Download Three Kingdoms, the Jin, the Southern and Northern Dynasties

Three Kingdoms, the Jin, the
Southern and Northern Dynasties
—— a period of disunity in China
CHB3002
Four Great Classical Novels
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms
• Journey to the West (Story of Tang
Dynasty)
• Water Margin (Story of Song Dynasty)
• Dream of the Red Chamber(Story of
Qing Dynasty)
The Fall of Eastern Han Dynasty
• Western Han ended with the usurp of royal
relatives
• Eastern Han Dynasty died from eunuchs.
Peasant Uprising
农民起义
• Yellow Turban Uprising
黄巾起义
• The defeat of the Yellow Turban uprising was
followed by a tangled warfare of more than
ten years between the various local feudal
lords which was to end with the country
divided and ruled by three of them.
• While the various local feudal lords was given the
power by the Han court to fight against the outlaws
and ended up with strong political and military
strength, the conflicts between the eunuchs and royal
relatives intensified.
• A prominent warlord, Dong Zhuo was invited by the
royal relatives to eliminate the eunuchs. However, he
deposed the young emperor and placed his halfbrother upon the throne, namely Han Xiandi.
• Within a few weeks, there was open rebellion against
Dong Zhuo the whole nation was in the chaos situation
of civil wars again.
• Leaders of the rebels in the east included Yuan
Shao and Yuan Shu, who ruled the presentday Hebei province and controlled a network
of influence based on the high official status
of their family and their land property.
• The other famous lead was Cao Cao, who
controlled the middle and lower Huanghe
River Valley.
• In 196, Cao Cao forced Han Xiandi to move his
capital to Xuchang, took advantage of ruling in
the emperor’s name and continued to project his
influence.
• In the summer of 200, Yuan Shao marched south
to fight with Cao Cao and was defeated.
• In 207, Cao Cao cleared off Yuan Shao’s remaining
forces and established control over all the Yellow
plain and became the most powerful military
lords.
Wei魏
Shu蜀
Wu吴
Jin Dynasty
• Western Jin(265–316, capital at Luoyang)
• Eastern Jin(317–420, capital at Jiankang )
Western Jin
• The Sima clan was initially subordinate to the
Wei dynasty, but the clan's influence and
power grew greatly.
• In 263, Sima Zhao unified the lands of Shu and
captured Liu Shan.
• In 264, Zhong Hui rebelled against Sima Zhao.
• In 265, Sima Yan forced emperor Cao Huan of
Wei to abdicate the throne to him, ending Wei
and starting Jin.
• In 280, the Jin conquered Eastern Wu and
unified China, but internal conflicts,
corruption, and political turmoil quickly
weakened the dynasty, and the unification
lasted only ten years. Upon the advent of the
second Jin emperor, Emperor Hui, various
imperial princes tried to grab power in the
devastating War of the Eight Princes.
• The Wu Hu uprising followed, during which
large numbers of refugees fled south while the
north was occupied by various nomadic
groups. This marked the end of the Western
Jin dynasty in 316 when the Jin court
evacuated to the region south of the Huai
River, and the beginning of the Eastern Jin and
the Sixteen Kingdoms period.
• Sima Rui founded the Eastern Jin at Jiankang
in 317, with its territory stretching across most
of today‘s southern China. The combination of
the Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms period is
sometimes called the, “Eastern Jin Sixteen
Kingdoms“(东晋十六国)
• During this period, huge numbers of people moved south
from the central plain, stimulating the development of
Southern China.
• The Emperors of Eastern Jin had limited power, owing to
their dependence on the support of both local and refugee
noble families which possessed military power. These
families included the Wang family, including the chancellor
Wang Dao, and the Xie family of Xie An and Xie Xuan.
• Many fangzhen (方镇; literally: military county) started to
have ambitions which resulted in military revolts, like the
rebellions of Wang Dun, Su Jun, and the dictatorship of
Huan Wen. Even though there was the stated goal of
getting back the "northern lost lands", paranoia within the
royal family and a constant string of disruptions to the
throne caused the loss of support of many officials.
The Battle of Fei River
淝水之战
• The battle of Fei River was Former Qin’s
attempt to reunify the imperial China.
