The Dingling, a Siberian people who originally lived on the bank of the Lena River in the area west of Lake Baikal, had begun to expand westward in the third century.

Some groups of Dingling also moved to China and settled there in the first century CE as early as during Wang Mang's reign, forming part of the southern Xiongnu tribes known as Chile during the third century, from which the later name Chile originated.

They adopted the last name Zhai.

The name "Chile" and "Gaoche" had first appeared in Chinese literature during the campaigns of Former Yan and Dai in 357 and 363 respectively.

However, the protagonists will be equally addressed as "Dingling" in the literary record of the Southern Dynasties.

Dingling leader Zhai Bin, who had rebelled against Former Qin's emperor Fu Jiān in 383, had supported Later Yan's founding emperor Murong Chui when Murong Chui rebelled against Former Qin as well and established Later Yan.

However, in 384, as Murong Chui is besieging the important city Yecheng, which is defended by Fu Jiān's son Fu Pi, Zhai Bin, seeing that Murong Chui is unable to capture the city quickly, begins to consider other options.

When, in particular, he requests a prime ministerial title from Murong Chui and is refused, Zhai Bin prepares to ally with Fu Pi instead, but his plan is discovered, and he is killed, along with his brothers Zhai Tan and Zhai Min.

It is apparently at this time that Zhai Bin’s son or nephew Zhai Liao and his cousin Zhai Zhen flee with some of their Dingling troops and resists Later Yan's subsequent campaigns to take the territory north of and around the Yellow River.

The strategically important city of Xiangyang, gateway to the Middle Yangtze, had fallen to Fu Jian in 379.

The controversial Murong Chui, a great general of the Chinese/Xianbei state Former Yan, had fled to Former Qin and become one of Fu Jian’s generals, participating in the campaign commanded by Fu Jian's son Fu Pi against Jin's key city of Xiangyang.

Fu Jian had conquered all of north China by 381 and began preparing for an invasion of the south.

In 382, when Fu Jian wanted to launch a major campaign to destroy Jin and unite China, most officials, including Fu Jian's brother Fu Rong, Duke of Yangping, who had succeeded Wang Meng as prime minister after Wang's death in 375, opposed, but Murong Chui and Yao Chang urged the campaign.

In May of 383, a Jin army of one hundred thousand commanded by Huan Chong attempts to recover Xiangyang but is driven off by a Qin relief column of fifty thousand men.

Fu Jian responds by ordering a general mobilization against Jin, conscripting one in ten able men and mustering thirty thousand elite guards.

In August, Fu Jian sends his brother Fu Rong with an advance force of three hundred thousand.

Later this month, Fu Jian marches with his army of two hundred and seventy thousand cavalry and six hundred thousand infantry from Chang'an, reaching Xiangcheng in September.

Separate columns are to push downstream from Sichuan, but the main offensive is to occur against the city of Shouchun on the Huai River.

Emperor Xiaowu of Jin, hurriedly preparing a defense, assigns Huan Chong responsibility for the defense of the Middle Yangtze.

To Xie Shi and Xie Xuan and the elite eighty thousand-strong Beifu Army is given the defense of the Huai River.

The Jin army’s overall military strategist, prime minister Xie An, lacks military abilities but calms the panicking officials and people by his example.

The Former Qin forces under Fu Rong capture the important Jin city of Shouyang (in modern Lu'an, Anhui) in October.

Fu Jiān, seeing a possibility of a quick victory, leaves his main force at Xiangcheng and leads eight thousand light cavalry to rendezvous with Fu Rong while dispatching the captured Jin official Zhu Xu as a messenger to try to persuade Xie Shi to surrender.

Instead, Zhu advises Xie Shi that fact the Former Qin force has not entirely assembled and that he should try to defeat the enemy’s advance forces.

Xie Xuan and Liu Laozhi, leading five thousand elite troops to engage the Former Qin advance force, scored an unexpected victory, killing fifteen thousand of the enemy troops.

In November, the Former Qin troops encamp west of the Fei River; the numerically inferior Jin forces halt east of the river, unable to advance.

Xie Xuan sends a messenger to Fu Rong, suggesting that the Former Qin forces retreat slightly west to allow Jin forces to cross the Fei River, so that the two armies can engage.

Most of Fu Jian’s generals oppose this plan, but Fu Jiān, planning to attack the Jin forces as they cross the river, overrules them.

Fu Rong agrees and orders a retreat but the Qin army, its morale low, panics when Zhu Xu manages to broadcast the false information that their retreating force has been defeated.

The retreat becomes a rout, and the generals Xie Xuan, Xie Yan, and Huan Yi cross the river to launch a major assault.

Fu Rong attempts to halt the retreat and reorganize his troops, but after becoming unhorsed, he is killed by Jin troops.

