Neighbours of the steppe

The steppe, extending from the Danube to Manchuria, has been uncharitably termed the ‘inhospitable land of the barbarian’. These ‘barbarians’ were largely pastoral nomads whose neighbours viewed them as avaricious and violent marauders. In the west, this nomadic world was framed by Hungary and Rus', the latter an increasingly divided state contested by rival branches of the Riurikid ruling house. Both states included steppe lands and pastoral nomadic populations that had taken service with the Hungarian and Rus' rulers. South of the steppe lands and the fabled Silk Road cities of its southern rim (Samarqand, Bukhara, Kashghar) were the petty states of the Balkans, the fading Byzantine Empire, the Seljukid state of Rūm (Anatolia), Georgian-dominated Transcaucasia, and the fragmented ʿAbbāsid Caliphate and post-Seljuk polities of the Near East. In the east, China was also politically divided. In the north-west were the Tanguts (Chin. Xixia, 1038–1227) in Ningxia, Shaanxi and Gansu, extending to Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. They spoke a language related to or a branch of Tibeto-Burmese. South of the Yangtze River was the ethnically Chinese Southern Song state (1127–1279), with its capital at Hangzhou. The Manchu-Tungusic Jurchen dominated the north-east, its ruling elite moving between five capitals (including Beijing). In 1125, the Jurchen had toppled the Khitan-Liao dynasty (907–1125), another Inner Asian people of Mongolic, or perhaps ‘para-Mongolic’, ethno-linguistic affiliations and took the Chinese dynastic name Jin (‘Golden’, 1115–1234).