Most students of Chinese history are familiar with the phrase "Wuhu Luanhua" - Five "Hu" (barbarian peoples) Overrunning China. It's used to describe the rebellions by various non-Han groups (commonly mistakenly termed as "invasions") in the early 4th century that toppled the Western Jin dynasty and brought on nearly three centuries of north-south division.

Traditional Chinese historiography groups these non-Han peoples together as the Five "Hu": the Xiongnu, the Jie, the Di, the Qiang, and the Xianbei. However, the Jie were traditionally regarded as just another type of Xiongnu, and the Di were regarded as being essentially of the same proto-Tibetan stock as the Qiang.

This traditional view has been extensively debated and critiqued in the 20th century. The Jie have been alternatively identified as Kushans or Tocharians (Yuezhi), while I myself suspect they were Soghdians. It has also been suggested that the Di were more closely related to the southwestern Yunnan minorities of today's China than to the Tibetans.

To add to the problem, there were actually more than five peoples involved in the wars in north China. The Dingling (a Turkic people) attempted to set up a state along the Yellow River, but were defeated by the Murong Xianbei in 392. The Juqu family who ruled the Northern Liang state in the Gansu Corridor are described as "Lushui Hu", which has traditionally been identified as Xiongnu but has also been theorised to be Kushan. And the "Ba Di" who founded the Cheng state in Sichuan in 303 were probably not quite the same people as the Di - they may have had more in common with the aboriginal Man people of south China.

Questions and comments regarding the various peoples mentioned above are very welcome!

IIRC the Xianbei and Wuhuan were two branchs of the earlier Donghu (Eastern Hu). I would like to know more about the Donghu, mostly about their origins, their culture, etc...

The "hu" (胡) was a generic term used by the chinese to refer to those barbarian steppe tribes that dwell in Mongolia, Manchuria and North China during ancient times. During the period of disunion (after the collapse of Han dynasty), there was a period of time where these barbarians occupied China. It became known in chinese history as "Wu Hu Luan Hua" (五胡乱华), which means the 5 "hu" tribes creating 'havoc' in China through conquest and incessant wars.

The five "hu" are XiongNu (匈奴), Jie(羯), Di (氐), Qiang (羌) and Xianbei (鲜卑).

I'll talk briefly about these 5 'hu' people plus other 'hu'.

XiongNu

XiongNu was one of the earliest "hu" people that established a strong steppe empire in Mongolia and Northern China. The 1st record of "XiongNu" name appeared in the historic records of the warring states period (around 3rd century BC). At that time, there was also a tribe known as "Eastern Hu" or "Dong Hu" (东胡) that co-existed at the same time as XiongNu. During the Qin dynasty, Qinshihuang ordered an invasion of led by General Meng Huo, which forced the Xiongnu to retreat 700 miles. To establish a defence against XiongNu, Qinshihuang ordered the construction of the great wall (joining the walls of previous warring states) to defend against these barbarian raiders.

Despite of these, XiongNu continued to threaten China for ages. During western han dynasty, Emperor Han Wudi ordered an expedition of 3 times that helped recovered lost lands. In 48 AD, the XiongNu splitted into North and Southern groups. The Southern Group defected to Eastern-Han dynasty, which caused a migration of XiongNu into inner China. The northern XiongNu continued to wage war against the Han, but eventually, the Han, in allied with other northern "Hu" tribes, manage to defeat the northern XiongNu. The Northern XiongNu fled westwards and eventually ended up in Europe to be known in the west as "Huns".

Eastern Hu or "Dong Hu"
Eastern "hu" belonged to one of the northern nomadic tribes that dwelled in northern China and Mongolia. Because XiongNu had been living in this region for 200 years and was the most powerful among them, many chinese tended to label XiongNu as "hu" people, in particular, XiongNu were called "Northern Hu", the tribes that lived in the west of XiongNu were called "Western Hu", while those in the east were called "Eastern Hu".

The Eastern Hu was a much larger alliance of tribes. During the times of warring states, they co-existed with the XiongNu to become a powerful force in the north. They constantly threatened states of Yan, Zhao and Qin. The collapse of Eastern Hu fell within the late period of Qin dyansty. In 209 BC, Modu Chanyu of the XiongNu led a force of 100,000 and conquered the Eastern Hu. From then on, the eastern Hu became dispersed. From this sprung two tribes: Wuhuan and Xianbei.

Wuhuan (乌桓)
The Wuhuan was one of the faction of Eastern "hu", that dwelled in the Wuhuan mountain. During Emperor Wudi's time (Western Han dynasty), after defeating the XiongNu, Emperor Wudi had Wuhuan and Xianbei migrated to Manchuria area, but Wuhuan continued to be under the control of the XiongNu. In 48 AD, after the XiongNu splitted into two, Wuhuan defected to the Eastern Han dynasty. During late period of Eastern han dynasty, China became turbulent and Wuhuan established their own kingdom only to find themselves being defeated by Cao Cao.. During the period of disunion, Wuhuan was conquered by Xianbei and mixed with the other "hu" tribes. They slowly disappeared into history.

Xianbei
Xianbei was one of the Eastern "hu" tribes that dwelled in the mountain of Xianbei. During the early times, they mixed with the XiongNu, Dinglin, Wuhuan as well as han-chinese to form different composition and tribes. The main tribes of Xianbei were "Dongbu Xianbei" and "Toba Xianbei".

The Dongbu Xianbei's main factions such as YuWen, Duangbu, Murong migrated southwards during the period of disunion and established various kingdoms. The Toba Xianbei was a mixture between XiongNu and Xianbei.

In 386 AD, Toba Xianbei established Northern Wei dynasty and in 439 AD unified Northern China (Northern Dynasty). In 471 AD, Emperor Xiao WenDi of Northern Wei began a sinification program that changed the Xianbei into han-chinese.