• Xie Shi and Xie Xuan utterly defeated the
Former Qin Forces and won a decisive victory
at the Battle of Fei River.
• The southern China was shunned from the
chaos and wreck so its development
continued.
• Deeply impressed by the turmoil of society,
destitution of people’s livelihood, brevity of life,
and the unpredictability of prosperity or decline
and honor or disgrace, men of letters started to
go further on the meditations of life, thus again
bringing about the gaining ground of zhuangzi’s
thought.
• With all sorts of feelings welling up in the minds
of men of letters, the function of expressing
emotions and aspirations of poetry was brought
into full play during this period.
二王
• 王羲之：书圣
• 王献之
王羲之
wánɡ xīzhī
The great calligraphy master
• The Preface of Lanting
陶渊明
táo yuānmínɡ
• I can’t bow to anyone just for the sake of five
pecks of rice.
– 不为五斗米折腰
– bù wéi wǔ dǒu mǐ zhé yāo
• Born into an impoverished ordinary family, did
not take up an official career until when he
was 29 years old.
• During the ten odd years that followed, he served
as officials several times but all were low-ranking
official positions.
• He not only had little chance to realize his
ambitions to be of help to the people and society,
he also had to lower and humiliate himself so as to
move in the official circles.
• Seeing that his ideals couldn’t be realized in reality,
he started to make a living by doing farming, and
finally he resigned from office and returned home
in the countryside.
• The following 20 years saw the heyday of his
literary creation.
The Sixteen States in the North
• While the Eastern Jin existed in the south,
northern China fell into disunification of warfare.
The Yellow River valley became the battlefield for
warlords from the five Hu nationalities-the
Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Jie, the Di and the
Qiang.
• Each Hu(minority) state established its own
government to confront the Eastern Jin and there
were a bunch of countries came into existence
and vanished. These governments are known as
“the Sixteen States”.
The Sixteen States in the North
• The wholescale migration to the hinterland
brought many minorites into full contacts with
the Huaxia culture. They acquired the same tastes
and conventions with Han nationality and were
assimilated and accommodated in Han culture.
• Since then, China was a nation embracing various
ethnic groups that imbued with similar customs
due to the fact that the minorities live along with
the majority Han side by side in the northern part
of central plain.
Southern Dynasties
Country
Capital
Number of Rulers
Founding Year
Ending Year
Liu Song
Jiankang
8
420
479
Southern Qi
Jiankang
7
479
502
Liang
1.Jiankang
2.Jiangling
5
502
557
Chen
Jiankang
5
557
589
Northern Dynasties
Number of
Rulers
Founding Year
Ending Year
Northern Wei
1.Shengle,
near modern
Hohhot
2.Pingcheng
3.Luoyang
17
386
534
Eastern Wei
Ye
1
534
550
Western Wei
Chang'an
3
535
557
Northern Qi
Ye
6
550
577
Northern
Zhou
Chang'an
5
557
581
Country
Capital
• The economic center was in the south during
the southern and Northern Dynasties due to
the migration of people from the north in the
war, which not only increased the labor force
but brought with them the advanced
agricultural technologies.
Northern Wei
• The Xianbei tribe established the Northern
Wei(386-534).
• Northern Wei unified the northern area of
China, as the beginning of the Northern
Dynasty.
孝文帝
xiào wéndì
• After Emperor Xiaowen ascended to the throne, he
removed the capital to Luoyang and vigorously
promoted the learning of the Han culture.
• After a package of reforms, the advanced Han culture
and well-developed political institution were fully
functioned in the Northern Wei and the northern China
stepped into a stage of culture assimilation, which
promoted social and economic development in the
north but invite strong opposition from certain
conservative aristocrats and Xianbei military men on
the other hand.
Buddhism in China
• During this period, Buddhism spread very
quickly throughout China.
• Buddhism originated in India and was
introduced into China around the Eastern Han
Dynasty.
• The whole Xianbei tribe, which established
Northern Wei, was embraced in Buddhism,
which laid an important foundation in religion
in China.
• Longmen Grottoes, Yungang Caves and Mogao
Caves are regarded as the three most famous
treasure houses of stone inscriptions in China.