Where did those Hu people and their descendants in the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms go?

The Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Hu (五胡十六国), abbreviated as the Sixteen Kingdoms (304-439), was a period in Chinese history. The period began with the establishment of Han-Zhao (later known as Qian-Zhao) and Cheng-Han by Liu Yuan and Li Xiong respectively in 304, and lasted until the destruction of Northern Liang by Northern Wei Dynasty's Tuoba To (Emperor Taiwu) in 439. The scope of this period roughly covered northern China, Shu, Liaodong, and as far as northern Desert, Jianghuai, and the western region. Among the many ethnic groups that came to dominate the Central Plains, the Xiongnu, Capricorn, Xianbei, Qiang and Qiang were the main ones, collectively known as the five hu (五胡). They established many states within this range, and Cui Hao, a historian of the Northern Wei Dynasty, took sixteen of them to represent this period, calling it the "Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Hu".

During the Western Jin Dynasty, the five hu lived in the northern and western border areas of Western Jin, presenting a semi-surrounding situation to the Jin Dynasty. Due to the corruption of the Jin court and the corruption and brutality of the Han officials, the five hu raised their armies after the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, which is known as the Five-Hu Rebellion. After the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, war raged in North China, with continuous looting and massacres. The economy was severely destroyed, affecting the direction of China's ethnic, cultural, political and military development. The scourge of Yongjia brought great pain to the people, most of whom fled to Liangzhou, Liaodong, and the south of the Yangtze River, which led to the gradual economic and cultural prosperity of these regions. During the period of war, the Former Qin Emperor Fu Jian unified North China for a time, but failed miserably in the Battle of the Interstate War when he conquered the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the south. Afterwards, the various tribes in Guandong and the empty Guanzhong rebelled, and with the Northern Expedition of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Former Qin Dynasty collapsed, and the North was once again in chaos. After the founding of Northern Wei, it was run by Tuoba Gui, Tuoba Si and Tuoba To, and finally unified North China in 439, entering the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

The internal migration of the northern tribes led to a great fusion of ethnic groups, which was of great significance in the development of China as a multi-ethnic state. At the same time, the monarchs of the various countries, in order to strengthen their power, also implemented some policies to develop production in their respective bases, which led to the formation of localized stability in the regions against the backdrop of the turmoil in northern China. The great integration of nationalities in that period continued until the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and finally became fully integrated during the Sui Dynasty.

Nomadic peoples from the north came southward into the Han agricultural areas and were bound to assimilate into the advanced society, which is called sinicization. It was certainly a slow process, as was the case with the Hanization of the Xiongnu and other peoples.

From the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the southern Xiongnu entered Shanxi Province, to the southward migration of the Xiongnu tribes in the early years of the Western Jin Dynasty, which lasted more than two hundred years, the Xiongnu were gradually sinicized. So much so that the regime established by the Xiongnu people was called "Han" and was one of the "Sixteen Kingdoms". Around the time of Cao Cao's death, the Xiongnu aristocrats changed their surname to Liu because their predecessors were grandsons of Han emperors. Liu Yuan, the founder of the Han Dynasty, made great efforts to learn the traditional Han culture. He studied under the famous scribe Cui You, learning Mao Poetry, Jing's Yi, Ma's Shangshu, and was especially fond of the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Zuo Dynasty. He was able to memorize the art of war of Sun and Wu, and was familiar with the hundred schools of thought, as well as the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, and was quite conceited, claiming that the four talents of the early Han apologists Sui He and Lu Jia, and the famous generals Zhou Bo and Gu Ying were all in one. 304 years later, he rebelled against the Jin Dynasty, and, in order to win the support of the Han people, he claimed that he was the nephew of the Han Dynasty, and that he was about to become a brother, and thus he established his country under the name of In 304, in order to win the support of the Han people, he declared that he was "the nephew of the Han family and a brother", so he established the state name as "Han", claimed himself as the King of Han, and posthumously honored Liu Zen, the later lord of Shu Han, as the Emperor of Filial Piety and Hwai, in order to show that his regime was a continuation of the Han clan. After Liu Yuan established the Han state, he appointed Cui You, his teacher of scripture, as the imperial historian, while Lu Zhi, the great grandson of Lu Zhi, a great Confucian scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was appointed as the Imperial Counselor of his son Liu Cong. It is not difficult to see how y Sinicized the founder of the first regime of the Sixteen Kingdoms - Liu Yuan, a Xiongnu - was.

