of the empire to its periphery.
This process, together with the shifting of the frontier peoples, is one
of the most important events of that epoch. A great number of Chinese
migrated especially into the present province of Kansu, where a governor
who had originally been sent there to fight the Hsien-pi had created a
sort of paradise by his good administration and maintenance of peace.
The territory ruled by this Chinese, first as governor and then in
increasing independence, was surrounded by Hsien-pi, Tibetans, and other
peoples, but thanks to the great immigration of Chinese and to its
situation on the main caravan route to Turkestan, it was able to hold
its own, to expand, and to become prosperous.

Other groups of Chinese peasants migrated southwards into the
territories of the former state of Wu. A Chinese prince of the house of
the Chin was ruling there, in the present Nanking. His purpose was to
organize that territory, and then to intervene in the struggles of the
other princes. We shall meet him again at the beginning of the Hun rule
over North China in 317, as founder and emperor of the first south
Chinese dynasty, which was at once involved in the usual internal and
external struggles. For the moment, however, the southern region was
relatively at peace, and was accordingly attracting settlers.

Finally, many Chinese migrated northward, into the territories of the
frontier peoples, not only of the Hsien-pi but especially of the Huns.
These alien peoples, although in the official Chinese view they were
still barbarians, at least maintained peace in the territories they
ruled, and they left in peace the peasants and craftsmen who came to
them, even while their own armies were involved in fighting inside
China. Not only peasants and craftsmen came to the north but more and
more educated persons. Members of families of the gentry that had
suffered from the fighting, people who had lost their influence in
China, were welcomed by the Huns and appointed teachers and political
advisers of the Hun nobility.

5 _Victory of the Huns. The Hun Han dynasty (later renamed the Earlier
Chao dynasty)_

With its self-confidence thus increased, the Hun council of nobles
declared that in future the Huns should no longer fight now for one and
now for another Chinese general or prince. They had promised loyalty to
the Chinese emperor, but not to any prince. No one doubted that the
Chinese emperor was a complete nonentity an