Di and Qiang
Di and Qiang were a western tribe that dwelled in west China.They were closely related to the tibetans origin. During the early Qin period, they dwelled around the tibetan plateau area. Di and Qiang established a few regime in China. For instance, Di's Fushi established the "Qian Zhao" (Early Zhao) kingdom in 4th century, which almost unify all the kingdoms in the north and tried to conquer the Eastern Jin dynasty in the south. In 383 AD, a war was fought at Feshui, in which the Eastern Jin defeated the Qian Zhao. Fushi was killed by Qiang. The Qiang's DiShi established the "Hou Qin" (Late Qin) regime with its capital at Chang'an during the 4th century AD. One of the the factions of Qiang, Dangxiang (Tangut), established the Western Xia dynasty in 1038.

(**..it's hard for me to type further.. as they are so much information, I've merely summarised)

I don't have infomation on Jie.. can anyone shed some info on it?

Some little corrections to GZ's overview

I dislike using the word "tribes" to refer to an entire ethnic group. Tribes are actually large clan units within an ethnic group, but the term has been misused to refer to any group of people perceived as "barbaric". Similarly, I'd use the word "barbarian" strictly in quotation marks because it's a highly prejudiced term.

Probably the best way to refer to the various kinds of Hu is as "peoples" or "ethnic groups". I don't like using the politically-loaded word "nation" either.

Actually, "Hu" was also later used to refer to any foreigner from the West, from Central Asians to Arabs to Indians. For some reason, it was not applied to Europeans.



The general's name was Meng Tian.

Whether the Huns were the descendants of the Northern Xiongnu is still much debated - there is not enough evidence to prove it.



The Earlier/Former Zhao (Qian Zhao) was actually the "Han" state established by the Xiongnu in 304 which destroyed the Western Jin (refer to the "Age of Fragmentation" thread in Beginner's Chinese History). In 318, its fourth ruler Liu Yao changed the state's name to Zhao.

The Di state established by the Fu family was called Earlier/Former Qin (Qian Qin). I'll talk more about the Battle of the Fei River (Feishui) in the "Age of Fragmentation" thread.

The Jie

The origins and ethnicity of the Jie are highly obscure. In one contemporary source (the Wei Shu) they are identified as a branch of the Xiongnu. In another source they are identified as descendants of the aristocracy of Qiangqu, which is an alternate transliteration of the Central Asian state known as Kangju (said to be located around present-day Tashkent and Turkistan on the Syr river, Kazakhstan).

The famous Chinese historian Chen Yinke formulated a theory that identified the Jie as descendants of the Yuezhi (Kushans or Tocharians) who had remained in northern Central Asia after their defeat by the Xiongnu (most of the Yuezhi fled to Bactria where they founded the Kushan Empire). He derived this from the name of the famous Jie leader Shi Le, in which "Shi" is thought to reflect his place of origin. According to the Xin Tang Shu, Shi was one of the Nine Clans of Zhaowu (Zhaowu Jiuxing), who were Yuezhi who had fled to the Pamirs after being driven from the Gansu Corridor by the Xiongnu. Among these Nine Clans, warriors were known as Shi Jie - hence the origin of the ethnic name "Jie". [Note: These Jiuxing are different from the Toquz Oghuz mentioned elsewhere by Yihesan in relation to the Turuk/Tujue.]

This theory was apparently supported by the clear record of the Jie as having high noses and full beards, which is also a feature of the "Indo-European", Iranian-like Yuezhi. The problem is that the Yuezhi were not the only Central Asians with such features.

My personal theory is that the Jie were Sogdians, a people who were active as merchants on the Silk Road during this period and were also said to be desendants of the Zhaowu Jiuxing. The Sogdians, too, had their homeland in the Tashkent-Samarkand-Bukhara region, and they too adopted Chinese surnames that reflected the region in Sogdiana from which they came. The Sogdian surname "Shi" corresponds to Tashkent! There are also suggestions from the sources that the Jie, while later patronising Buddhism, were originally Zoroastrians, which is the religion of the Sogdians.

The Jie under Shi Le founded the Later Zhao (Hou Zhao) state during the Age of Fragmentation, which expanded to rule most of north China, including the Xiongnu, Qiang and Di populations. Only the Xianbei remained independent. However, in 349 the Later Zhao state collapsed into civil war between the sons of Shi Hu, the third Zhao king. A Han general named Ran Min was able to seize power, and conducted a massacre of all Jie in the capital city (he identified them by their noses and beards). This essentially decimated the Jie ruling class in China. However two famous warlords in the 6th century, Erzhu Rong and Hou Jing, were also said to be Jie. Furthermore, the Sogdians remained prominent on the Silk Road well into the Tang dynasty.

Thanks for your correction and great posts, Yun.



No idea, why my chinese history book mentioned that huns 'originated' from Northern XiongNu..I'm not well-informed about the history of XiongNu and the details of their migration to Europe.

The Murong for a time did recognize Zhao soverignty, When they declared independent, Shi Hu attacked and was victorious but met a disaster on his way home. And from then on Murong became fully independent.




Thats interesting, I know Tashkent was called Shi Guo, but when have that name appear to describe Tashkent?




This theory is already agreed by most scholars, some even say it is so evident that it should no longer be a mere theory but an accepted fact. This is done from examination of skeleton, culture and historical gaps, the Hou Han Shu mention the Xiongnu to flee westward into Sogdiana after their base in Sogdiana were destroyed by the Xianbei. Its quite evident that the Huns at least had part xiongnu origin in them. While Roman sources first mention huns in the 3rd century A.d.

To be even more exact, the Murong Xianbei also pledged allegiance to the Eastern Jin until the fall of the Later Zhao. Then, when the Murong attacked Ran Min and the Eastern Jin aided Ran Min instead, the Murong renounced their allegiance. From then on the Yan and Eastern Jin were enemies.



Kang (Samarkand) was first mentioned (along with the other Zhaowu statelets, some of which were listed) in the Wei Shu. So was the kingdom of Sogdiana, which was northwest of Kang. However, Shi (Tashkent) was first mentioned only in the Xin Tangshu. In that description it was also mentioned that elite warriors were known as Shi Jie in An (Bukhara, another of the Zhaowu Sogdian statelets). This Jie is the same as the name of the ethnicity, and the Shi is the Shi of Tashkent and Shi Hu with a wood radical added.

