Tip: It can be seen that before the establishment of the Muscovite Principality, there was basically nothing for the Russians in the northern steppes of China, and Russia's eastward expansion also occurred after the first tsar's coronation. It is conceivable that the people who lived in Siberia before could not have left this vast area without a name. Therefore, we believe that Bao'erhan and Feng Jiasheng are right in saying that the name of Siberia is from Xianbei, and the ancient Xianbei lived there separately, and the Xianbei in the Chinese history books is just a "scattered surname" of this ethnic group moving south.
The Xianbei are ancient nomadic peoples who rose on the Mongolian plateau after the Xiongnu, and many people today think that they have integrated into the various ethnic groups in China and disappeared, but in fact, they have not only left a minority name for today's China, but also a huge and vast place name for Russia - Siberia.
The name of the minority that the Xianbei tribe left for us is Xibo. The Xibe are an ancient ethnic group with a long history among the ethnic minorities in our country. Originally living in the northeast region, during the Qianlong period, the Qing court requisitioned some of the Xibe people to move west to Xinjiang to enrich the local area. Most of the present-day Xibe people live in Liaoning Province and Xinjiang's Qabchar Xibo Autonomous County and Huocheng and Gongliu counties, and are scattered in the northeast of Shenyang, Donggang, Kaiyuan, Yixian, Beizhen, Xinmin, Fengcheng, Buyeo, eastern Inner Mongolia, and the Nenjiang River Basin in Heilongjiang Province.
Xibe belongs to the Manchu branch of the Manchu-Tungusic language family of the Altaic language family, and is a language developed on the basis of Manchu and is very close to Manchu. The Xibe script was slightly altered in 1947 from the Manchu language. The Xibe people in Xinjiang still maintain their own language and script, and use both Chinese, Uyghur and Kazakh languages. The Xibe people in the northeast are the same as the Han people in terms of language, food, clothing, and residence.
The Xibe people, spoken "Siwe" written "Sibe". In the Chinese history books, there were dozens of different transliterations in different periods, such as Xubu, Xianbei, Xibi, Xibi, Xibi, Qibi, Lost Bier, Shibi, Xibei, Murong Wei, Lost Wei, Xie Po, Xi Bo, Shi Bo, Shi Bo, Xi Bai, Xi Bai, Xi Bei, Xi Wo, etc., until the end of the Ming And early Qing Dynasties were unified as Xi Bo. He Ling's "Xibe Origin Examination": "The name of Xibo was first seen in the twenty-first year of the Ming Dynasty (1593). It is generally believed that the name of the Xibe is named after the area where the Xibe has long been active. (Journal of Xinjiang University: Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition, 1981)
Through "Subu, Xi bi, rhino bi, xi bi, sibbi, out of proportion" and so on, it is not difficult to see that Xibo is actually a humble harmonic, and it was only after twenty-one years of the Ming Wanli calendar that the transliteration of this name was initially unified. As for the origin of the Xibe people, the dominant one is the Xianbei theory, as well as the Jurchen theory, and the scholars who hold the Jurchen theory also specifically point out that the Xibe tribe originated from the Jurchen Guarjia clan of Su Guanbu, in addition, some scholars believe that the Xibe tribe first originated from the Gaoche people Seguer clan, originated from lake Sukul in the south of Baikal Lake, in 429 AD, after the Northern Wei Taiwu Emperor expedition to Gaoche, began to move to the Nen River Valley.
It is not surprising that there are so many branches or differences in the saying, and most importantly, there are many people who study ethnic groups today, and usually make a very low-level mistake, that is, they often study a national group as a nation. For example, the Xiongnu are a national group in the north of our country, and a part of the Xiongnu or the ruling class manages this group, and we can call them the Huns, but we cannot call all the groups they manage the Huns. The Huns were a tribal confederation or regime in this administration, with many, many nationalities. Later, the Xianbei, Turkic, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol, etc. that appeared in history were all such a truth, and there was a lineage relationship between them.
