Era of Division ChinaThe fi rst part of the Era of Division that followed the Han dynasty, between 220 and 280 c.e., is called the Three Kingdoms period.. The Jin court fl ed south in 31
Trang 1Era of Division (China)
The fi rst part of the Era of Division that followed the Han
dynasty, between 220 and 280 c.e., is called the Three
Kingdoms period It ended in 280, when the Jin (Ch’in)
dynasty, led by the Sima (Ssu-ma) family, reunifi ed China
But the unity was fragile because the founding ruler
divid-ed his realm among his 25 sons on his death, giving each
a principality under the nominal control of his principal
heir The princes and other noblemen soon fell upon one
another in civil war, and one of them called on the
Xiong-nu (Hsiung-Xiong-nu) northern nomads for help The XiongXiong-nu
chief claimed descent from a Han princess, called himself
Liu Yuan, and named the Shanxi (Shansi) region he
con-trolled the Han but later changed its name to Zhao (Chao)
Liu Yuan’s forces sacked both ancient capitals, Chang’an
(Ch’ang-an) and Luoyang (Loyang), burning the imperial
library of the Han dynasty The Jin court fl ed south in 316
and set up a new capital in Nanjing (Nanking), which had
been capital of the Wu state during the Three Kingdoms
period in China
The year 316 marked the division of China into two
halves that lasted until 589 It was called the era of the
Northern and Southern dynasties Chinese rule was
su-perseded in northern China, which became the
battle-ground of different nomadic groups, the Xiongnu, the
Xianbei (Hsien-pei), both Turkic in ethnicity, and the
Toba (T’o-pa), who were ethnically Tungustic In 387
the Xiongnu attempted to conquer the south, but the
watery southern terrain was unsuited to their cavalry,
and they were decisively repulsed at the Battle of
Fei-shui (Fei Shui) in modern Anhui (Anhwei) Province As
a result, the situation between the north and south was
stalemated In 386 a new nomadic group from the
north-east defeated both the Xiongnu and Xianbei and
estab-lished the Northern Wei dynasty in northern China that
lasted until 557 The Tungustic rulers of the Northern
Wei dynasty fi rst established their capital city at Datong
(Tatung) in modern Shanxi Province, a logical place for a
nomadic dynasty because it was located near the Great
Wall of China
Fierce warriors (the Toba population was estimated
to be no more than 200,000 people), with no written
language and a primitive culture, the Toba soon
em-braced Buddhism, ordering the excavation of extensive
cave temples outside Datong at a site called Yungang
(Yunkang) They also embraced Chinese culture with
enthusiasm In 494 the Northern Wei moved the capital
to Luoyang to be near the heartland of Chinese culture
and ordered the excavation of another series of caves
devoted to Buddhist worship nearby at a site called
Longmen (Lungmen) At the same time the government also forbade the Toba people to wear their traditional clothing or use their tribal titles, ordering them to adopt Chinese surnames and speak Chinese instead Some Toba people revolted against sinicization, which split the dynasty into two short-lived rival kingdoms called the Eastern Wei and Western Wei, which were followed
by the Northern Qi (Ch’i) and Northern Zhou (Chou) None of the dynasties that followed the Northern Wei ruled all of North China The era of division ended in
581 c.e when a Northern Zhou general, Yang Jian (Yang Chien), usurped the throne and went on to unify the north and south under his new dynasty, the Sui Meanwhile in southern China, from the Yangtze River valley south, fi ve dynasties followed one another They were the Jin (Chin), 317–419; Liu Song (Sung), 420–477; Qi (Ch’i), 479–501; Liang, 502–556; and Chen (Ch’en), 557–587 Nanjing was capital to all
fi ve There was large-scale immigration of northerners
to southern China during the Era of Division The refu-gees who fl ed the nomads brought the refi nements and advanced culture of the north to southern China and absorbed the aboriginal populations into mainstream Chinese culture Thus, whereas southern China was
a frontier region during the Han and a place of exile for offi cials and convicts, by the end of the sixth cen-tury c.e it had become developed and economically advanced
Culturally, the most remarkable change during the Era of Division was the phenomenal growth of Bud-dhism in China, an Indian religion that fi rst entered China during the beginning of the Eastern Han
dynas-ty (25–220 c.e.), brought by missionaries and traders along the Silk Road While making inroads, Buddhism had remained an exotic religion of foreigners and some Chinese during the Han dynasty Confucianism as a state ideology collapsed with the fall of the Han dy-nasty The primitive religions of North China’s nomads had little to offer confronted with the appealing
theolo-gy of Buddhism and its stately rituals and ceremonies Thus, a nomadic ruler stated in 335: “We are born out of the marches and though We are unworthy, We have complied with our appointed destiny and govern the Chinese as their prince Buddha being a barbarian god is the very one We should worship.” The nomads’ Chinese subjects also embraced Buddhism for consola-tion in times of trouble and for its attractive and univer-salistic teachings
Adherence to Buddhism made the nomadic rulers less cruel to their Chinese subjects and built bridges be-tween the rulers and ruled Buddhism also became
dom-132 Era of Division (China)