The Tuoba Clan and the Murong Clan were both great Xianbei clan retinues. The queen of Tuoba Shiyijian, King of Dai, was Murong Huang's younger sister, making her the grandaunt of Lord of Yan Murong Wei. But the two kingdoms had fought twenty years earlier and had ceased all dealings. Tuoba Shiyijian had long known of the Jin Army's campaign against Yan; he simply had not expected the powerful Yan Kingdom to crumble into dust in less than half a year. When Murong Zhuang of Jinyang requested aid, Tuoba Shiyijian also wanted to seize the opportunity to occupy Bingzhou, so he ordered twenty thousand infantry and cavalry of the Dugu Tribe out of Yunzhong, across the Great Wall from Sanggan, and through Yanmen to Baima. Baima lay more than three hundred li from Jinyang. It was there that Dugu Bailang, leader of the Dugu Tribe, learned that Jinyang had fallen and Murong Zhuang had been beheaded, leaving him at a loss whether to advance or retreat-
In Jinyang, Chen Caozhi discussed with Huan Shiqian how to deal with Dai's army. Seeing that the snow had not melted, that the sky was bitterly cold and the earth frozen, and that fighting would be hard on the soldiers, Huan Shiqian advocated letting the Dai army withdraw. Chen Caozhi, however, firmly urged a crushing blow against its Dugu Tribe. Dai was the precursor of Northern Wei; according to the original course of history, the Tuoba Clan would unite the lands north and south of the Yellow River within the next sixty years. Of course, circumstances were different now, but the Xianbei Tuoba Tribe was unquestionably a formidable enemy of Eastern Jin. Unless the Jin Army took advantage of the present peak of its military might to teach the Xianbei Tuoba Clan a bitter