The ancient Chinese, whose Xia, Shang, and Zhou states flourished along the Fen, Yellow, and Wei valleys, discussed their neighbors according to the cardinal directions.

According to Eastern Wu scholar Wei Zhao, Xianyu's founders dwelt among the Di yet shared the same ancestral surname Ji 姬 with the Zhou kings.

[2][3] Paul R. Goldin, professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at University of Pennsylvania, proposes that 狄/翟 was a pejorative "pseudo-ethnonym" made by Chinese for the northern "barbarians" and it meant "feathered".

The people of the Middle states, and of those [Yi], Man, [Rong], and [Di], all had their dwellings, where they lived at ease; their flavours which they preferred; the clothes suitable for them; their proper implements for use; and their vessels which they prepared in abundance.

To make what was in their minds apprehended, and to communicate their likings and desires, (there were officers)—in the east, called transmitters; in the south, representationists; in the west, [Di-dis]; and in the north, interpreters.

According to the Records of the Grand Historian, the ancestors of the Zhou lived in lands near the Rong and Di for fourteen generations, until Gugong Danfu led then away to the mid-Wei River valley where they built their capital near Mount Qi.

He ended Jin's expansionist invasions of foreign lands and instead bartered with their leaders, purchasing territory for valuable Chinese objects[6] like ritual bronzes and bells.

[6] In 541 BC, Jin ceased the he Rong policy and became violent again, attacking the Wuzhong (無終) and the "Numerous Di" (群狄, Qundi) in what is now Taiyuan Prefecture.

[8] From the Taiyuan Basin, Jin pushed east through the Jingxing Pass (井陘) and attacked the "White Di" in the Taihang Mountains (530–520 BC).