the efficient administration and
rigid tax collection of the Chinese; and above all, they had no great
landowners who could have organized the collection of taxes. For their
part, the Hsiung-nu and the Hsien-pi had no reason to regret this
immigration of peasants, who could provide them with the farm produce
they needed. And at the same time they were receiving from them large
quantities of the most modern weapons.

This ineffective disarmament was undoubtedly the most pregnant event of
the period of the western Chin dynasty. The measure was intended to save
the cost of maintaining the soldiers and to bring them back to the land
as peasants (and taxpayers); but the discharged men were not given land
by the government. The disarmament achieved nothing, not even the
desired increase in the money in circulation; what did happen was that
the central government lost all practical power, while the military
strength both of the dangerous princes within the country and also of
the frontier people was increased. The results of these mistaken
measures became evident at once and compelled the government to arm
anew.

2 _Effect on the frontier peoples_

Four groups of frontier peoples drew more or less advantage from the
demobilization law--the people of the Toba, the Tibetans, and the
Hsien-pi in the north, and the nineteen tribes of the Hsiung-nu within
the frontiers of the empire. In the course of time all sorts of
complicated relations developed among those ascending peoples as well
as between them and the Chinese.

The Toba (T'o-pa) formed a small group in the north of the present
province of Shansi, north of the city of Tat'ungfu, and they were about
to develop their small state. They were primarily of Turkish origin, but
had absorbed many tribes of the older Hsiung-nu and the Hsien-pi. In
considering the ethnical relationships of all these northern peoples we
must rid ourselves of our present-day notions of national unity. Among
the Toba there were many Turkish tribes, but also Mongols, and probably
a Tungus tribe, as well as perhaps others whom we cannot yet analyse.
These tribes may even have spoken different languages, much as later not
only Mongol but also Turkish was spoken in the Mongol empire. The
political units they formed were tribal unions, not national states.

Such a union or federation can be conceived of, structurally, as a cone.
At the top point of the cone there was the person of the ruler of the
fede