I suggest that this article be merged with Xianbei in much the same manner as Xiongnu refers to both nation in the cultural sense and nation in the political sense. At present there isn't very much material in either article, and if the Xianbei article were to note the rather crucial points about the unification of the Xianbei tribes (and the conquest of all the former realms of the Xiongnu), there wouldn't be anything here that wasn't also there. Just an idea. -- Fullstop (talk) 10:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)Reply I am afraid that the succession box would be ignored by the editor of the article Xianbei if they are merged. --Enerelt (talk) 07:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

As a workaround, how about merging content and leaving the succession box on the redirect page? -- Fullstop (talk) 14:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)Reply Is the Xianbei State described here different from the Northern Wei State? Gantuya eng (talk) 06:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Does this article contain some original research? Because I did some search and only found few sources containing the words "xianbei state" and failed to find furthur sources that point to concrete information about this "state"? And of the sources I found, very few of them were talking about a specific existed "state entity". Is this Xianbei state a commonly used term? For an article, one needs to cite sources from reputable references.--Teamjenn (talk) 07:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply Somehow it looks like the main purpose of this article is to serve as a vehicle for that succession box, which wouldn't be a good idea. Do we really have enough good documentation to demonstrate first that the xianbei established a "state" in the modern sense that can be clearly distinguished from the xianbey as a people? And second can we demonstrate such a linear succession between them and other entities as the succession box suggests? I have some serious doubts on both accounts, and would support a merge. The "states" of the steppe almost always consisted of constantly shifting alliances and confederations. I have recently observed attempts to link almost any entity that ever lived on Mongol territories with each other by succession boxes. In many cases, this seems more to reflect wishful thinking than historic reality. Besides that, the equation Xiongnu = Huns as stated in the article is definitively wrong. While many sources consider it likely that the leading elite of the Huns were descendants of the leading elite of the Xiongnu, that doesn't mean their peoples were one and the same. In either case, the Huns are irrelevant in an article about the Xianbei. --Latebird (talk) 09:06, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply This is not a wishful thinking of the author of this article. All Mongolian history books identify certain states in the early history of Mongolia -- Xiongnu, Xianbei, Ruruan, Turkic Kaganate, Uigur, Kyrgyz, and Kidan. Foreign books tend to call them "confederations". School maps of USSR never showed any state on the territory of Mongolia between 14th-17th centuries. They just marked it "Mongols". Some articles in Wikipedia however identify the period as "Northern Yuan". Did the Mongolian historians write their books with wishful thinking? Which of these is a biased thinking? Is there a difference in principle between unification of the Xianbei under Tanshihuai and unification of the Mongols under Temuchin? Gantuya eng (talk) 03:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

There is no doubt that the Xianbei existed and that they maintained a state. The question is whether there is enough unique information available about both the people and the state to justify two seperate articles. Reality is that the article Xianbei already contains much more information about the state than Xianbei state does. Moving all of that here would mean to leave Xianbei almost empty, because we don't seem to know very much about the people as such. Nobody wants to remove information, merging it back may make it more easily accessible. --Latebird (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

The other article Xianbei seems to be desvribing the Toba branch under the umbrella name "Xianbei". That article should be looked through carefylly as it has always seemed to be very controversial. Gantuya eng (talk) 08:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC) Bold textReply Sourcing edit