The Jin army continues their pursuit, and the entire Former Qin force collapses.

In the ensuing retreat, beset by famine and death from exposure and harried by the Jin army, the Former Qin force loses an estimated seventy to eighty percent of its strength.

The battle is considered one of the most significant in the history of China.

Almost the entire Former Qin army has collapsed, although the forces under Murong Chui's command remain intact, and Fu Jian, who had suffered an arrow wound during the defeat, has fled to Murong Chui.

Murong Chui's son Murong Bao and brother Murong De have both tried to persuade Murong Chui to kill Fu Jian while it is within his power to do so, but Murong Chui instead returns his forces to Fu Jian's command and returns to Luoyang with Fu Jian.

However, responding to a suggestion by his son Murong Nong, he plans a rebellion to rebuild the Yan state.

Murong Chui tells Fu Jian that he fears rebellion by the people of the Former Yan territory, and that it would be best if he were to lead a force to pacify the region.

Fu Jian agrees, despite opposition by Quan Yi, and Murong Chui leads the army to Yecheng, defended by Fu Pi.

They suspect each other, but neither ambushes the other.

When the Dingling chief Zhai Bin rebels and attacks Luoyang, defended by Fu Pi's younger brother Fu Hui, Fu Pi orders Murong Chui to put down Zhai's rebellion, and Fu Pi sends his assistant Fu Feilong to serve as Murong Chui's assistant.

On the way to Luoyang, however, Murong Chui kills Fu Feilong and his Di soldiers and prepares to openly rebel.

Meanwhile, despite his suspicions of Murong Chui, Fu Pi does not put under surveillance Murong Chui's son Murong Nong and nephews Murong Kai and Murong Shao, and the three flee from Yecheng and initiate a rebellion of their own.

Ulfilas, Arian bishop of the Goths, dies in 383, leaving a translation of the Bible into the Gothic language: it is the oldest surviving Germanic literary text.

The sources differ in how much they credit Ulfilas with the conversion of the Goths.

Socrates Scholasticus gives Ulfilas a minor role, and instead attributes the mass conversion to the Therving chieftain Fritigern, who had adopted Arianism out of gratitude for the military support of the Arian emperor Valens.

Sozomen attributes the mass conversion primarily to Ulfilas, though he also acknowledges the role of Fritigern.

The Goths receive from Theodosius a large area of Thrace along the Danube as, in effect, their own kingdom; here they will enjoy autonomy as well as a handsome subsidy from the emperor, exactly as tribes beyond the empire had done in previous treaties.

They are expected to respond to calls on their manpower if the Roman army needs supplementing, as it routinely does.

Suspicions that Theodosius had been in collusion with Maximus and thus implicated in the death of Gratian are unfounded.

Theodosius, who must acknowledge the sovereignty of thirteen-year-old Valentinian II, cannot interfere with the usurper, for he lacks both sufficient military strength and secure borders.

Shapur II had died in 379 after seventy years on the Persian throne, ending the so-called First Golden Era of the Sassanid Empire; his successor, believed by some to be Shapur’s son and by others to be his half-brother, is Ardashir II, who had been governor-King of Adiabene, where he had reportedly persecuted Christians.

The tenth Sassanian monarch, given the epithet "Nihoukar" or "Beneficent" by the Persians, takes no taxes from his subjects during the four years of his reign (according to the "Modjmel-al-Tewarikh”).

He thereby secures to himself their affection and gratitude, but proves a weak ruler in contrast to Shapur: his equally ineffectual son, a melancholy sort who reigns as Shapur III, succeeds him in 383.

Maximus Magnus immediately crosses to the continent to confront Gratian, who, upon hearing that Maximus had been proclaimed emperor in Britain, had rushed into Gaul to intercept the usurper.

Maximus wins over his rival's advancing troops, who desert their emperor.

Seeking to escape beyond the Alps, Gratian is treacherously murdered on August 25 in Lugdunum, Lugdunensis (now Lyon, France) by the Goth Andragathius, Maximus's magister equitum (cavalry commander and lieutenant).

Ausonius retires to his estates near Burdigala.

Ambrose has excelled in his pursuit of the study of theology with Simplician, a presbyter of Rome.

Using his excellent knowledge of Greek, which is at this time rare in the West, to his advantage, Ambrose studies the Hebrew Bible and Greek authors like Philo, Origen, Athanasius, and Basil of Caesarea, with whom he is also exchanging letters.

He applies this knowledge as preacher, concentrating especially on exegesis of the Old Testament, and his rhetorical abilities impress Augustine of Hippo, a Romanized Berber philosopher and theologian who hitherto had thought poorly of Christian preachers.

An embassy of the senators, led by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the great pagan orator (and the prefect of the city Rome), fails to persuade Gratian to rescind his instructions on the matter of the removal of the Altar of Victory.