There is nothing to argue about, especially the origin of the Xibe people. Jurchen and Gaoche said that if they pushed any further up, they would be pushed into the tribal alliance of Xianbei and Xiongnu. What's more, there are so many factions of Jurchen in history, and they have also appeared in the form of political power, and today's Manchus are just one of them. As for the Gaoche people, they are the Shule people, and in the middle of the 4th century, most of them living in the Yin Mountains were already humble. The famous "Song of Shule" is a pastoral song of the Xianbei language of the Shule people in the Northern Qi Dynasty. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Shule people participated in a large number of wars in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and most of them gradually integrated into the Han ethnic group together with the Xianbei people. As for the Gaoche people who moved west to establish the Gaoche state in the area of present-day Turpan in Xinjiang, they were destroyed by The Rouran in 541 AD, and the headquarters of the YujiuLu clan of the highest ruling tribe of Rouran was also a branch of the Xianbei tribe.
In this way, it is basically possible to determine the problem that Xibo is a humble harmonic, even if there are some details in the middle that need to be studied and discussed, but the general direction must not be wrong. So, where did the Xianbei people originate? Note that we are talking about the Xianbei tribes, not the Xianbei tribal confederation or the Northern Wei regime.
Historians have not yet reached a conclusion on the origin of the Xianbei nation, but basically believe that the Xianbei was transformed from the ancient Chinese northern peoples. Among them, the Xianbei origin of Donghu is the most widely said. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of Jin, and the Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen Kingdoms all say that Xianbei is the remnant of Donghu. Historical books such as the Book of Wei compiled by Wang Shen of the Jin Dynasty and Sima Biao's Book of Continuation of the Han Dynasty also mention that Xianbei had a close relationship with Donghu. The "History of Suoyin" quotes Hu Guangyun of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Xianbei, Donghu is another species", which proves that Xianbei originated from Donghu.
We tend to divide the Xianbei ethnic groups according to regions, that is, according to the different distribution areas, they are divided into western Xianbei, central Xianbei and eastern Xianbei. Among them, the western Xianbei mainly refers to the Hexi Xianbei and Longxi Xianbei, including the Tuguhun Department, the Qifu Department and the Bald Hair Department; the central Xianbei includes the Tuoba Department and the Rouran Department; and the Eastern Xianbei includes the Yuwen Department, the Duan Department, and the Murong Department.
The western Xianbei is generally closer to the Xiongnu, and there are also records in the history books that they were originally Xiongnu who changed their names to call Xianbei, the so-called "Xiongnu remnants of more than 100,000 households, all of whom call themselves Xianbei, so Xianbei gradually strengthened." This change of name and change on the grasslands often made it difficult for the Central Plains dynasty to figure out who they really were, and in the twenty-first year of the Eastern Han Dynasty (45 AD), Xianbei was first known to the Central Plains Dynasty as a national entity, and the emperor at that time, Liu Xiu, said: "Xianbei ... Who is it? I haven't heard of this! ”
In the middle of the Xianbei Tuoba and Rouran, in the north of today's China, from a geographical point of view, he is closer to the Xiongnu + Donghu; the Eastern Xianbei comes from the Eastern Hu, although they are relatively "pure" in blood, but the Donghu is still not a nation, but an alliance of ethnic tribes.
Perhaps, it is precisely for this reason that it is difficult for historians to conclude the origin of the Xianbei people, and the so-called Xianbei people also have the distinction between the east, the central and the east: they are three large tribes under one name, and under the three large tribes, there are many small tribes of different nationalities. Therefore, although the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of later Han, the Book of Jin, and the Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen Kingdoms all record that the name of the "Xianbei" clan is "according to the Xianbei Mountain, with the mountain as the name", and the Book of Wei records it as the "Great Xianbei Mountain", these statements are not known in terms of which Xianbei is concerned. Although, according to today's scholars, Xianbei Mountain is the Menggehan Mountain of the Right Middle Banner of the Xing'an League section of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, while the Daxianbei Mountain is located in the northern section of daxinganling in the territory of the Orunchun Autonomous Banner of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where the Gaxian Cave is found (this is also a hypothesis, the reason is that there is a Gaxian Cave in the Orunchun Banner), there is still a problem of not knowing which Xianbei is.
