Xianbei

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The Xianbei (Simplified Chinese: }}}; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsien-pei) were a significant nomadic people residing in modern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia, or Xianbei Shan. They were descendants of Donghu, a historic term for Greater Khingan, before migrating into areas of the modern Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning. Possibly some tribes of these people living too in ancient Eastern Heilongjiang or Hulun Manchu Imperial province, actual Khabarovsk or Amur land in actual Russian Far East .

The Xianbei people actually consisted of a federation of sizeable non-Han groups of which the most important was the Tuoba (拓跋). They first become a significant part of Chinese culture during the Han Dynasty, where they occupied the steppes in Mongolia, Hebei and Liaodong. After the fall of the Han dynasty, the Xianbei formed a number of empires of their own, including the Yan Dynasty, Western Qin, Southern Liang and most significantly, the Northern Wei (see Sixteen Kingdoms). By the time of the Tang dynasty they had largely merged with Han populace by adopting Chinese customs, administration and language. Both the emperors of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Guang, and of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan, were born of Tuoba princesses, and were thus, by definition, half-Xianbei in ethnicity ^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}.

A Chinese ruler of Xianbei origin was recorded as having had fair hair as were later some Tatars from the same area. They may be related to modern-day Turkic tribes.

Mongol and Khitan may be the offspring of Xianbei according Chinese history record.[link]

The Sibe people believe themselves to be descendants of the Xianbei.

Xianbei

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