It doesn't seem that the Jie were totally wiped out by Ran Min's massacre. Erzhu Rong and Hou Jing, two prominent northern warlords of the 6th century, were all said to have Jie ancestry. An Lushan was also called a Jie Hu by his enemies, and since he was a Sogdian the Jie-Sogdian connection seems quite solid.

"To be even more exact, the Murong Xianbei also pledged allegiance to the Eastern Jin until the fall of the Later Zhao. Then, when the Murong attacked Ran Min and the Eastern Jin aided Ran Min instead, the Murong renounced their allegiance. From then on the Yan and Eastern Jin were enemies."

I only recall them doing so after Shi Hu march toward them after he helped the Murong pacify the other Xianbei of Southern Manchuria. Shi Hu also had a domination over the Tobas in inner mongolia after helping their ruler get on the throne in 335 by sending Toba infantry in support. Similarily after Shi Hu's failure to subjugate the Yan, the Toba also revolted and submitted to Jin and got the title king of Dai in return.

Were the Jie really Sogdians? I didn't know they extended that far.
Anyone with info on these two groups, please post.

That the Jie were Sogdians is a theory that has gained some acceptance in Chinese academic circles, but has yet to penetrate beyond that. Chen Yinke seems to have been the first to suggest that the Jie were descended from the Yuezhi and related to the Sogdian state of Tashkent (Shi). Their facial features, with long full beards, high noses and deep-set eyes, also make them more likely to be Sogdians than Xiongnu (as traditionally believed). There is some indication that the original religion of the Jie (before they embraced Buddhism) was Zoroastrianism.

Additional evidence is that in Sogdiana during the Tang, 'Jie' was a word for warrior, and An Lushan (whose step-father was Sogdian) is referred to in some Tang sources as a Jie-Hu.

Any other Caucasians in ancient China proper? The Yuezhi/Tocharians don't count.

I thought the Yuezhi migrated to Afghanistan from Gansu during the Han Dynasty? When Han emperor asked them for aid against the Xiongnu, they turned down the request and said they were content with their new home.

Maybe the Jie were a Turkic tribe who mixed heavily with Caucasoids?

with reference to this topic , i came across another forum discussing related to 5 Hu. Thought i just put in the link and perhaps experts from here may want to comment on it.


http://www.russia.com/forums/printthread.php3?threadid=3403

Can you please give me more info on this Yun? Who were the Nine Clans and their surnames, and does the Xin Tang Shu actualy give any historical figures belonging to the Nine Clans that are contemporary with the period the Da Yuezhi fled to the Pamirs? If so, can you please name them? And can you cite your exact sources please, like in what section of the Xin Tang Shu did they mention them, what chapter, what page, etc.? What is the reliability of the Xin Tang Shu on such events out of the scope of time contemporary with the Tang dynasty, ie at such a period in antiquity relative to the Tang period?

Yea, anyone?

According to the Xin Tangshu, the Nine Clans were Kang (Samarkand), An (Bukhara), Cao, Shi2 (Tashkent), Mi, He, Huoxun, Wudi, and Shi4 (Kesh). All that it says about their remote origins is that the king of Kang was descended from the Yuezhi, and that his ancestors had lived in a city called Zhaowu north of the Qilian mountains (i.e. on the Gansu Corridor, the old homeland of the Yuezhi) before being defeated by the Turkut/Tujue (this is an error - it should be the Xiongnu) and forced to migrate to the Pamirs. The eight other clans were established by princes of the Kang. These Nine Clans are also known to us as the Sogdians.

The above info is from Xin Tangshu Chapter 221 part 2, "The Western Regions Part 2". It is quite possible that the Sogdian claim to descent from the Yuezhi is derived purely from local lore, and not from any reliable records from the Western Han. During the Western Han, the region later known as Sogdiana was comprised of city-states under very different names from those of the Zhaowu Clans, and was divided between the control of Ferghana (Dawan, later conquered by Han) and Kangju. The new Yuezhi/Kushan kingdom lay slightly to the southwest, in Bactria (northern Afghanistan).

Thanks!

So the claim that the Sogdians are the descendants of the Nine Clans as stated in the Xin Tang Shu is most likely incorrect, right? But is the claim that the existence of these Nine Clans as originally clans of the Yuezhi a fabrication as well or can it be verified as a likely possibility?

Also, what is a better way to type in English that you'd suggest to use to distinguish between the two Shi's (2 and 4 I assume are convenient ways on your part to indicate the different characters for the 2 Shi's? or am I wrong on this and that the numbers are actually ways in pinyin to distinguish between two different characters with the same pinyin transliteration?) Or should I just stick with Shi2 and Shi4?

BTW I've come across several secondary sources suggesting that the Qilian Mountains were actually the Tianshan mountains, basing this suggestion on the idea that the term "Qilian" in Qilian Mountains has a Tocharian etymology associated with "heaven". If this is true, then it would totally throw off the location of Zhaowu as originally being in the Gansu corridor and would place Zhaowu somewhere in Jungaria. Do you agree with this interpretation?

No, what I meant is that the Nine Clans of Zhaowu are indeed the Sogdians, but their claim of direct descent from the Yuezhi is not completely credible. Between the time of the Yuezhi migration and the emergence of the Sogdians (in the late Han), the area that they inhabited was actually divided between Kangju, Ferghana (later annexed by Han), and Kushana (which expanded in the Eastern Han to include southern Sogdiana). So the Sogdians have as much likelihood of descent from Kangju or Ferghana as from the Da Yuezhi, and even if they were of Yuezhi descent, it would be due to a re-migration northwards from Kushana, rather than as remnants of the original great Yuezhi migration.



The 2 and 4 are actually to indicate the tone of the character in Mandarin hanyu pinyin. I'm afraid i was mistaken about Shi4 - it should actually be Shi3. Snowybeagle is able to use the standard tone markings for his pinyin, but he does that by first typing the character out in Chinese and then using a program to render it in Hanyu Pinyin. You could try looking for symbols on Microsoft Word under the Insert menu - they usually have equivalents of letters with the tone markings, e.g. shí for Shi2 using the symbol í. However, Shi3 can come out only as shǐ even though it looks OK in MS Word - a problem that has frustrated Snowybeagle too.



