The splitting of the Toba empire into these two separate realms was the result of the policy embarked on at the foundation of the empire.  Once the tribal chieftains and nobles had been separated from their tribes and organized militarily, it was inevitable that the two elements should have different social destinies.  The nobles could not hold their own against the Chinese; if they were not actually eliminated in one way or another, they disappeared into Chinese families.  The rest, the people of the tribe, became destitute and were driven to revolt.  The northern peoples had been unable to perpetuate either their tribal or their military organization, and the Toba had been equally unsuccessful in their attempt to perpetuate the two forms of organization alongside each other.

These social processes are of particular importance because the ethnical disappearance of the northern peoples in China had nothing to do with any racial inferiority or with any particular power of assimilation; it was a natural process resulting from the different economic, social, and cultural organizations of the northern peoples and the Chinese.

2 Appearance of the (Goek) Turks

The Toba had liberated themselves early in the fifth century from the Juan-juan peril.  None of the fighting that followed was of any great importance.  The Toba resorted to the old means of defence against nomads—­they built great walls.  Apart from that, after their move southward to Loyang, their new capital, they were no longer greatly interested in their northern territories.  When the Toba empire split into the Ch’i and the Northern Chou, the remaining Juan-juan entered into treaties first with one realm and then with the other:  each realm wanted to secure the help of the Juan-juan against the other.

Meanwhile there came unexpectedly to the fore in the north a people grouped round a nucleus tribe of Huns, the tribal union of the “T’u-chueeh”, that is to say the Goek Turks, who began to pursue a policy of their own under their khan.  In 546 they sent a mission to the western empire, then in the making, of the Northern Chou, and created the first bonds with it, following which the Northern Chou became allies of the Turks.  The eastern empire, Ch’i, accordingly made terms with the Juan-juan, but in 552 the latter suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Turks, their former vassals.  The remains of the Juan-juan either fled to the Ch’i state or went reluctantly into the land of the Chou.  Soon there was friction between the Juan-juan and the Ch’i, and in 555 the Juan-juan in that state were annihilated.  In response to pressure from the Turks, the Juan-juan in the western empire of the Northern Chou were delivered up to them and killed in the same year.  The Juan-juan then disappeared from the history of the Far East.  They broke up into their several tribes, some of which were admitted into the Turks’ tribal league.  A few years