Western Qin

The Western Qin was a dynastic state of China during the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms, ruled by the Qifu clan of Xianbei stock from 385 to 431, with a break between 400 and 409. The Qifu were a western branch of the Xianbei that resettled in the Longxi region around 265, descending from the Rufu who led four tribes south of the Gobi to the Yin mountains. They lived a nomadic life in the Chinese interior until Qifu Sifan settled at Mount Dujian, and submitted to the Di-led Former Qin, which gave him the Yongshi river valley near modern Lanzhou. When disaster fell on the Qin at the battle of the Fei River, his son Guoren raised an army of a hundred thousand tribesmen and claimed the title of Grand Chanyu in 385. Only from 395 did the state call itself Qin, and only to put on lesser peerages when it served others; it died once when Gangui surrendered to Later Qin in 400, then revived in 409. Its capital shifted often, Fuhan in modern Linxia serving longest at eighteen years, and the state held south-western Gansu with parts of north-eastern Qinghai, until the Xia took it in 431.