the west and 1,000 kilometers from the north to the south. They unified northwest China for the first time in history, developed the southern route of the Silk Road, and promoted cultural exchanges between the eastern and western territories, dominating the northwest for more than three and half centuries until the empire was destroyed by the Tibetans who rose up in 670. Tibet Through this extensive rule, the Xianbei asserted everlasting cultural imprints in the region. The English reference for "Tibet" most likely came from the Xianbei language for the Tibetans referred to as "Tiebie," in contrast to the self-reference of the Tibetans as "Bo". The name "Tiebie" was probably derived from the Tuoba Xianbei who founded the Southern Liang (397-414). Because the Tuoba who established the Northern Wei (386-535) in China proper objected the Tuoba of Southern Liang to use the same Chinese characters, the latter adopted "Tufa" when in fact they were of the same Tuoba descent. After the Southern Liang was annexed by the Western Qin, which in turn was annexed by the Tuyühu Empire, the majority of Tufa Xianbei joined the Tuyühu Empire. Some submitted under the Northern Wei in China, while a small fraction went into Tibet and gave rise to the name "Tiebie". In the ancient Chinese records, the reference of Tibet included "Tubo" and "Tufan," which reflected the Chinese transcriptions of "Tuoba" and "Tufa." It is likely that "Tuoba" recorded in the Chinese language may have been pronounced as "Tiebie" originally in the Xianbei language. Among the Monguor settlement in Minhe, Qinghai today, the La and Bao Family Villages were accounted to have descended from "Tiebie", indicating that they have derived their origins from the Tufa (Tuoba) Xianbei of the Southern Liang. The Tibetans refer to the Monguor as "Huo’er," which came from the final word of the name of Tuyühu Khan. The Monguor refer to Tuyühu Khan as "Huozhou didi;" in which "Huozhou" was applied to Linxia, Gansu where Tuyühu Khan died, and "didi" was traditionally a reverence term for a deceased ancestor with deity status. The earliest record of the Monguor in the Western publications was made by the French missionaries, Huc and Gabet, who traveled through northwest China in 1844–46. They used "Dschiahour" to represent the Monguor, based on Tibetan reference, in which "Dschia" was likely abbreviated from the first part of "Chaghan" (or "White") from the self-reference of the