Shi Le, a Capricorn who founded the Later Zhao State, was also y Sinicized. He realized that the power of the Capricorns was limited, and in order to consolidate the power of Later Zhao, it was necessary to win the cooperation of the Han people and make use of the Han people's strategies of governance as much as possible. He employed Zhang Bin, a Han Chinese who was "well versed in the classics and history", as his strategist, and obeyed his orders, ordered the Hu people not to insult the Chinese (Han people), and sent officials to various places to encourage farming and mulberry cultivation. He was illiterate, but he liked to listen to lectures and read history books, and even in the midst of military campaigns, he did not slacken off. He set up the Imperial College and the County and State College to cultivate talents, including the children of Capricorn generals, with Confucianism, and established the system of testing the scriptures of Xiucai and Xiaolian, so as to select officials with Confucianism.

Fu Jian, the monarch of the former Qin Dynasty, emphasized the use of Wang Mang, a Han scholar from a humble family, to reform the politics and develop the economy and culture in accordance with the Han laws, and he appreciated and supported Wang Mang's idea of "Zai Nin Guo by rituals, and the rule of chaotic states by laws". He built a wide range of school palaces and visited the Imperial College to test the merits and demerits of the students and rewarded the Confucian students so as to win the support of the Han scholars and scholars. He told Dr. Wang Shi that I visited the Imperial College three times in a month to find talents and reward them. The purpose of this is not to let the slightest word of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius be lost in my hands, so is it possible to catch up with Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Guangwu of Han? Wang Shi replied, "Your majesty is a god of martial arts, and you have opened up the beauty of ziang and promoted Confucianism, so Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty and Emperor Guangwu of Han Dynasty are not worthy of comparison.

There are many such examples. Their ****similarity lies in the fact that the hu people were sinicized, and Confucianism in the central plains played a key role. He Ziquan, an expert on the history of the Wei, Jin and North-South Dynasties, said: At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, as the upper echelons of the scholars crossed the river to the south, the esotericism that had been installed in their minds was also taken across the river, and the Jingxue scholars, who originally had very little influence, stayed in the north, where they maintained the Han Dynasty's tradition of emphasizing the rites and rituals of the Jingxue school. The Hu regime occupied the north by force, and in order to establish a state in the Central Plains, it had to be familiar with the Confucian tradition, revere the culture of the Central Plains, and rule the Han people by the Han law. Against this background, the Hu monarchs and the Han scholars had a fruitful cooperation, and Confucianism showed a strong vitality and assimilation effect.

The assimilation of peoples is always a two-way street, and while the hu people are sinicizing, the han people are huizing. The so-called Han Huization, is in the long-term exchanges, the Han people in the production, life, subconsciously absorbed the customs of the Hu people. This change, from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty has already begun, the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty - the five lines of the Zhi" wrote: "Lingdi good hu clothing, hu tent, hu bed, hu sitting, hu rice, hu Konghou, hu flute, hu dance, Kyoto, the noble relatives are competing to do." You see, the emperor was interested in all the ways of life of the hu people, including hu clothing, hu tents, hu high-footed furniture, hu food, hu musical instruments, hu dances, and so on. Due to the emperor's advocacy, the dignitaries in Kyoto competed with each other to follow suit, and the wind of Huization of the Han Chinese emerged. This trend reached a climax in the period of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms.

Special mention should be made of the "hu bed" - the high-footed seat invented by the Hu people. The Han Chinese in the Central Plains have always been accustomed to sitting on the ground, either kneeling or sitting cross-legged, and have no habit of sitting on chairs and stools. So the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove feet forward sitting method is known as "Kei Gui", is extremely disrespectful rude behavior. Hu invented the seat, the Han people called "Hu bed", it also has some of these aliases: rope bed, chair, bed, free seat, folding back like, leaning on the bed. Hu bed from north to south widely popular, prompting the rise of high-footed furniture, and finally changed the Han people sitting on the ground habits. The word "feast" is closely related to the custom of sitting on the ground, when holding banquets, on the ground on a large "feast", and then lay a small "mat", as a seat cushion, the middle of the short feet called In the middle of the table, there is a table with a low foot called a katana or kimono. This type of banquet can still be seen in Japan and Korea. After the popularity of Hu beds and high-footed furniture, people no longer sit on the ground, banquets moved to a high table, but the "feast" has been used down, but has lost its original meaning.