d no longer played any part
in the struggle for power. It was evident that the murders would
continue until one of the generals or princes overcame the rest and made
himself emperor. Why should not the Huns have the same right? Why should
not they join in this struggle for the Chinese imperial throne?

There were two arguments against this course, one of which was already
out of date. The Chinese had for many centuries set down the Huns as
uncultured barbarians; but the inferiority complex thus engendered in
the Huns had virtually been overcome, because in the course of time
their upper class had deliberately acquired a Chinese education and so
ranked culturally with the Chinese. Thus the ruler Liu Yuean, for
example, had enjoyed a good Chinese education and was able to read all
the classical texts. The second argument was provided by the rigid
conceptions of legitimacy to which the Turkish-Hunnic aristocratic
society adhered. The Huns asked themselves: "Have we, as aliens, any
right to become emperors and rulers in China, when we are not descended
from an old Chinese family?" On this point Liu Yuean and his advisers
found a good answer. They called Liu Yuean's dynasty the "Han dynasty",
and so linked it with the most famous of all the Chinese dynasties,
pointing to the pact which their ancestor Mao Tun had concluded five
hundred years earlier with the first emperor of the Han dynasty and
which had described the two states as "brethren". They further recalled
the fact that the rulers of the Huns were closely related to the Chinese
ruling family, because Mao Tun and his successors had married Chinese
princesses. Finally, Liu Yuean's Chinese family name, Liu, had also been
the family name of the rulers of the Han dynasty. Accordingly the Hun
Lius came forward not as aliens but as the rightful successors in
continuation of the Han dynasty, as legitimate heirs to the Chinese
imperial throne on the strength of relationship and of treaties.

Thus the Hun Liu Yuean had no intention of restoring the old empire of
Mao Tun, the empire of the nomads; he intended to become emperor of
China, emperor of a country of farmers. In this lay the fundamental
difference between the earlier Hun empire and this new one. The question
whether the Huns should join in the struggle for the Chinese imperial
throne was therefore decided among the Huns themselves in 304 in the
affirmative, by the founding of the "Hun Han dynasty". All that remained