, the Former Qin state begins to break apart.

Tuoba Gui, the grandson (or son) of the final Prince of Dai, Tuoba Shiyijian, had reasserted independence by 386, initially with the title of Prince of Dai, and then as the Prince of Wei, and his state is therefore known in history as Northern Wei.

Zhai Liao has repeatedly tried to attack Jin during the past two years, but has been repelled in his efforts, and he apparently enters into an alliance with Western Yan's emperor Murong Yong.

In 387, Murong Chui attacks Zhai Liao, and many of Zhai Liao's subordinates surrender quickly.

Zhai Liao, in fear, agrees to submit to Later Yan, and Murong Chui permits him to remain at his post and creates him the Duke of Henan.

In winter 387, Zhai Liao repudiates allegiance to Later Yan and attacks Later Yan's Qinghe (roughly modern Xingtai, Hebei) and Pingyuan (roughly modern Dezhou, Shandong) prefectures.

Chinese monumental stone sculpture becomes a tradition.

In the Yungang Grottoes ("Cloud Hill"), artisans begin the series of rock-cut shrines that contain a forty-five-foot tall sculpture of the Buddha.

The earliest caves reflect Central Asian and Gandharan influences, notably that of Afghanistan’s fourth-century Bamian cave-temples.

After the decline of the Jin Dynasty, the northern parts of China have come under the control of the Northern Wei, who had made the city of Pingcheng, now known as Datong, their capital.

Due to its promotion, Pingcheng had seen an increase in construction work.

The Northern Wei had early adopted Buddhism as their state religion.

Buddhism had arrived in this location via travel on the ancient North Silk Road, the northernmost route of about 2600 kilometers in length, which connects the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an to the west over the Wushao Ling Pass to Wuwei and emerging in Kashgar before linking to ancient Parthia.

The work on this first period of carving lasts until the year 465, and the caves are now known as caves 16–20.

Beginning around the year 471, in a second construction phase that lasts until 494, the twin caves 5/6, 7/8, and 9/10 as well as the caves 11, 12, and probably 13 are constructed under the supervision and support of the imperial court.

The imperial patronage ends 494 with the move of the Wei court to the new capital of Luoyang.

All other caves emerge under private patronage in a third construction period, lasting until 525, when the construction comes to a final halt due to uprisings in the area.

The Rouran, only temporarily repelled by Northern Wei, had driven the Xiongnu toward the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea and are making raids into China.

In the late fifth century, the Rouran establish a powerful nomadic empire spreading generally north of Northern Wei.

It is probably the Rouran who first use the title khan.

The Tuoba dominate much of the region between the Chang Jiang and the Gobi, including much of modern Xinjiang, by the end of the fourth century.

Emerging as the partially sinicized state of Dai between 338 and 376 in the Shanxi area, the Toba establish control over the region as the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-533).

Northern Wei armies drive back the Rouran (referred to as Ruanruan or Juan-Juan by Chinese chroniclers), a newly arising nomadic Mongol people in the steppes north of the Altai Mountains, and reconstruct the Great Wall.

During the fourth century also, the Huns leave the steppes north of the Aral Sea to invade Europe.

By the middle of the fifth century, Northern Wei has penetrated into the Tarim Basin in Inner Asia, as had the Chinese in the second century.

As the empire grows, however, Tuoba tribal customs are supplanted by those of the Chinese, an evolution not accepted by all Tuoba.

The Three Kingdoms period in China’s history, part of an era of disunity called the Six Dynasties immediately following the loss of de facto power of the Han dynasty emperors, refers in a strict academic sense to the period between the foundation of the Wu in 222 and the conquest of the Shu by the Kingdom of Wei in 263.

Although the three kingdoms had been reunited temporarily in 278 by the Jin Dynasty founded in 265 by the Sima family, the contemporary non-Han Chinese Wu Hu ethnic groups had controlled much of the country in the early fourth century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Chang Jiang.

The Di people had rebelled in 303 and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han.

Under Liu Yuan, the Xiongnu had rebelled near today's Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao.

His successor Liu Cong had captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors.