At the same time, the Xianbei nation, whether in the west, the central region or the east, has established large or small political power in history, and the same ethnic names and different political regime names have made the origin of Xianbei even more confusing and blurred, and it is really far-fetched and even wrong to limit it to a certain place. This far-fetchedness and mistake may be as follows: it may be true for the eastern xianbei, but it is not necessarily true for the western xianbei and the central xianbei, and vice versa. Therefore, the origin of Xianbei should be the existence of a vast area of northern China (including the northwest, due north and northeast), and cannot be limited to a certain place.
It is now possible to return to a vast stretch of Siberia in north Asia. There is also a saying in academic circles that the Great Xianbei Mountain is in the north of the Russian Ilkusk Province, south of the Tunguska River. Historically, the Xianbei people have multiplied, and there are many tribes, distributed throughout Siberia, so they use the Xianbei clan name to name this land. In the article "The Origin of the Name of Siberia", Bao Erhan and Feng Jiasheng also said that the name of Siberia was derived from Xianbei, and they believed that the ancient Xianbei lived in Siberia, and the Xianbei in the Chinese history books was nothing more than the "scattered surname" of this ethnic group moving south.
Siberia stretches from the Ural Mountains in the west, to Cape Jezhnyov in the east, to the Arctic Ocean in the north, to the mountains of north-central Kazakhstan in the southwest, to Mongolia and the Trans-Xing'an Mountains in the south, with an area of about 13.22 million square kilometers, the vast majority of which is controlled by Russia, and only a small part of the southwest is in Kazakhstan. According to the terrain, it can be divided into three parts: the West Siberian Plain, the Central Siberian Plateau, and the East Siberian Mountains.
Today, many people say that "Siberia" means "quiet place", the name is derived from the Mongolian "Sibol" (mud, muddy place), in ancient times Siberia was a muddy place, the Mongolian ancestors who lived here named this place based on the terrain, when the Russians came, this transliteration was "Siberia".
We think that this is somewhat speculative, before Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire, the Mongol ancestors of course existed in history, but at that time there was no so-called Mongol or Mongolian language, the Mongol ancestors clearly had other names, and mongolian of course had other names. Russia, on the other hand, is a country that existed during the Yuan Dynasty of China, and their ancestors were the East Slavic Rus tribes.
From 882 to 911 AD, the Rus' tribes formed a state dominated by East Slavs, Kievan Rus' but after the 1630s, the unified Rus' state ceased to exist, and Rus' history entered a period of feudal division. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire invaded and established the Khanate of Chincha in Eastern Europe, and the Rus' submitted to the Khanate of Chincha. Thereafter, the center of Rus' development shifted to the area of Moscow in the northeast.
The Muscovite Principality was formally established in 1283 during the reign of Kublai Khan, the founding emperor of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. In 1547, the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan IV, was crowned Tsar and the Kremlin was built, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually developed into the political, economic, cultural and religious center of Northeast Rus', leading other principalities to break away from Mongolian Tatar rule and make Russia an independent country. The year was the twenty-sixth year of Emperor Ming's reign, and Ivan IV was only 17 years old, becoming the first Tsar of Russia.
It can be seen that before the establishment of the Muscovite Principality, there was basically nothing for the Russians in the northern steppes of China, and Russia's eastward expansion also occurred after the first tsar was crowned. It is conceivable that the people who lived in Siberia before could not have left this vast area without a name. Therefore, we believe that Bao'erhan and Feng Jiasheng are right in saying that the name of Siberia is from Xianbei, and the ancient Xianbei lived there separately, and the Xianbei in the Chinese history books is just a "scattered surname" of this ethnic group moving south. (Wen | Lusheng)