[Yihesan]

As we all know, Cao Cao forced some 19 Southern Xiongnu tribes to migrate and settle into Northern China (especially to Ordos and Shansi). Some of these later founded small dynasties in Northern China such as the First Zhao, Later Zhao, Xia and Northern Liang.

The problem is that I know the names of only a few of them such as the Dugu (from which the Chanyu rulers were), Jie and Juqu. I want to have a full list of these tribes, including their Chinese characters with full tones.

Thank you very much

[Yun]

The moving of the Southern Xiongnu into the Ordos was not begun by Cao Cao. Instead, it took place when the Xiongnu confederation split for the second time, and the Southern Xiongnu Chanyu submitted to the Eastern Han in AD 48. He was allowed to set up his court at Meiji county 美稷, inside the Ordos Loop. Later, during the late Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms, the Ordos was gradually taken over completely by Xiongnu and Qiang tribes.

In 189, the 41st Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, Luanti Yufuluo 于扶罗, was overthrown by two rebellious tribes: the Xiluo 醯落 and his own Tu'ge 屠各 tribe. These tribes has already assassinated the previous Chanyu, Yufuluo's father Qiangqu 羌渠, for agreeing to send Xiongnu troops to help the Eastern Han court suppress rebels. The rebellious tribes installed a new Chanyu, and Yufuluo fled to the Eastern Han with his followers, finally settling down in Pingyang 平阳 in Shanxi. In 195, Yufuluo died and was succeeded as Chanyu-in-exile by his brother Huchuquan 呼厨泉.

In 216, Huchuquan went to Ye 邺 to report to Cao Cao, the prime minister and de facto ruler of the Han. Cao, fearing that the Xiongnu in Shanxi would become a threat, detained Huchuquan in Ye and ordered the Right Virtuous King 右贤王 of the Xiongnu, Luanti Qubei 去卑, to take over the leadership of the Pingyang Xiongnu. Huchuquan and his descendants would live in luxury in Ye and retain their Chanyu title, but they would have no actual power. Cao Cao then divided the Pingyang Xiongnu into five tribes (or divisions, bu 部): left, right, north, south, and centre. These were resettled in five counties in northern and central Shanxi, all further north than Pingyang. There is no further record of what happened to the rebel Xiongnu who remained in the Ordos and did not enter Shanxi with Yufuluo. I have also found no record that there were 19 tribes who came south with Yufuluo and were later reorganized into the five tribes; i.e. there is no mention of how many tribes the Pingyang Xiongnu originally had, or of the names of these tribes.

Those of the Luanti aristocracy who had followed Yufuluo changed their family name to Liu around this time, on the basis that their early Chanyu had married Han princesses. The Northern Tribe at Jiuyuan 九原 county, under Luanti Qubei's grandson Liu Hu 刘虎, later became known as the Tiefu 铁弗 Xiongnu. The Left Tribe was the strongest and was led by Liu Bao 刘豹, the son of Yufuluo. Liu Yuan 刘渊, who founded the Han-Zhao or Former Zhao state in 304, was the son of Liu Bao. Liu Hu's Tiefu tribe submitted to Liu Yuan's regime in 309.

Liu Yuan's branch of the Xiongnu was basically wiped out by the Later Zhao state in 329. The Later Zhao was founded by the Jie 羯 general Shi Le 石勒, who was traditionally identified as a member of a branch of the Xiongnu. However, the current scholarship favours the view that the Jie were actually not Xiongnu, but rather related to the Sogdians or the Yuezhi (or a mix of both). The Tiefu remained independent and moved west to occupy part of the Ordos Loop. They pledged nominal allegiance to the Later Zhao and had frequent conflicts with their rivals in Inner Mongolia, the Tuoba Xianbei state of Dai 代.

