Kebineng

Kebineng was the chief who brought much of the Xianbei under one hand in the 220s and 230s. Tanshihuai had done the same two generations earlier and had failed to make it last. Kebineng raided the Chinese frontier and also traded across it. The Chinese records treat him as the one Xianbei of his day who mattered.

In 235 a Chinese frontier officer had him assassinated, and what he had assembled fell apart at once. The same thing thus happens for the second time in Xianbei history within sixty years. This is the reason the Xianbei are best understood as a confederation and not as a state. Twice a man held it together, and twice nothing outlived him.