Toba's Wei Dynasty, Ruruans, & Hunnic Decline

Toba's Wei Dynasty, Ruruans, & Hunnic Decline
 
By the end of the fourth century, the region between the Huai River and the Gobi, including much of modern Xinjiang, was dominated by the Toba. The word "To" means earth and "Ba" means descendants in northern Chinese dialect. Toba nomads are said to be a branch of the Xianbei nomads, the proto-Tunguz people. According to "History Of Toba Wei Dynasty", the Tobas claimed heritage from the junior son of the Yellow Overlord or Huangdi. The Yellow Overlord was said to represent the virtue of 'earth', one of the five forms of materials in ancient Chinese metaphysics. Further, it is claimed that the Tobas were not recorded in Chinese history because the ancestors of Tobas did not want to join the ranks of the Huns etc in pillaging China. Toba Xianbei was said to be a group of people who dwelled to the northeatern-most of all Xianbei. The Eastern Xianbei would include tribes like Yuwen, Murong and Duan, while the Western Xianbei would include Qifu & Tufa (to mutate into Tubo in Chinese and Tibet in English).
 
In earlier times of Western Jinn Dynasty, Tobas were befriended by a a Chinese border general called Liu Kun whose strategy was to "fight the aliens via the aliens". Liu Kun had requested with Western Jinn emperor for the authorization to have the Tobas settle down in today's Yanmen Pass, an area called the Dai prefecture in Qin Empire's times. Liu even sent his son to the Tobas as a hostage. After the death of Liu Kun in the hands of Liu's Xianbei ally in today's Beijing area, the Tobas would assert themselves over the other nomads. Emerging as a partially sinicized state of Dai between A.D. 338 and 376 in the Shanxi area, the Toba established control over the region as the Northern Wei Dynasty (A.D. 386-533) . Taking advantage of two wars which weakened the Xianbei-Qiangs-Chinese, respectively, namely, 1) the war waged by Hunnic Xia (AD 407-431) and 2) the northern expedition by General Liu Yu, the Tobas turned out to be the last beneficiary in northern China. General Liu Yü of Eastern Jinn Dynasty first attacked the Xianbei in today's Jiangsu-Shandong provinces, and then attacked the Qiangic nomads in today's Luoyang-Xi'an areas. However, General Liu was eager to return to Nanking to usurp the Jinn Dynasty, and his army in Luoyang-Xi'an areas were defeated by the Hunnic Xia. The Hunnic Xia, however, would soon be replaced by the Tobas who had steadily built up their power base in today's Shanxi-Hebei areas. The Hunnic Xia had once requested aid from another Hunnic people, the Ruruans in the Altai Mountains, but the Tobas had been able to defeat them both.
 
The Toba Wei Dynasty (AD 386-534) armies drove back the Ruruan (referred to as Ruanruan or Juan-Juan by Chinese chroniclers), a newly arising nomadic Hunnic people in the steppes north of the Altai Mountains, and reconstructed the Great Wall. Western history books said the Toba's rise had put pressure on the Ruruans who in turn caused the migration of the Huns towards Europe. During the fourth century, the Huns left the steppes north of the Aral Sea to invade Europe. The Chinese history put the Ruruans in the same category as the Huns, and the group of Huns who invaded Europe would be very likely another competing tribes who lost their wars to the Ruruans.
 
Northern Wei moved its capital southward to Loyang in AD 493 and the Tobas changed their family name to the Chinese name of "Yuan". Northern Wei would continue the attacks at Southern China and seesaw warfare would continue till Northern Wei split into two parts of Eastern and Western Wei Dynasties in AD 534, later to be usurped by Northern Qi Dynasty (A.D. 550-577) and Northern Zhou Dynasty (A.D. 557-581) under two generals of Eastern and Western Wei Dynasties, respectively. By the middle of the fifth century, Northern Wei had penetrated into the Tarim Basin in Inner Asia, as had the Chinese in the second century. 
 
With the dissapearance of Hunnic empire of Han/Zhao in China's central plains, the Eastern Huns would dissipate into the melting pots of the time, "Five Nomads Ravaging China". There are two more small dynasties established by the Huns during the 16 Nations time period of AD 304-420, namely, Northern Liang (AD 397-439) and Xia (AD 407-431). But they all ended up defeated by the Toba, a sub-Tunguzic group which emerged out of the Xianbei and Wuhuan nomads. Historical records would show that the Huns served in the army of the Toba's Wei Dynasty, but unsuccessfully rebelled in AD 523.
 
Toba set up six garrisons or prefectures in northern China and Mongolia. In this very place, the Hunnic remnants were very active. Many soldiers and generals under Toba army were Hunnic. More than that, the Ruruans, a kin of the Huns in my opinion, had staged numerous comebacks against the Tobas from their base in the Altai Mountains. The Ruruans at one time tried to help their Hunnic kinsmen of Hunnic Xia Dynasty. At the other time, the Ruruans colluded with the Tobas in cracking down on the Hunnic rebellions in the northern six garrisons of the Tobas. Joining the Hunnic rebellion against the Tobas would be several groups of peoples by the name of 'Tiele' or 'Chile', ancestors of later Uygurs.
 
The Huns, Xianbei, Tiele, and the Chinese all served in the army of the Toba's Wei Dynasty. Major northern posts and towns of the Toba Dynasty were in the hands of the Huns. Numerous generals of the Toba army were Hunnic, too. The nature of this time period would be the mingling of various groups of the nomads and sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between the ethnicity. The Huns rebelled in today's Wuyuan area, Inner Mongolia in AD 523. The Tobas, together with the Ruruans, cracked down on the Huns. Thereafter, the Tobas moved about 200 thousand Huns to today's Hebei province. The Hunnic rebellions contributed to the decline and disintegration of the Toba Wei Dynasty, and it had been directly responsible for the gradual rising of two generals under Wei Dynasty, general Yuwen Tai and general Gao Huan, who had later helped to set up as well as usurp Eastern Wei and Western Wei Dynasty, respectively. General Yuwen Tai of Northern Zhou (AD 557-581) and General Gao Yang were Xianbei in ethnicity though Gao Yang carried a Chinese last name of Gao. Gao-shi clan was also the the name adopted by Koguryo.
 
Ruruan had in fact served as an example for the later Turks in extracting benefits from both Western Wei and Eastern Wei. At one time, the Eastern Wei sent their Toba princess to the Ruruans as a bride, and the Western Wei promptly sent in their princess to the brother of the Ruruan king as a bride. In order to maintain closer relations with the Ruruans, the Emperor of Western Wei had divorced with his empress and requested for marriage with the daughter of the Ruruan king. The Ruruan king had further forced the Western Wei Emperor into ordering his ex-wife commit suicide.
 
During the Toba era, the Huns in northern China had finally dissapeared as a group. Those who had remained in the Altai Mountains area had survived as the Ruruans, to be defeated by the Turks later. Their European counterparts would have dissapeared much earlier, soon after Attila's death in AD 453. In China, there is still a famous Hunnic family name in existence today. That would be the name of Hu'yan. This shows that the Huns did not just disappear altogether. At least their names had survived.  

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