When the Former Qin state conquered Dai in 377, it divided the lands of Dai between two Tiefu leaders, Liu Weichen 刘卫辰 and Liu Kuren 刘库仁. Liu Kuren was assassinated in 384, and in 386 Tuoba Gui restored the Dai state under the new name of Wei (known in history as Northern Wei). Most of Liu Kuren's Tiefu branch was either defeated or surrendered to the Tuoba over the next few years, and those Tiefu under Tuoba rule adopted the clan name Dugu 独孤. Liu Weichen was also defeated and killed by the Tuoba in the northern Ordos in 391, but his son Liu Bobo 勃勃 fled southwards and eventually founded the Xia state in the Ordos Loop, changing his family name to Helian 赫连.

As for the Juqu 沮渠 who ruled the Northern Liang state in the Gansu Corridor, they were never among the Five Tribes settled in Shanxi by Cao Cao. They may not even have been Xiongnu, even though their name is supposed to have come from the fact that an ancestor held the Xiongnu official rank of Juqu. Their usual ethnic designation is Lushui Hu 卢水胡, and some scholars have theorized that they were actually descendants of the Yuezhi who remained in Gansu rather than migrating westwards, i.e. the so-called Lesser Yuezhi 小月氏.

[Yihesan]

Looks like lot's of new theories have been developed since W. Eberhard wrote his famous books

Thank you (though I'm now quiet confused as I now have colliding datas)

[Yun]

Eberhard was an imporant scholar, but his work was from 1965 and before. A lot of it is now outdated.

[Yihesan]

Does anyone know how Helian 赫连 was pronounced in Classical Chinese?

[Yihesan]

Dear chinghiz, are you sure that Helian 赫连 is the Chinese transcription of Kereyit? I thought it was Kèliè 克烈.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

Quote

Eberhard was an imporant scholar, but his work was from 1965 and before. A lot of it is now outdated.

Although he is a good historian in the field of analysis. A question I had when reading his book is this: can he read classical Chinese? It doesn't seem that he had any grasp of the first hand accounts, his sources contain many factual errors and lacks many details.

[Yun]

Here is UC Berkeley's obituary of Eberhard, who died in 1990 as a Professor Emeritus of Sociology (not History, ironically) there:

Wolfram Eberhard, Sociology: Berkeley
1909-1989
Professor Emeritus

Wolfram Eberhard died on August 15, 1989, after a long illness. He is survived by Mrs. Alide Eberhard, Mrs. Irene Eberhard, two sons, Rainer and Anatol Eberhard, and three grandsons.

Wolfram Eberhard was born in Potsdam, Germany, in 1909, the son, grandson and nephew of astronomers. His father, Gustav Eberhard, was a research professor of astrophysics. Early on, his family watched his progress in mathematics, but he wanted to study cultural anthropology. In response to family worries about his career, he decided to add the study of Chinese, stimulated by the work of Richard Wilhelm.

Beginning in 1927 he studied sinology, ethnology and philosophy at the University of Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1933. Among his teachers in ethnology were Professors Richard Thurnwald, K.Th. Preuss and Walter Lehmann, and in sinology and oriental studies Professors Otto Franke, F.W.K. Muller and Erich Hauer. At Hauer's suggestion he also studied Manchu and Japanese as well as some Mongolian and Sanskrit. Since contemporary Chinese was not taught at the university's Institute of Sinology, Eberhard also attended courses at the nearby Seminar for Oriental Languages, mainly under Professor Ferdinand Lessing, who had become curator of that museum's Asian Department. Eberhard married Alide Roemer in 1934 and on the basis of a grant from the Bassler Archive to collect ethnographic objects for the Museum the young couple sailed for China in June of that year. The political upheaval of Hitler's accession to power provided the incentive to leave the country at once even though Nazi regulations severely restricted the amount of money Germans travelling abroad could take with them, and, in effect, sequestered the grant money.

Accordingly, with the help of new and old friends, Eberhard studied temples and collected folktales, until, in Peking, he and his wife became the guests of Professor and Mrs. Hellmut Wilhelm, who had left Germany two years before. Wilhelm and other friends arranged for Eberhard to take over some of their German-language classes at the two Peking universities as well as a Latin class at a Medical School lying an eight-hours train-ride from Peking. During the summer vacation of 1935, after his first son was born, Eberhard traveled by train or on foot across North China. Upon his return to Peking he found that his colleagues there needed to resume their own language classes. Besides, family reasons prompted a return to Germany.