While the Qilian Mountains were already established in the Sui-Tang period as being what they are today, they were known to the Yuezhi in the pre-Han period as the Tianshan. So you've got it backwards - the Yuezhi Tianshan was the later Qilian Mountains, rather than the Yuezhi Qilian being the later Tianshan Mountains.

Someone mentioned moi?

Okay, I found a solution to the i3 : ĭ.

In fact, the following are all the 3rd consonants which I need to type separately : ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ by using MS Word "insert symbol" from (normal text) font, Subset : Latin Extended-A set.

Most of the time, I use the website http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict_u8.html to get the hanyüpinyin renderisation, copy&paste, and then replace those characters which come up as ǐ with the above.

It's a real tedious process which slowed me down a lot during translations, but I persist as much as far as possible because I realise my pronounciation sucks (so I better learn) and it helps to distinguish different characters with similar hanyüpinyin.

So where are the descendants of these five ethnicities today?

They have disappeared into history...the Xianbei were sinificized into 'han-chinese'. As for Xiongnu, there was the theory that they ended up as "hun" in Europe, some who migrated into China were also sinificized.

As for Qiang, it was believed that they were the ancestors of Tubo, who were in turn the Tibetans themselves.

I do not know what happened to the other 2 'hu'.

The north Chinese elite in the Tang dynasty were by and large a hybrid product of intermarriage and cultural fusion between the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qiang, Di, Jie, and Han. It's too simple to say that the five "hu" were absorbed and assimilated into the "Han" and disappeared, because the Tang people were not ethnically the same as the Han people. "Han" did not take on its current ethnological meaning until the Qing dynasty. If the "hu" have disappeared into history, so have the "Han" of the Han dynasty.

The Qiang who stayed in Tibet and Qinghai are one of the ancestors of the Tibetans, but the Tuyuhun (who were a branch of the Xianbei) are also part of the Tibetan ancestry. To complicate things further, the Tanguts of the Xi-xia were known as a branch of the Qiang, but they were originally ruled by a family called the Tuoba, which is the same name as the Xianbei ruling family of the Northern Wei.

Anyway, there is still a Qiang ethnicity in Sichuan, but how closely related it is to the original Qiang is a question that anthropologists and ethnologists are still debating.

I presume you are talking here solely of the ruling families of the Soghdian cities? The Soghdian people themselves had been there since the Achaemenid period (and no doubt before that), they didn't "emerge" in the Han period.

Would you say that the modern day "Han" ethnicity is a misnomer and is actually a mix of Xianbei, original Han, Qiang, etc.?

I don't know about that but all I know is that there are some people here that are ironically incredibly sensitive to issues like these. I'm sure people like our "tough, nonchalant" LTY will go crazy on you and start flaming you elsewhere if not directly here on this forum. Just a heads-up.

Are you sure about "the Qilian Mountains were already established in the Sui-Tang period as being what they are today" or that the Qilian Mountains mentioned in the Xin Tang Shu were not based off of the old location attributed to the Qilian Mountains like during Han times? If the Xin Tang Shu was confused about the Jie's origins as being Yuezhi rather than Sogdian, don't you think it's possible that the Xin Tang Shu, when attempting to elaborate on history over more than half a millenium ago than the period they were writing about, may have confused their new designated location of the Qilian Mountains with the old location of the place name of Han times?

I'm not sure the Yuezhi called the modern-day Qilian Mountains (Richthofen range?) in southern Gansu as the Tianshan simply because there isn't any records of their language recorded in history that can be directly attributed to them. Tocharian is probably the most probable theory though it has been accepted by many authorities on the subject today. How the Yuezhi were arrived at to have been considered Tocharian speakers (I've read a couple of secondary sources where some authors have even tried to link the Yuezhi to the Saka-related Pazyryk kurgans in the Altai mountains of western Mongolia) was also based, IIRC, on debates regarding etymology and other aspects of linguistics and also a study of the period texts that may have referred to such a people). As you most probably know, the mention of the Yuezhi living between Dunhuang and he Qilian Mountains first appeared in the Shi Ji. If we take a look at the area between modern-day Dunhuang and the Qilian Mountains in southern Gansu, the area between the two are incredibly small for such a people described in the Shi Ji 123 in Zhang Qian's report as having an army of about 100,000-200,000 (about the same as the Wusun's army as described in the Han Shu, which most likely refers to the Wusun's rise to power after the time of Sima Qian and them controlling the Issyk-kol and Ili depression regions after they drove the Da Yuezhi out of the Ili area later on) and being very powerful before Maodun Chanyu of the Xiongnu rose to power and defeated them. Barbar in "The Mummies of Urumchi" also brings this up and is in agreement. So the Qilian Mountains recorded in the Shi Ji and the Han Shu may have actually been referring to today's Tianshan range north of the Tarim. Both Professor Lin Meicun in "The Western Region of the Han-Tang Dynasties and the Chinese Civilization", pp. 64-67, pp. 77-78, and Liu Xinru in "Journal of World History 12", no. 2, pp. 261-292 - "Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan: Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies", explore the question of the Tocharian etymology of the Qilian Mountains and the origin of the Yuezhi in detail. Lin Meicun in particular suggests that the Tocharian etymology of Qilian is associated with "heaven", as in the Tianshan Mountains of today.

The basis for my statement was the generally authoritative classic "Historical Atlas of China" edited by Tan Qixiang, which shows the Qilian as being called the Tianshan during the period of Yuezhi settlement, and being called the Qilian during the Sui and Tang periods. However, I acknowledge that the issue is probably not as settled academically as Tan Qixiang's atlas seems to convey. I have another tidbit that might intrigue you further. The Xin Tangshu writes that the Yuezhi "moved slightly south" from the north of the Qilian mountains to the region of the Pamirs during their migration. A look at the map will show that the Pamirs are actually due west of today's Qilian, but they are indeed "slightly south" of the Tianshan. So did the Xin Tangshu really get confused about a Sogdian legend mentioning the "Qilian", and located these "Qilian" mountains at the Qilian of Tang times, when they were actually the Tianshan?



