Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎508v] (141/238)

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China, the Avars, and the Franks.
unravelling all this, but for the present it is enough to gain
a few clear preliminary notions and leading principles. The
dispute ended in China’s conciliating the two claimants, and
arranging to divide the Geougen Empire into the eastern and
western divisions. Anakwei was given immense subsidies
and settled in the modern Urga region. Brahman, on the
other hand, ruled the country about medieval Etzina.
Now it was that we first hear of Geougen-Ephthalite
relations. Brahman’s three wives were all Ephthalite
women, and, being dissatisfied with the Chinese settlement,
he seems to have sought to avail himself of existing
alliances farther west; but he was pursued by Toba armies,
captured, and ultimately imprisoned in China, where he
died. Meanwhile Anakwei strengthened his position by
concluding a marriage alliance with the Tobas.
Now, however, the powerful Toba dynasty began itself
to fall into decay, and under the influence of two rival
Generals was divided into the West Tobas of Si-an Fu and
the East Tobas of modern Ho Nan. At last these Generals,
or maires-de-palais, constituted for themselves and their
sons a hereditary position, and, finally dethroning the rois
faineants, blossomed out into the rival empires of Chou and
Ts‘i. The Hiung-nu principalities dotted along the highroad
to the West having during the fifth century been destroyed
one after the other by the Tobas, it became possible for
the Turks (who had for many generations been employed
in the Alashan region as ironworkers by their masters the
Geougen) to assert their independent rights. This is the
earliest appearance in Chinese history of the word “ Turk.
Anakwei grew so presumptuous under the powerful Eastern
Toba support which he enjoyed, that he offended, not only
his patrons, but also his Turkish vassals, who consequently
allied themselves with the Western Tobas. The important
result of all this was that the first Turkish Khan Tumen
almost annihilated the Geougen hosts in the year 552 ;
Anakwei committed suicide, and family feuds about the
succession further reduced the Geougens’ failing strength.