Northern and Southern dynasties

The Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 AD) was an era of fractured rule in China, following the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It was marked by civil war and political instability, yet also saw a flourishing of arts and culture, technological progress, and the growth of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Large numbers of Han Chinese moved south of the Yangtze River during this time. The period ended when Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty reunited China proper in 589 AD.

Among non-Han peoples in the north and indigenous groups in the south, the process of sinicization sped up. Buddhism became increasingly popular across both regions, while Taoism also gained ground, with two key Taoist canons written during these years. Several notable technological advances emerged. The stirrup, invented during the earlier Jin dynasty (266–420 AD), spurred the rise of heavy cavalry and changed warfare. Historians also note progress in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and cartography. Notable intellectuals included mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi (429–500 AD) and astronomer Tao Hongjing (456–536 AD).

After the Eastern Han dynasty collapsed in 220 AD, China entered the Three Kingdoms period. The kingdom of Cao Wei was the strongest, followed by Eastern Wu and Shu Han. Initially, they were fairly stable. Following a coup by Sima Yi in 249, the Sima family took control of Cao Wei, which conquered Shu Han in late 263. After a failed coup by the Cao family in June 260, the last Cao ruler abdicated in February 266. Sima Yan (Emperor Wu of Jin) then founded the Western Jin dynasty, which conquered Eastern Wu in 280, reuniting China.

This reunification did not last. The developmentally disabled Emperor Hui of Jin sparked the War of the Eight Princes (291–306), a period of rampant corruption and infighting among princes. For centuries, nomadic groups known as the Five Barbarians had been resettled in northern and northwestern China as frontier auxiliaries or farmhands. The civil wars weakened the imperial army, and famines and uprisings spread across the north, allowing the Five Barbarians to seize power. In 311, the Han-Zhao dynasty, founded by Xiongnu descendants, sacked Luoyang and captured the Jin emperor in the Disaster of Yongjia. Chang’an fell in 316, and the last Western Jin emperor was killed.

Amid the turmoil, Sima Rui (Emperor Yuan of Jin), a member of the imperial family stationed south of the Huai River, found the area relatively stable. Many northern officials fled there. In 318, after the last emperor’s death, Sima Rui reestablished the dynasty at Jiankang, known as the Eastern Jin. While the Eastern Jin held the south, the north remained chaotic, with many short-lived dynasties called the Sixteen Kingdoms. Most were founded by the Five Barbarians, though some were Han Chinese. Few of these kingdoms came close to unifying the north. The Former Qin dynasty managed to do so in 376 but disintegrated after its defeat at the Battle of Feishui in 383. The Eastern Jin launched several campaigns to reclaim lost territory but failed due to internal strife. Eventually, commander Liu Yu (Emperor Wu of Liu Song) seized the throne from Emperor Gong of Jin in 420, founding the Liu Song dynasty and officially starting the Northern and Southern dynasties period. The Sixteen Kingdoms era ended in 439 when the Northern Wei, founded by the Tuoba tribe of the Xianbei, conquered the last of them and ruled a unified northern China for about a century.

The Northern dynasties began in 439 with the Northern Wei’s conquest of the Northern Liang and unification of the north, ending in 589 when the Sui conquered the Chen dynasty. This period is divided into three phases: the Northern Wei, the Eastern and Western Weis, and the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. The Northern, Eastern, and Western Weis, as well as the Northern Zhou, were established by the Xianbei people; the Northern Qi was founded by a Han Chinese influenced by the Xianbei. In the north, local Han gentry clans responded to the chaos by building fortified villages, creating de facto fiefs from these family-based self-defense communities. Lesser peasant families worked for the dominant clan as tenants or serfs. The chaos also allowed these gentry families to avoid government service until the Northern Wei court launched a sinicization movement. Northern gentry were thus highly militarized compared to their refined southern counterparts, a distinction that lasted into the Sui and Tang dynasties.