I'd certainly agree that the Sogdian ethnicity existed in the area of Sogdiana by that time, since it was encountered by Alexander's army. What I meant was indeed the Sogdian city-states, which did not exist in Western Han times and probably only became prominent in the late Eastern Han. The Yuezhi controlled Sogdiana when passing through on their way to Bactria, but the Sogdians were already there before them, so it makes no sense to trace Sogdian ancestry to the Yuezhi - although it is possible the King of Samarkand, from whom the other city-state kings were supposedly descended, was a Yuezhi. Thanks for the clarification.

Wow, interesting. Though again, I do agree that the issue is not as authoritatively settled as may seem, I do think that the part you mentioned does give more weight to Lin Meicun, Elizabeth Barbar, and Liu Xinru's arguments and them being relatively more accurate than accepting Qilian and Dunhuang in western Gansu in Han times as simply western Gansu.

Or, it is quite possible that the Sogdian (as in the ruling elite - aristocracy) claim to descend from the Yuezhi that when they ruled a large part of what is today Sogdia after the Yuezhi relocation from their homeland between Dunhuang and Qilian/Tianshan is not derived from local lore, but from reliable records from the Western Han. This site, quoting from Pulleyblank's linguistic interpretation of the word for Kangju 康居 and deriving a Tocharian etymology for "Kang":

"The K’ang-chü were of course an important people in Sogdiana in the Han period. They later gave their name to Samarkand but in the Former Han period were centred around Tashkent. The Ch’iang-ch’ü group in the Hsiung-nu were presumably a part of the K’ang-chü people who had at some time been captured and incorporated by the Hsiung-nu. Now it happens that Tashkend was later known in China as Shih Kuo “Stone Country” and people from there who came to China took the surname Shih “Stone”. Tashkend itself means “Stone City” in Turkish. This is usually regarded, following Marquart (1901, p. 155), as simply a Turkicization of the earlier Čāč, but this does not account for the Chinese name which is long before the region became Turkish.

The K’ang-chü people are usually thought of as Iranian but they had close links with Ta-yüan (= *Taxwār, Tochari) and the Yüeh-chih and they shared the title hsi-hou = yabgu with the latter and the Wu-sun. It is quite likely therefore that they too were Tocharian in origin and that they moved into Sogdiana as part of the same westward movement that brought the Yüeh-chih and then the Tochari spilling over the Pamirs. In this case we may look in Tocharian for an interpretation of their name. It happens that there is a word kāṅka- in Tokharian A about which Sir Harold Bailey has kindly given me the following note.” Pulleyblank (1963), p. 247. [This is followed by Bailey’s rather lengthy note that can be summed up in his sentence: “The above contexts seem to assure a Tocharian word kāṅk- meaning “stone”.”]"

This seems quite a convincing argument for their Tocharian origin. So Kang could also be interpreted as meaning the area of the Tashkent oasis, which is to the northeast of the general region of Sogdia, not necessarily Samarkand. According to Hulsewe and Loewe as well as Yu Taishan, Huoxun is convincingly Khwarezmia/Chorasmia. So the Kangju did conquer Khwarezmia/Chorasmia, but weren't the Khwarezmians/Chorasmians themselves. It is possible that the establishment of all the 9 clans as stated in the Xin Tangshu and especially "The eight other clans were established by princes of the Kang" was a process that happened after Zhang Qian's report on the Xiyu, ie post-late 130's BCE - early 120's BCE, since the SJ 123 says that Kangju was "small".

Also, we should look at the lines in the SJ 123, which reveals alot about the Kangju through interpretations:

"K’ang-chü is situated two thousand li northwest of Ta-yüan. Its people likewise are nomads and resemble the Yüeh-chih in their customs. They have eighty or ninety thousand skilled archer fighters. The country is small and borders Ta-yüan. It acknowledges nominal sovereignty to the Yüeh-chih people in the south and the Hsiung-nu in the east.” Watson (1961), p. 267."

It says that Kangju is situated 2,000 li northwest of Dayuan/Dawan, aka Ferghana. The general region of Sogdia and its center at Samarkand along the valley of the river Zeravshan is actually directly to the west of Ferghana, not to the northwest. If the king of Kang was stationed at Samarkand (he might've moved there later on as suggested by Pulleyblank) at such an early date, then the SJ 123 would've said something like "southwest/west of Dayuan/Dawan", but it doesn't, so it's most likely Tashkent, which happens to be right above the Syr Darya and is also northwest of Ferghana. Also, the SJ 123 states this about Zhang Qian's journey to the Da Yuezhi, from Burton Watson's translation:

"The king of Dayuan trusted his words and sent him on his way, giving him guides and interpreters to take him to the state of Kangju (Trans-Oxiana). From there he was able to make his way to the land of the Great Yuezhi."

This would seem to suggest a close link, sort of a kinsmen-like alliance between Kangju and the Da Yuezhi, since even the Xiongnu and the Han had to "find" the Yuezhi, the former to attack them, and the latter to attempt an alliance with them against the Xiongnu.

If we also look closely at "The country is small and borders Ta-yüan. It acknowledges nominal sovereignty to the Yüeh-chih people in the south and the Hsiung-nu in the east." it would seem to indicate that this state was possibly just newly formed and established by a new wave of invaders, given its relatively small size and being vassals of "greater" powers, ie the Da Yuezhi and the Xiongnu. The new wave of invaders at the time consisted largely of Yuezhi and other Tocharian-speaking peoples like the Tochari, Gasiani/Asii, etc. (one of which could be probably be identified with the Da Yuezhi, and despite past claims to the former, it seems likely that the Da Yuezhi were the latter, that is, according to Johanna E. Van Lohuizen-De Leeuw in "The Seythian period;: An approach to the history, art, epigraphy and palaeography of north India from the 1st century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D"). Thus, Pulleyblank's argument seems convincing and it is highly probable, IMO, that the Kangju were Tocharian-speakers and were once part of the Yuezhi. There is also the possibility that they were split off from the Da Yuezhi when they were migrating toward the Ili valley. So the "Yuezhi of Sogdia" in question are probably actually the Kangju and there is probably a basis in the statements in the Xin Tang Shu. If so, Zhaowu would probably be somewhere in the steppes of Junggaria (an area argued by Lin Meicun to have been part of the grazing grounds of the once-powerful Yuezhi when they were neighbors of the Xiongnu) since the Ili at the time were inhabited by the Sai, ie the Sakae, and so the king of Kang may have been descendants of those Yuezhi (or, rather, a general Tocharian ancestor) tribesmen who lived there.

