Editing Northern and Southern dynasties (section)

===Northern Qi (550–577) and Northern Zhou (557–581)===
{{Main|Northern Qi|Northern Zhou}}
[[File:Northern Zhou stele.PNG|thumb|left|[[Northern Zhou]] Daoist [[stele]] made of [[limestone]]]]
Eventually, Gao Huan's son [[Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi|Gao Yang]] forced the Eastern Wei emperor to abdicate in favor of his claim to the throne, establishing the [[Northern Qi]] dynasty (551–577). Afterward, Yuwen Tai's son [[Yuwen Jue]] seized the throne of power from [[Emperor Gong of Western Wei]], establishing the [[Northern Zhou]] dynasty (557–580).

The Northern Qi inherited the primary recruiting grounds of the Northern Wei army; previously, five out of six Northern Wei military officers came from the eastern territories, particularly the local armed forts of Han military families and steppe tribes who had settled in these areas. The members of these military families, both men and women, were often expert riders and archers.<ref name="cosmopo">{{cite book |last1=Mark Edward Lewis |title=China's Cosmopolitan Empire The Tang Dynasty |date=2012 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674265417 |page=13}}</ref>

Like its predecessor the Western Wei, the Northern Zhou reacted against sinicization by trying to revive Xianbei warrior culture: reviving Xianbei tunics, trousers and boots, reverting sinicized surnames into Xianbei names and even giving Han officers Xianbei surnames.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicola Di Cosmo, Don J Wyatt |title=Political Frontiers, Ethnic Boundaries and Human Geographies in Chinese History |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135790950 |page=103}}</ref> This "tribalization" policy was intended to convert large numbers of Han Chinese army recruits into "Xianbei" who would pay for their own equipment in exchange for tax exemptions. The policy was highly successful in boosting the state's military strength.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dien |first1=Albert E. |title=Six Dynasties Civilization |date=1 January 2007 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-07404-8 |page= |language=en}}</ref>

The Northern Zhou dynasty was able to defeat and conquer Northern Qi in 577, reunifying the north. However, this success was short-lived, as the Northern Zhou was overthrown in 581 by Yang Jian, who became [[Emperor Wen of Sui]].

With greater military power and morale, along with convincing propaganda that the Chen dynasty ruler [[Chen Shubao]] was a decadent ruler who had lost the [[Mandate of Heaven]], the Sui Dynasty was able to effectively conquer the south. After this conquest, the whole of China entered a new golden age of reunification under the centralization of the short-lived Sui dynasty and the succeeding [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907).

The core elite of the Northern dynasties, mixed-culture, and mixed-ethnicity military clans, would later also form the founding elites of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Hence, they tended to have a flexible approach to steppe nomads, viewing them as possible partners rather than intrinsic enemies.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marc S. Abramson |title=Ethnic Identity in Tang China |date=2011 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812201017 |pages=15, 143}}</ref>