China and east Asia

The period after 220 was one of the most chaotic and bloody in Chinese history. Not only was the  nort lost for long periods to non-Chinese regimes, but the governments in the south often lost effective control as well. Political instability was the norm across the country, and economic growth was minimal until the advent of the Sui dynasty.

The Han empire broke up into three kingdoms in 220, the Wei in the north, the Wu in the south, and the Shu in the west. The militarily strong Wei had conquered the Shu in the southwest by 263, but in 265 a military family, the Ssu-uma, took over the Wei kingdom through a coup d'etat. They then proceeded with a series of military campaigns to unify China under the name of the Western Chin dynasty. The target of unification was finally achieved in 280.

The Western Chin
The new authorities granted farmers land-holding rights to re-establish household farming in accordance with the Han model. "Salary land" for officials was granted and cultivated by tenants. Overall, this helped the recovery of the agricultural economy. The adoption of a laissez-faire Daoism by the new rulers as the state philosophy was also precedented in the Han. At the same time Buddhism became increasingly widespread.

Politically, however, the ruling class was deeply divided. In the period from 291 to 306, there were numerous assassinations and violent struggles within the royal family, knows as the "Wars between Eight Princes". The unitary empire existed only in name. The weakness of the Western Chin regime created opportunities for the non-Chinese peoples within and on the borders of the empire - the Hsienpei,  Hsiungnu, Chieh, Ti and Ch'iang - to move in and establish their own kingdoms, as many as 16 at one time. This was known as the "Five Barbarians' Disruption of China" and practically ended the Western Chin. The Chinese regime survived under the Eastern Chin only in south China. Its territory was much smaller than the area controlled by the non-Chinese regimes in the north and its authority over the population severely weakened. Tax avoidance became endemic.

During the years of the Eastern Chin, north China saw near permanent conflict among the non-Chinese regimes. The unification of the north finally arrived in 382 under the Ch'ien Ch'in and after their failed invasion of the south in the following year an era of co-existence was ushered in between the non-Chinese regime in the north and the Chinese one in the south. Based on this ethnic division, the period is called the "Northern and Southern Dynasties".

In the south the Eastern Chin dynasty ended with its overthrow in 420 by one of its generals, who established the Sung dynasty. There followed another three short-lived dynasties, each in turn brought down by either a general or another member of the ruling family, although outside the court there was a measure of peace and prosperity.

The Northern Wei.
In the north, a dynasty of Hsienpei descent, the Northern Wei, managed to conquer all of north China in the early 5th century, but split into two lines in 534, to become in 550 and 557 respectively, the Northern Ch'i and Northern Chou. Although the latter was smaller and poorer, it had a more efficient military organisation, and overcame the Northern Ch'i in 577. Within a few years, however, its ruling family was overthrown by one of its partly-Chinese generals, Yang Chien, who went on to conquer the south and establish the Sui dynasty. Although it was itself short-lived, the Sui dynasty had at last reunified China.