IMO, I think the source that identifies the Jie as the descendants of Kangju may have some truth in it. The native Indo-Iranian Sogdians of Sogdia lived in cities and were a sedentary people, IIRC. If the Wei Shu identified them as a "part of the Xiongnu" and if there's some truth in that statement, then the Sogdians becoming a branch of the Xiongnu and being absorbed by them into becoming nomads seems rather awkward, since the Sogdians also had a unique sedentary culture of their own and it just seems odd that a once sedentary people would be so willing and rather rapidly gain prominence in large-enough numbers among the Xiongnu as one of their tribes and then suddenly become famous as master cavalrymen. It is said in the HS 96A in the section on Kangju that the eastern inhabitants of Kangju were forced to serve under the Xiongnu during the reign of Zhizhi Chanyu and the Kangju were vassals of the Xiongnu when the Xiongnu were strong. The Kangju were also nomads like the Xiongnu, so it's also possible that the Xiongnu at times rather easily (since both of them were nomadic peoples) incorporated Kangju tribesmen into their ranks, that the Jie became a branch of the Xiongnu. The Jie being nomadic tribesmen of the Xiongnu and having Kangju ancestors may have accounted for their grouping among the "Five Hu" (they had good cavalry in general?) and having been one of the more prominent and dominant groups in the early period of the 16 Kingdoms Period, something I presume the Sogdians, who came to China largely as merchants and traders, wouldn't have been known for, though that is not to say Sogdians weren't military competent in history.

Interestingly, I found another source which would support Pulleyblank's arguments: http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/daniel.htm

Take a look at note 81:

"The ethnikon kang is generally taken to represent Sogdian, but Wolfram Eberhard has shown that there is some reason to believe that early use of this ethnikon may have designated two different clans: one that was native to Kangguo (present-day Samarkand) and another, the old Kangju, who were native to Gansu before being forced to emigrate to Transoxiana; these latter may have been Yuezhi (Eberhard 1955, 150). It is also possible that this ethnikon was adopted by a Chinese monk after ordination by a Sogdian preceptor, a practice which became common among Chinese clerics in the third and fourth centuries. "

Unfortunately, the bibliographical references/works cited list isn't on that webpage, so I don't know in which work Eberhard makes that argument. I haven't read that work of Eberhard's apparently, but I have a feeling that the basis of his argument might be based on the Xin Tang Shu 221 accounts of the "Yuezhi of Sogdia", though because of the date of his work, it was still probably generally believed at the time that Qilian referred to the modern Qilian in southern Gansu/northern Qinghai when it actually referred to the Tianshan.

Well, what do you think, Yun? Comments? Errors?

I must say it is a very cogent and promising argument. I hope to have a chance to pursue it further in my future research! Thanks!

Hm, I initially thought that there might be a long debate on this since it seems to be in disagreement with many other theories...

In fact it suggests that there is something to Chen Yinke's explanation of the Jin Shu biography of Shi Le in which his ancestors are said to be from the Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu. Chen said that Qiangqu was Kangju, and Tashkent (Shi) of the Sogdians was an offshoot of Kang (Samarkand), and then argued that since Kang was the same as the earlier Kangju, the Qiangqu were actually related to the Sogdians. And since the Sogdians are said in the Xin Tangshu to be descended from the Yuezhi, the Jie were Yuezhi and Shi Le was a Yuezhi from Tashkent (Shi).

I had always felt that Chen Yinke made too many assumptions - for example, that there was a direct line of descent between Kangju and Kang (Samarkand), instead of pure coincidence in the names and a rough correspondence of location; or that the Xin Tangshu account of Sogdian descent from the Yuezhi was believable. But your extrapolation has led me to reconsider Chen's theory. The Jie might, after all, be Yuezhi descendants through Kangju, and not Sogdians per se.

Sogdians as in the Kangju-descended rulers of the Sogdians and not native Sogdian rulers who are the Iranic-speaking Sogdians of antiquity? What is the Chinese name for the Sogdians in the records that you've cited, ie Wei Shu (I don't have a copy of it)? In the Hou Han Shu, the kingdom of Liyi, most likely should be Suyi (after Enoki), was probably a native Sogdian kingdom in southern Sogdia, as you can see here when the Kangju conquered it during the Later Han period. In the Weilue from Sanguozhi 30, here, Sogdia is known as "Shuyao". How are the Sogdians also called in the Xin Tangshu? Surely, he mustn't have meant the native Sogdians of antiquity, but the descendants of the ancient Kangju rulers of Sogdia? Hence why the need to link the Qiangqu with the Sogdians (I still don't understand what Sogdians is meant here - Kangju rulers or the native Sogdians?) and why the need to differentiate between the "Sogdians" and the Kangju (if Sogdians mean the Kangju rulers of Sogdia and not the Sogdians themselves in this context) to formulate his theory? Does the Xin Tangshu 221 call the "Sogdians" by a name similar to how they called the "native Sogdians", ie the traders and merchants of Sogdia, e.g. like the "Kangju Hu" of the Sanguozhi or the Sute people of the Beishi, or are the Sogdians called by a name with an etymology that can relate to the old Kangju? Either way, I think that they meant the ruling elite-aristocracy of the Sogdian city-states and that they (the divided Sogdian city-states) were still dominated by the descendants of the Tocharian-speaking Kangju and not ruled by the native Sogdian peoples. That these Kangju rulers-aristocracy-warriors "assimilated" into Sogdia and then later simply became known as "Sogdians", as designated by the Tang sources, in the same way some Xianbei warriors "assimilated" in north China during the AOF and were simply known as "Chinese" as in "rulers of China" during the Northern Wei and subsequent Northern-Xianbei dynasties that ruled China?