During 1936 Eberhard was curator of the Asian section at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, but not for long. Nazi pressure to join their organizations increased until it became clear that the family had to leave. Contract with Adam von Trott, later a leader in the resistance against Hitler, led to plans for the two men to travel together to China. By a ruse Eberhard obtained the needed permit to leave the country and left for New York. Through von Tropp's help Eberhard obtained a Moses Mendelsohn fellowship which allowed him to travel in the United States, ending in Berkeley where he gave two lectures in 1937. From here he sailed to Japan and then to China, but plans for a longer stay together with Trott failed due to the imminent Japanese invasion. Instead, his wife in Germany accepted in his name a timely offer of a position at the University of Ankara, which he reached from Hong Kong with difficulty.

The Eberhards spent the next eleven years in Turkey. As the only teacher of sinology in the country, Eberhard was obliged to teach all conceivable subjects in this field, but his work load did not prevent him from initiating the steady flow of publications which charted his career. Among these subjects were Chinese folklore and fiction, the history of China, the study of local cultures within China and in areas adjacent to it, and a historically based theory of the development of Chinese civilization. He also studied Turkish and comparative folklore. Eventually his publications were to comprise some 35 books, 185 articles, 300 book reviews and numerous shorter notes, appearing in German, Turkish, and English. By 1948, shortly before his ten-year contract at Ankara ended, Eberhard received, through help from the Rockefeller Foundation, an offer from the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught in the Department of Sociology until his retirement in 1976.

This appointment was probably the first of its kind. It came about because the faculty and administration at Berkeley had decided two years before Eberhard's arrival to introduce sociology as a separate department. Since the earlier Department of Social Institutions under Frederick Teggart had established a strong tradition of socio-historical studies, and since Eberhard combined his sinological work with a strong commitment to historical, folkloristic and related ethnological studies, his coming offered an opportunity for innovation in the field. As a result, many students from fields like anthropology, history and oriental languages flocked to his courses and worked with him in their graduate studies.

Throughout his academic career, Professor Eberhard not only published extensively but traveled widely. With the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship he collected minstrel tales in Turkey and studied tribal settlements in the Turkish-Syrian border area. As a consultant to the Asia Foundation he dealt with Punjab University projects on problems of village development in Pakistan and related issues in Taiwan, Korea, and Afghanistan. From 1961 to 1977 he traveled almost every summer to some southeast Asian country, most often to Taiwan, where he taught, studied and served as a consultant. For a while Eberhard and Professor George deVos collaborated on the Chinese Life-Study Project. In 1980 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lund in Sweden. He was a guest professor at the German universities in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin. For seven years after his retirement in 1976 he continued his travels, teaching and research, but by 1983 illness forced him to slow down. That year, during which his second wife Dorothea Raacke died, his last major work was published in Germany and the United States, entitled Dictionary of Chinese Symbols. The book was reviewed with much appreciation not only in the United States but by scholars of the country to which he had devoted a lifetime of study. In 1985, he married Irene Ohnesorge, who nursed him with loving care through the remaining years of his life.

We do not list the many scholarly associations in Germany, Turkey and America, with which Professor Eberhard was affiliated, but rather conclude with a comment on the fact that he belonged to the group of distinguished German scholars who escaped the Hitler regime in the 1930s. With his passing this important episode in the intellectual history of Germany and the United States is drawing to a close.

[Yun]

Quote

Looks like lot's of new theories have been developed since W. Eberhard wrote his famous books

Thank you (though I'm now quiet confused as I now have colliding datas)

Yihesan, I have found the place where Eberhard mentioned '19 Xiongnu tribes': page 114 of his A History of China. Note that in his footnote for this page he says only: "For the history of the Hsiung-nu I am relying mainly upon my own studies."

