Frontier Capital: Datong Under the Northern Wei, 398-494 CE

In 398 CE, on the windswept frontier between the Mongolian steppe and agricultural China, the nomadic Tuoba Xianbei people made a radical choice. Instead of conquering and occupying a traditional Chinese city, they built their own: Pingcheng, the "e;City of Peace."e; For nearly a century, this metropolis served as the capital of their powerful Northern Wei dynasty. History has often dismissed this...