These "Sogdian statelets" mentioned in the Wei Shu are all descended from the Zhaowu Jiuxing, making them the Kangju (who were probably descended from the Da Yuezhi) of Zhang Qian's time, and that these "Sogdian statelets" during the time of the Wei Shu (Northern Wei - 4th-6th centuries) were divided among the old Zhaowu Jiuxing of the Kangju-Yuezhi?

In the Wei Shu, Sogdiana is known as 'Sute' (same as the Bei Shi) and is described as being northwest of Kangju - thus the two are not synonymous. You are correct about the 'Liyi' of the Hou Hanshu being an erroneous version of 'Suyi'.

In the Sui Shu and Xin Tangshu, there is no mention of the Sogdians collectively as 'Sute', only in terms of the Nine Zhaowu city-states (e.g. Samarkand/Kang, Bukhara/An, Tashkent/Shi). The Sui Shu says on one hand that Samarkand/Kang was the descendant (hou) of Kangju, and on the other hand that the King of Samarkand was a Yuezhi whose ancestors were driven "west over the Pamirs" by the Xiongnu from Zhaowu city. The eight othe city-states were founded by princes of this King, and the rulers all adopted Zhaowu as their surname. Note that there is some difference from the Xin Tangshu: while both locate Zhaowu city as being "north of the Qilian Mountains", Xin Tangshu describes the migration to Sogdiana as being a movement "slightly south to the Pamirs", while Sui Shu describes it as being "west over the Pamirs". Clearly one of them is wrong, and I am a little more doubtful about the Xin Tangshu because it mistakes the Xiongnu as the Turkut (Tujue) and does not mention that Samarkand was formerly Kangju.

I should clarify that Chen Yinke never directly argues that the Sogdians were descended from the Yuezhi - he simply takes at face value the Xin Tangshu assertion that the Nine Zhaowu States were descended from the Yuezhi. And he then argues that since the Jie have clear links to the Nine Zhaowu States, they must be Yuezhi too. It is later scholars, who were aware that the Nine Zhaowu States were Sogdian, that extended the theory to its logical conclusion that the Jie were Sogdians. As for where Qiangqu=Kangju=Samarkand/Kang comes in, it's purely because of Shi Le's biography in which he is traced to the "Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu". In order to show that the Jie were not themselves Xiongnu, Chen Yinke had to show that the Qiangqu=Kangju were Yuezhi serving under the Xiongnu.

Confusing, eh? I believe we should be careful of assumptions that the Nine Zhaowu States or Kangju were either Sogdian or Yuezhi in composition - they could be a mix of both. This, however, then begs the question of whether the Jie were more Sogdian or more Yuezhi. Since the facial features of the Sogdians and Yuezhi were essentially similar, we may never know unless we use linguistic evidence to analyse whether the Jie language was Tocharian or Iranian. Unfortunately, the only scrap of Jie language we have left is from the Jin Shu biography of the monk Fotudeng, who issued a prophecy to Shi Le which went:
"Xiuzhi tiligang, pugu jutudang." Fotudeng explained that this was Jie language. 'Xiuzhi' meant army, 'tiligang' meant going out, 'pugu' meant the Xiongnu ruler, and 'jutudang' meant too capture. The overall meaning was: "If the army marches out now, it will capture the Xiongnu ruler Liu Yao". Scholars have debated for a long time just what kind of language Jie was, based purely on these four words. Some have also questioned the authenticity of this record, since Fotudeng would hardly have to translate Jie words for Shi Le who was himself a Jie.

So where are the descendants of these five ethnicities today?

MengTzu, you have the funny habit of asking the same question many times because you forget you asked it before. Remember the podao question?

Look at this post: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...dpost&p=4767805

I know I asked that before, but you never answered.

Yes I did: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...dpost&p=4767850

Is there something I have not yet covered in there?

Basically, the Xiongnu, Jie, Di and Xianbei have no distinct descendants as such. These ethnic groups have been subsumed into the populations of China in the same way as the Sogdians and Kushans were subsumed into the populations of present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The Xibe ethnicity of the northeast claim to be descended from the Xianbei, but this is not yet proven. Only the Qiang remain as a distinct ethnicity, but their link to the ancient Qiang must also be an indirect one: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=945

If you subscribe to the theory that the Northern Xiongnu migrated to Europe as the Huns, then there was also a Xiongnu contribution to the ethnic makeup of Eastern Europe.

Do you mean that Xiongnu, Jie, Di, and Xianbei have been subsumed into the so-called "Han" population?

Yes, but I would also add that some Tibetans may have a partial Xianbei ancestry too, as the Tuyuhun people of Qinghai were descended from the Murong Xianbei. Those Qiang tribes who remained on the Tibetan plateau are believed to be ancestors of the Tibetans. The Tibetans absorbed the Tuyuhun in the 7th century; therefore there is both Qiang and Xianbei ancestry in the Tibetan population.

Also, I think it's rather narrow to use the "Han"population as a standard. There is no reason why the Hui population should not have some Xiongnu, Jie or Di ancestry too, since the Hui were produced through intermarriage between Arabs and Persians and the Han.

Could Sute's locating of being northwest of Kangju be a result of Kangju shifting its center to Samarkand during the Hou Han period, as suggested by Pulleyblank and further numismatic evidence mentioned here, which indicates that:

"In Samarkandian Sughd in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. there began the issuing of coins that showed, on the reverse side, a standing archer. . . .
Since the archer coins bear no titles (if we do not include the Greek legend, rapidly subjected to ornamentation), and one and the same legend remains on coins struck over a period of a hundred years and more, it is clear that these coins did not bear the personal, nominal mark of the rulers of Samarkandian Sughd between the 1st and 2nd centuries. . . . ” Zeimal (1983), pp. 250-251."

which may indicate the coins of Kangju and not of the earlier coins of the presumed native Iranic-Sogdian rulers?