If you are still using this book as a reference on Chinese history (and this is likely for many people because it is easily available as an e-book online), my advice is to STOP. Having recently gone to read Eberhard's "Conquerors and Rulers" and "A History of China" (I never really read his work before this), I'm afraid I must conclude that his theories are severely flawed and shaky, his interpretation of Chinese history (in particular the Age of Fragmentation, which he was reputed as an expert in) is riddled with inaccuracies, misreadings, stereotypes, and speculations, and he often does not even provide much in the way of evidence for his assertions, other than saying it is based on his own "research" or "studies". He was able to read the Classical Chinese of the dynastic histories (since he cites from them in footnotes), but there is reason to question how well he did it, since many of his statements have no real basis in the histories and are indeed contradicted by them.

It seems to me the reason he was so respected as a sinologist was that hardly anyone else could read these sources any better than he could.

Quote

Although he is a good historian in the field of analysis. A question I had when reading his book is this: can he read classical Chinese? It doesn't seem that he had any grasp of the first hand accounts, his sources contain many factual errors and lacks many details.

Warhead, for once your criticism is not as harsh as mine

[Yihesan]

Quote

If you are still using this book as a reference on Chinese history (and this is likely for many people because it is easily available as an e-book online), my advice is to STOP.

Considering the fact that there are so few books about Chinese history in Turkey, I had to rely on this book. Thanx God I'll go to Taiwan this autumun and start my master programme next year after taking a Chinese prep course

[Yun]

Have you read "Northern Frontier" by Rafe de Crespigny? That is much better in its analysis of Eastern Han-Xiongnu relations.

The first chapter is available online: http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00002632...hern_front.html

Here is another relevant article by him, originally published in Turkish: http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00002632...an_xiongnu.html

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

Quote

his interpretation of Chinese history (in particular the Age of Fragmentation, which he was reputed as an expert in) is riddled with inaccuracies, misreadings, stereotypes, and speculations, and he often does not even provide much in the way of evidence for his assertions, other than saying it is based on his own "research" or "studies".

Yes, thats actually the part that I see lots of his inaccuracies. For example, he claimed that the Northern Wei defeated the Southern Song and made it into a vassal, thats not the case at all. All three wars were draws, and none submitted. He also mentioned nothing about Ran Wei and categorized it under the Zhao! These aren't just detailed errors but the basics.

[Yihesan]

Yun, on Mar 6 2006, 09:57 AM, said:

Have you read "Northern Frontier" by Rafe de Crespigny? That is much better in its analysis of Eastern Han-Xiongnu relations.

The first chapter is available online: http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00002632...hern_front.html

Here is another relevant article by him, originally published in Turkish: http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00002632...an_xiongnu.html

I read the second article but I didn't read the book. Thanx for informing

[Yun]

Hi Yihesan, I have just checked the Jin Shu more closely, and it seems Eberhard was partially correct in mentioning 19 'tribes'. The section on the Xiongnu (in Chapter 97) does say that there were a total of 19 zhong 种 (tribes) of Xiongnu who migrated into Han territory over a long period of time, from the second Huhanye Chanyu's submission in Eastern Han to the late years of the Western Jin (i.e. 48 AD to the 280s). In other words, these tribes were not all related to the 5 'tribes' that Cao Cao divided Huchuquan's followers into in Shanxi. Many of them would have remained in the Ordos rather than enter Shanxi with Huchuquan.

The 19 tribes were: Tuge 屠各, Xianzhi 鲜支, Koutou 寇头, Wutan 乌谭, Chile 赤勒, Hanzhi 捍蛭, Heilang 黑狼, Chisha 赤沙, Yubing 鬱鞞, Weisha 萎莎, Tutong 禿童, Bomie 勃蔑, Qiangqu 羌渠, Helai 贺赖, Zhongqi 锺跂, Dalou 大楼, Yongqu 雍屈, Zhenshu 真树, and Lijie 力羯.

Each tribe had its own sub-tribes, and each tribe or sub-tribe has its own territory.