Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎509r] (142/238)

China, the Avars, and the Franks. 355
In their despair the royal family, with about 1,000 other
households, threw themselves upon the mercy of the
Western Tobas at Si-an Fu. As the treacherous mayor of
the palace was just contemplating an act of dethronement
and the establishment of a dynasty of his own at that very
moment, and was therefore most anxious to conciliate the
rising Turks, he basely complied with the demand of the
Turkish Ambassador, and surrendered to him all the fugitive
Geougen in his hands, the Khan included. It is not very
easy to find the exact date of this craven massacre, of which
even the Chinese historians seem heartily ashamed, but
either in 555 or 556 the Turks at the capital were allowed
to butcher 3,000 able-bodied Geougen in cold blood, only
reserving for slavery or worse ignominy the handsome
and sturdy youths. From this moment the very word
“ Geougen ” totally disappears from Chinese history—the
Turks absorbed the whole of the Hiung-nu descended
tribes ; and, although the movements of the Western Turks
of the Rivers Oxus and Jaxartes are closely followed by the
historians, not a single word is said of any flying Geougen.
It is therefore quite unreasonable to suppose that the
miserable remains of a people, the whole ruling caste of
which was confessedly annihilated in 556 at Si-an Fu,
were, or could have been, the Avars who had in 558 already
influenced the fortunes of the Slavs and appeared on the
political horizon of the West. On the contrary, we are
told that in 420-430 the Ylieh-pan were settled north-west of
modern Tarbagatai and Hi, and that in 448 the Tobas
accepted their offer to assist in attacking the Geougen.
The word Yiieh-pan is never once again mentioned in any
Chinese history, and both this fact and the evidence of their
name point to their being the Avars of 558, who had thus
a clear century for emigration movements towards the
Danube.
The Western Wei (Tobas) annihilated the Eastern, and
Chou was in turn displaced in 581 by a successful Chinese
General belonging to the interest of the former family. This
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