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Many of them married into rich families of the Chinese gentry and regarded themselves as no longer belonging to the Toba. In the course of time the court was completely sinified. The Chinese at the court now formed the leading element, and they tried to persuade the emperor to claim dominion over all China, at least in theory, by installing his capital in Loyang, the old centre of China.
For this reason the government was particularly interested in that province, and closely watched the political changes in its neighbourhood. In 990 a man belonging to a sinified Toba family, living on the border of Shensi, had made himself king with the support of remnants of Toba tribes.
The old Sha-t'o nobles, who had not been sinified in the slightest, suggested a preventive war; the actual court group, strongly sinified, hesitated, but ultimately were unable to avoid war. The war was very quickly decided by several governors in eastern China going over to the Kitan, who had promised them the imperial title.
There was still, however, the greatest disorder in the empire. There were other peasant armies on the move, armies that had deserted their governors and were fighting for themselves; finally, there were still a few supporters of the imperial house and, above all, the Turkish Sha-t'o, who had a competent commander with the sinified name of Li K'o-yung.
It is doubtful whether that family was purely Chinese, and in any case Li Shih-min's descent from it is a matter of doubt. It is possible that his family was a sinified Toba family, or at least came from a Toba region.
Its ruler, Ho-lien P'o-p'o, belonged to the family of Mao Tun and originally, like Liu Yüan, bore the sinified family name Liu; but he altered this to a Hun name, taking the family name of Ho-lien. This one fact alone demonstrates that the Hsia rejected Chinese culture and were nationalistic Hun.
Old customs were revived, such as the old sacrifice to Heaven and the lifting of the emperor on to a carpet at his accession to the throne; family names that had been sinified were turned into Toba names again, and even Chinese were given Toba names; but in spite of this the inner cohesion had been destroyed. After two centuries it was no longer possible to go back to the old nomad, tribal life.
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