Semu

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Semu (Chinese: 色目; pinyin: sèmù) is the name of a caste established by the Yuan dynasty. The 31 Semu categories referred to people who came from Central and West Asia. They had come to serve the Yuan dynasty by enfranchising under the dominant Mongol caste. The Semu were not a self-defined and homogeneous ethnic group per se, but one of the four castes of the Yuan dynasty: the Mongols, Semu (or Semuren), the "Han" (Hanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Jin dynasty, Dali Kingdom and Koreans) and the Southerners (Nanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Southern Song dynasty; sometimes called Manzi). Among the Semu were Buddhist Turpan Uyghurs, Tanguts and Tibetans; Nestorian Christian tribes like the Ongud; Alans; Muslim Central Asian Turkic peoples including the Khwarazmians and Karakhanids; West Asian Arab, Jewish, Christians and other minor groups who are from even farther west.