Tuoba

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

The Tuoba were a house of the Xianbei. They took north China in 386 and held it as the Northern Wei until 534. For a century and a half they were the power that the Rouran faced across the Gobi. The wars between them are the setting in which the Ashina first appear.

Their end shaped the century that followed. The revolt of the Six Garrisons left the Tuoba house with two courts, one at Ye and one at Chang’an. Each court had a Tuoba emperor and a general who ruled him. The Qi and the Zhou came out of those two courts. Their rivalry in turn led to the bidding for the Göktürk khan.

The Orkhon inscriptions call China Tabgach. The word is usually understood as the name of this house, carried over from the dynasty to the country. The word was still alive in 1069–1070. The Kutadgu Bilig calls the Chinese wares of a caravan tavğaç. The ruler to whom the book is dedicated bears Tavğaç as the first element of his title.^[1] The book does not say why he bears it.^[2]

Genealogy

The first chapter of the Wei Shu traces the house back to the Yellow Emperor. It lists its chiefs generation by generation before the founding of the state.^[3] The descent from the Yellow Emperor is a fiction. Even so, it was the claim of the Wei court itself before Wei Shou wrote.^[3] Whether the older links of the line are invented is argued. There are two views. The first holds most of the early line to be a construction. The second takes the early names for real Xianbei chiefs of the Later Han period. These chiefs were not a hereditary line, and they received imperial titles only after their death. It also holds the line of the kings of Dai reliable from Liwei on.^[4]