China

The Xi (Western) Jin (ad 265–316/317)

The Xi Jin was a period of relative order and prosperity, a short interlude between the turbulent age of the Sanguo and the devastating barbarian invasions. The empire had been nominally reunited (ad 280), and for a short time the central government attempted important fiscal and political reforms, mainly intended to curb the great families that threatened the ruler’s authority. Contacts with the oasis kingdoms of Central Asia and the Indianized states of the far south (Funan and Champa) were resumed, and in 285 the Jin court even sent an envoy to distant Fergana in Central Asia to confer the title of king on its ruler—a grand imperial gesture reminiscent of the great days of Han. But this ghost of the Han empire disappeared almost as soon as it had been evoked. Within two decades the Jin disintegrated through the struggles of rival clans. There followed an internecine war between the various Sima princes, collapse of the central government, decentralized military control of the provinces, famine, large-scale banditry, and messianic peasant movements.