The Sixteen Kingdoms, or less commonly the Sixteen States, are a collection of numerous short-lived sovereign states that have coalesced in China proper and its neighboring areas from 304 after the retreat of the Jin Dynasty to South China in 317.

Almost all rulers of the kingdoms are part of the Wu Hu ethnicity and claim to be the emperors and wangs (kings).

Many nomadic ethnic groups are involved, including ancestors of the Turks, Mongolians, and Tibetans, most of which peoples had to some extent been "Sinicized" long before their ascent to power.

Some of them, notably the Qiang and the Xiongnu, had already been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall since late Han times.

The Han Chinese have founded Former Liang and the state of Wei.

Six Chinese rulers of the Former Liang remained titularly under the government of the Jin Dynasty, whose emperors, who are of Chinese stock, now rule southern China from Nanjing.

The Tuoba seizure of China’s northern border areas in 386 has little affected the Chinese heartland, which boasts a large population and a well-integrated social and economic system organized along Confucianist and Buddhist principles.

By the close of the fourth century, a series of sixteen nomadic kingdoms have ruled North China since the erection of the first Xiongnu kingdom in the century’s first decade.

Emperors of Chinese stock rule southern China from Nanjing.

Prominent figure painter Gu Kaizhi, who flourishes in the latter half of the fourth century, is the putative creator of a hand scroll (the earliest surviving example) entitled Admonitions of the Instructress of the Ladies of the Palace.

Such scrolls typically portray human figures as edifying exemplars of good character.

The creator of Admonitions, employing a needle-fine brush point, brings a keen psychological sense to the delineation of his subjects, embodying them by their clothes, rather than by their flesh.

The Admonition Scroll, dated between the sixth and eighth century CE—probably an early Tang dynasty copy —illustrates nine stories from a political satire about Empress Jia Nanfeng written by Zhang Hua, who lived from about 232 to 302.

Beginning in the eighth century, many collectors and emperors left seals, poems, and comments on the scroll.

The Admonition Scroll will be stored in the emperor's treasure until it is looted by the British army in the Boxer Uprising in 1900.

It is today in the British Museum collection, missing the first three scenes.

There is another surviving copy of this painting, made during the Song Dynasty and is now held in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

The Song version is complete in twelve scenes.

Later Qin establishes peace with Later Yan around the new year of 395, thus obviating the likelihood of war on the eastern border—although later in 395, when Later Yan's crown prince Murong Bao carries out a disastrous campaign against Northern Wei's prince Tuoba Gui, Later Qin sends a relief force to aid Northern Wei.

However, Later Qin forces do not actually engage Later Yan.

Later Yan is under heavy attack by Northern Wei in 397, after its founding emperor Murong Chui had died and been replaced by Murong Bao.

Later Qin refuses to provide aid to Later Yan.

Empress Dowager She dies later in 397, and Yao Xing is described to be in such great mourning that he is unable to handle matters of state for some time.

After the period passes, however, he continues to wear mourning clothes.

The Jin Dynasty had developed an alliance with the Tuoba against the Xiongnu state Han Zhao.

In 315 the Tuoba chief had been granted the title of the Prince of Dai.

After the death of its founding prince, Tuoba Yilu, however, the Dai state had stagnated and largely remained a partial ally and a partial tributary state to Later Zhao and Former Yan, finally falling to Former Qin in 376.

The Former Qin state had begun to break apart as well after the defeat of its emperor Fu Jiān by Jin forces at the Battle of Fei River in his failed bid to unify China.

By 386, Tuoba Gui, the grandson (or son) of the final Prince of Dai, Tuoba Shiyijian, had reasserted independence, initially with the title of Prince of Dai, and then as the Prince of Wei, and his state is therefore known in history as Northern Wei.

Northern Wei was initially a vassal of Later Yan, but by 395 had rebelled against Later Yan, and by 398 had conquered most of Later Yan territory, establishing itself over the territory north of the Yellow River.

In 399, Tuoba Gui declares himself emperor, and that title will be used by Northern Wei's rulers for the rest of the state's history.