I heard from some chinese history talk on TV that Lu Bu 吕布 (the 3 kingdoms historical figure who was defeated by Cao Cao) was of "Qiang 羌" ethnic origin instead of "han 汉" ethnicity. Qiang was supposedly the ancient ancestors of the Tibetans (do correct if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure about the ethnic origin of Lu Bu.

Does anyone know whether he is indeed of Qiang origin or otherwise? Any comments are appreciated.

I read something about that too,

I also read something like that, but I am not sure about Qiang as the ancestors to today's Tibetan though.

马超 (Ma Chao) was claimed to have Qiang ancestry.
吕布 (Lv Bu) is more likely to have Xiongnu ancestry.
Generally we can say they have Qiang-Hu ancestry, since the ethnic population in Hexi and Hetao regions were quite mixed then.

Lu Bu's biography in Sanguo Zhi gives no details about his origins or ancestry, except that he was from Wuyuan 五原prefecture, which lay on the frontier just north of the Ordos (Hetao) region. By the time of Lu Bu's birth (AD 150), the Ordos region had largely been abandoned to the Southern Xiongnu and those Qiang tribes who had migrated there before or during the Qiang rebellions of the 2nd century. So there is a chance that Lu Bu was also Xiongnu or Qiang, but we can never be sure because his biography does not tell us so. Furthermore, Wuyuan prefecture (unlike the Ordos) apparently remained under direct Han administration until as late as the 180s or 190s, so Lu Bu could also be descended from a member of the Han garrison.



Although the peoples of Qinghai and the Tibetan plateau were all labelled as Qiang in Late Han and post-Han times, there is no reason to believe they had a strong cultural or ethnic affinity to one another. This is similar to how far-southern peoples were all labelled Yue or Man, and far-western peoples (e.g. Persians and Sogdians) as well as the Xiongnu were all labelled Hu. So the 'Qiang' of the Tibetan plateau who were ancestors of the Tibetans may have no relation to the Qiang from the Lake Qinghai region, who migrated into north China and possibly included Lu Bu's ancestors.

Yun,

In the ancient hist I wrote about from 1998 to 2003, I had relied on Cai Dongfan's books to thread together events that were discreet in ancient classics. Cai Dongfan was the last known person who actually understood about 98% of ancient classics.

My earliest reference to Dong Zhuo as being possibly of Qiangic nature was found in Cai Dongfan's book, San Guo Yan Yi.

As far as the Qiangs, Tibetans and Huns concerned, I had mentioned the Xianbei people had moved into the historical land of Qilian Mountain range after the Huns declined. Ancient classcis repeatedly mentioned that Xianbei and Wuhuan tok over the Inner Mongolian plains after the Huns were defeated by Chinese.

The TUYUHUN kingdom, which existed in history from Sixteen Nations time period to Tang Dynasty, was founded by a brother of Xianbei or Tunguzic YAN kingdom.

Before the TUYUHUN Xianbei moved in, Chinese records only mentioned one name, Qiangs [and Lesser Yuezhi - who had crossed the Qilian Mountain to seek refugee with Qiangs after a defeat by Huns, which also corroborated the fact that YUezhi historically lived between QILIAN and DUNHUANG the Altay Mountain, not the Western Corridor].

After the TUYUHUN, more Xianbei came in, including so-called TUFA clan that historians speculated to have mutated into TUBO or Tibet. In any case, TUYUHUN did not die out for 400 years and acted as a buffer between ancient QIANGS and newcomer Xianbei clans.

Then in Tang Dynasty, you have the history of Tibetans defeating Tuhuyun and took over the so-called YELLOW RIVER 9 WINDING TERRITORY, i.e., Qinghai.

I agree that the people in the Southeast were labeled as Yue or Man but there were actually more ethnic groups than that, and not all of the Southeast tribes belonged to Yue people for sure.

On this issue, refer to a new thread I have started in this Ethnicity section.



Is that part of his series 《歷代通俗演義》?



Although his interpretation of events was sometimes overly coloured by Neo-Confucian teachings about absolute loyalty and female chastity. He was more a popular historical novelist than a historian. Dong Zhuo's SGZ biography states that in his youth "he often roamed among the Qiang tribes" (嘗游羌中) living around his hometown of Lintao 臨洮, but says nothing about him being a member of a Qiang tribe. So it is easy to speculate that Dong was himself a Qiang, but difficult or impossible to prove it.

His father Ma Teng had a Qiang mother, so yes, Ma Chao did have some Qiang ancestry on the paternal side. That is not the same as saying that the whole Ma clan was Qiang.