And also because, from here, that:

"The passage indicates that, by the time of the Weilue, Sogdiana had been broken up into semi-independent kingdoms within the Kangju federation: “Northern Wuyi (modern Khujand) is a separate ‘kingdom’ within Kangju (Tashkent plus the Chu, Talas and middle Jaxartes basins)."

and that Sute is territory presumably to the west of Kangju (because of Kangju shifting its center southward toward Samarkand) and presumably controlled by native Sogdians, hence the name "Sute"?



The logical connection derived from the Sui Shu of Kangju = Yuezhi or another Tocharian-speaking is then given more weight, since the ancestors of Kangju, as was shown, were most likely a Tocharian-speaking people and the process of the king of Kang's (which Pulleyblank has shown could also be alternatively interpreted as meaning Tashkent, corresponding with Kangju's location as described by Zhang Qian in the SJ 123, thus Chen Yinke's Tashkent being an offshoot of Kang is also verified) establishment in Sogdia corresponds quite well with the establishment of Kangju in Central Asia (given its small size and subsidiary status to the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi at the time and its control over parts of northern Sogdia).



The Nine Zhaowu States/Clans of Kangju, at least the rulers, are claimed to have been descended from the Yuezhi in the primary sources and they are Sogdian only in the sense that their territories are in the general region of Sogdia, right?



But is it pretty solid that Qiangqu = Kangju, or might it be making too many assumptions to do so? Is the link of Qiangqu = old Kangju directly stated in the primary sources or was it only part of Chen Yinke's theory?



True. In general, when we ask about the composition of a people, most of the time and most of the conclusions scholars derive at are usually based on the ruling elite - aristocracy and even they could be of mixed ethnicity (princes taking native Sogdian wives or princesses marrying to foreign husbands in this case). However, when we come to the conclusion of whether one state/people is this ethnicity or that, it's mostly based on what they claim in them, largely based on their paternal side, and what their relations with other people are and the possibility of those people being incorporated, as in most cases of history (Turks of Turkey are a perfect example - they are Turks regardless of some of them being descended from Crusaders or native Anatolians) since taking the other option would lead us to reach no conclusion in classifying the composition of any state/people in the world, since almost every state/people that existed had its ruling elite marrying outside their "ethnicity". If it's possible, as you've indicated, that the accounts of the Sui Shu and Xin Tangshu derived from local Sogdian accounts or from the accounts of the rulers of Sogdia themselves, then their claim of being descended from the Yuezhi and no indication of them being descended from local Sogdians (the possibility that their mothers might be native Sogdian women) might indicate and hint at the dominating Tocharian factor in the rulers of Sogdia, making them Tocharian. Based on the available evidence from linguistic as well as historical records, it seems pretty solid that Kangju, or at least the ruling aristocracy, were Tocharian, if not exactly Yuezhi. Like in the case of the Turks of Turkey (who imposed the Turkish language on whoever they conquered) and in many historical cases, at least the ruling elite of the 9 Zhaowu states, who (or the Chinese records) claimed them to have ultimately descended from the Yuezhi/Kangju, may have kept their Tocharian language; though I could be making too many assumptions, this is a possibility. That the Jie were Sogdians as in the native sedentary Iranic-speaking Sogdians of antiquity doesn't seem very likely to me at all. On the other hand, the Jie being Qiangqu and thus descendants of Tocharian Kangju nomads who were incorporated into the Xiongnu confederacy given the relations between the Xiongnu and Kangju and the Kangju control over parts of Sogdia coinciding with the mention in the Sui and Tang records of Yuezhi invaders of Sogdia and thus the Jie connection to Sogdia seems like a more accurate conclusion IMO.



Interesting. Has their been a general consensus among the scholars who have tried to decipher the little fragments of Jie language and what is their justification for that general consensus if it exists?

Also, the Jie being the Qiangqu branch of the Xiongnu may hint at the possibility of the "Turkicization" of them, and thus possible Turkic influence on the Jie language. Do you think that's a possibility? I do have to clarify that it is nothing solid though, just a hypothesis.

Yes.



As far as I can tell it is purely a speculation by Chen.



I'm afraid I've forgotten where I first read of the attempts to trace the Jie words, and I have not had much access to the relevant literature at all. But it is noteworthy that Pugu was also the name of a later tribe of the Turkic Tiele in the Mongolian steppe.

Hm, if there's solid enough evidence that Qiangqu = Kangju, then the Jie being at least partially descended from Tocharian speakers would seem likely.

Well, I didn’t intend to say that Xianbei, etc, ALL assimilated to Han only.

Can I say that Xiongnu, Jie, Di, and Xianbei have been subsumed into populations we call “Han,” “Tibetan”, “Hui” today, as well as possibly other populations?

Some of those are probably subsumed under Mongolian catag.

Just to add on - the Bei Shi mentions that the Zhaowu State of Kesh (Shi3) was on the land of the former Kangju, even though the State of Samarkand (Kang) is also mentioned as being descended from Kangju which "shifted unpredictably and did not stay in one place for long, but continued from generation to generation ever since the Han". So there is textual evidence here of a direct continuity from Kangju too Kang, even though it shifted and its original location was left to the subsidiary state of Shi.

Another thing to note is that the word 'Jie' 羯 is usually used in Chinese records of the time to transliterate words that sound like 'keh' or 'ka'. For example, Kesh is transliterated in Xuanzang's travel account as Jieshuangna, while Kalinga (in south India) is transliterated in the same account as Jielingjia. This is perhaps one reason for the rather unlikely theory mentioned on Wikipedia that the Jie are related to the Kets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jie_%28ethnic_group%29

BTW, the part in the Wiki article about the Sogdians and Tashkent was added by me, and so was the part about Erzhu Rong and Hou Jing. You're welcome to edit the article further if you wish.

Some recent discussion of the Di in this post: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...dpost&p=4785993