Jin dynasty (266–420)

The Jin dynasty briefly reunited China at the end of the Three Kingdoms period, then lost the north to invading peoples and survived for another century in the south. Historians divide it into the Western Jin, from 266 to 316, and the Eastern Jin, from 317 to 420. It is not to be confused with the later Jurchen Jin dynasty of the twelfth century.

After the Han dynasty ended in 220, China split into three states: Wei in the north, founded by Cao Pi, son of the warlord Cao Cao; Shu in the south-west, ruled by Liu Bei and his adviser Zhuge Liang; and Wu in the south-east, under Sun Quan. Their wars inspired the later novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Wei conquered Shu in 263.

In Wei, the general Sima Yi gained power, and his sons and grandson controlled the court. In 266 his grandson Sima Yan forced the last Wei emperor to abdicate and founded the Jin dynasty, ruling from Luoyang as Emperor Wu. In 280 Jin armies conquered Wu, reunifying China for the first time in sixty years. Emperor Wu reduced the army, divided land among families under a new land system and held a census that counted about 16 million people, though many were not registered.

Emperor Wu gave his relatives large territories and armies as princes. After his death in 290, his son, Emperor Hui, was considered mentally incapable, and the empress Jia Nanfeng and the princes fought for control. In the War of the Eight Princes, from 291 to 306, princes killed each other and devastated northern China. They hired non-Chinese troops, including Xiongnu, Xianbei and others, who had settled inside the frontier.

In 304 Liu Yuan, a Xiongnu noble, declared himself king and later emperor of Han, later called Han Zhao. In 311 his forces sacked Luoyang, killed tens of thousands and captured Emperor Huai, who was later executed. In 316 they took Chang'an and captured Emperor Min. Northern China broke into many states, the Sixteen Kingdoms, founded by Xiongnu, Jie, Xianbei, Di and Qiang peoples, and Han Chinese, which fought each other for over a century.

In 317 Sima Rui, a Jin prince, established the court at Jiankang, today's Nanjing, in the south, as Emperor Yuan. Hundreds of thousands of northern refugees, including aristocratic families, moved south, and the Yangtze region developed rapidly. Great aristocratic families, such as the Wang and the Xie, dominated government; it was said that "the Wang and the Sima share the empire". Generals such as Huan Wen led expeditions north, briefly retaking Luoyang.

In 383, Fu Jian, ruler of the Former Qin, who had united northern China, invaded the south with a huge army, reportedly hundreds of thousands. At the Fei river, a much smaller Jin army under Xie Xuan won a decisive victory, as Fu Jian's army fell into panic. The victory preserved southern China and its culture.

The Jin period was a time of great cultural creativity. Wang Xizhi, the "sage of calligraphy", wrote the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems in 353. The painter Gu Kaizhi painted the Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies. The poet Tao Yuanming wrote about rural life and retirement, including the story of the Peach Blossom Spring. Daoist philosophy, "pure conversation" among intellectuals, and Buddhism flourished; the monk Faxian travelled to India in 399.

In the early fifth century, the general Liu Yu suppressed rebellions and led northern campaigns, taking Chang'an briefly in 417. In 420 he forced the last Jin emperor to abdicate and founded the Liu Song dynasty, the first of the Southern Dynasties.

Our maps show the Jin on the 300 and 400 maps. Its largest outline, about 3.7 million square kilometres on the 300 map, covers most of today's China and northern Vietnam. On the 400 map the basemap still draws a large Jin, though by then the north was ruled by other states. Nanjing, Guangzhou and Hanoi's site lie inside it on both maps.